New Blog

I'm trying out WordPress and have started a new blog that I'm going to try to be more disciplined about in terms of content, length, regularity in posting, and usefulness to readers. I'm keeping this one alive, but will go on hiatus while I try the new blog. Here's the link to the new, streamlined version of things I think about and then feel like sharing with the world: Under Our Boot Soles

The Passing of Greats and a Crab

I need to report the loss of Crabicus, Meg, and C.C, beloved pets and family members.

Crabicus

Well, Crabicus was a rogue visitor who came home from a play date when my daughter was in kindergarten and decided to stay for a decade. Really both hermit and crab in every sense of these words, so it was hard to get to know him. I did feel a kindredness in spirit, in his penchant for pinching anything that got too close, to retreat to solitude when overstimulated by life, to startle easily, and in the end to cast off his shell and reveal his true naked self. He's buried under a shrub in the front yard, offering some nutrition to the local bugs and bushes. It's as much from life and death as he or anyone could hope for, except, of course, his freedom which was snatched from him as a little crablet, a truth that must have haunted him and helps explain the blood he drew on occasion when I moved him while cleaning the crabitat.

C.C.

Losing two dogs within a few months of one another has been much harder on everyone, especially our one lonely Golden Retriever. She won't go outside alone and even went as far as trying to befriend a stray cat yesterday that seemed to be scouting for a birthing spot in the dark reaches of our storage shed. Zeus revealed the cat's plan by standing by the shed, wagging her tail and refusing to budge. Since we've had two litters of strays born in our yard already, I had to shoe the cat away and shut the shed. I saw the cat this morning walking across my garden court and it gave me that look of disdain that only cats have mastered. Our two adopted strays are indoor kitties, so Zeus has no furry outdoor playmates. We're looking into new puppy options.

Meg

Meg was thirteen and had a compulsion to eat inappropriate things. The aftercare from surgery--to remove what was blocking her digestive tract--at the vet was terrible and she was septic beyond recovery by the time we picked her  up. We found a better vet, but C.C. suffered liver failure and even the new vet, who we all think is exceptional, couldn't do anything for her. We are heart-broken.

the censored penis (enlarged so you can see it)

And this week Maurice Sendak died, my favorite picture book author of all time (sorry Doctor Suess). I read In the Night Kitchen countless times to both my children, a delight of words and images. Also one of the most banned books because Mickey displays frontal nudity. I believe his tiny pen-tick of a penis may be the smallest amount of ink to cause censorship in the long stupid history of book censorship.

Zeus and Bigfoot

I'm hoping this is the last of the losses for a while. I try to think of loss like how a garden wanes, every plant or bloom that fades and dies makes room for another. Crabicus may already be a flower. A Hallmark sympathy card sentiment, but a small comfort none the less.

New Year's Calculations

I resolved this year to walk every day, which really means to go on a walk every day. So far, so good. I added a new ap to my phone to help me keep track of my progress. It's called walkmeter. According to the ap, I walked 12.33 miles at an average pace of 17:57 minute miles. Somehow in my flat neighborhood I managed during the week to ascend 53 feet, yet descend 54, so by the end of the year I will be 52 feet below where I started. . .

I also went to an athletic shoe store and had some analysis done on my feet, stance, and gait. Lots of graphs and colors. I joined their club, bought some shoes, a bell was rung. It felt like smoke and mirrors, but my feet are happy with my new shoes, insoles, and fancy socks. I am willing to go along with some degree of hoodwinkery, if in the end I have happy feet.

After one week of walking (on average 1.54 miles per day), I can tell already that I will need to concoct some extra complication to keep me interested. Some experiments or assignments. I heard on the radio (NPR Costas Karageorghis, a sports psychologist at Brunel University in London) that listening to music while you exercise can enhance your performance. Might try that for a week. Question: will I walk better or will I get mugged or hit by a car while wearing earbuds?

Maybe one week, I will go on protest marches every day, carry hand-made signs declaring my unhappiness with some thing or another. Or go on walk-athons. Pull out my old Save-the-Whales pendant. Wear tube socks.

For this first week the goal was not to fail in the first week. Not sure what I'll do next week. Maybe walk with my son's dog who has spent every day since Christmas stealing our holiday treats off the counter. So far she has consumed an entire bag of reindeer kibble, a handful of Peppermint Patties, a batch of cookies, and one of those chocolate oranges (dog owners, worry not, she does not get sick when she eats chocolate).

I welcome other suggestions.

Going Commando

After a decade in captivity on my kitchen counter, Crabicus has begun to practice public nudity. The first time I caught him out of the shell, I thought he was just in the process of changing. Hermit crabs will discard a shell for a larger one as they grow. In the wild they will meet in droves on the beach for a big swapapalooza. These changings are part of a hermit crab's natural behavior. But in ten years, Crabicus had always been very private about his lower half. Then I see him just standing around sans shell, his pale lower extremities curled like an uncooked sweetrole. I leaned in for a better look, being curious about things I know exist in my kitchen but that I have never seen. My glance was enough to get him to scuttle over to a shell and crawl inside. That night I checked in on him and to my horror, and a little relief, he was hanging like an over-dramatic Shakespearean actor after a death scene, upside down, half in half out of his shell, motionless. Alas poor Crabicus. We all swarmed the scene to witness death at its freshest. We chattered about possible causes. The nudity? Madness? A suicide? I reached in to lift his corpse from his climbing branch.

Then he moved.

He hasn't repeated his death pose since, so I've ruled out Harold Chasen Syndrome, but he continues to go commando. We've pondered theories and have settled on this: he's an old man and, like old men do, he's just doing whatever the hell he damn well feels like. So my kitchen counter, between the toaster and the sink, has become his post-retirement naked room.