Category Archives: This Best Of All Possible Worlds

Now To Let Me Go

Posted by Tata on

This is an awful story. Here is a picture of my garden.

Abbott and Costello, now with lemongrass plants.

You remember the greenhouse. It’s especially green now that pollen is falling from the maple tree in our backyard. Note the new, tall solarizing bed.

Yesterday, when I came home from work, I was surprised to find bits of gray furry stuff scattered across the front porch. My first thought was that Andie’s cat Kitty must have gotten into a fight and I was breathless with worry. In the garden, I found Kitty whole and placid amid the plants, so I stopped worrying about her and started worrying about…someone else, but whom, I did not know. Though puzzled, I still had chores to do and did them. Cat boxes don’t scoop themselves, you know.

What do you do with moldy strawberries?

A tumbling composter makes short work of the kitchen scraps your chickens don’t eat, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

A short while later, Pete and I sat on the porch for our afternoon adult beverage. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move where nothing should have. It seemed so unlikely, I thought I was imagining it. Gradually, I became sure I was seeing motion in an improbably small place where I’ve never seen motion of any kind before. At the bottom of a pillar supporting the porch roof, a small support affixes the pillar to the porch. Beneath that support, something fluttered. Then fluttered again. It was trying to escape.

Seeds and plants, seeds and plants.

The berm is filling out. The stairs, behind the raised bed, are still mostly empty.

At first, I thought it might be a bat. Then, I saw feathers protruding from a gap on the side. Whatever the creature was, it had ducked in there in a panic and couldn’t get out. I told Pete we had to get it out. He reached for a high-powered hose. I panicked and grabbed the hose. I did not want to torture a trapped animal. I texted Andie, who was at work. Neither Pete nor Andie seemed terribly concerned. After dinner, I went outside with a flashlight and my glasses to see if I could get a good look at the trapped creature. I couldn’t see anything. I got a butterknife and ran it across the bottom of the space. The creature flinched. I was horrorstruck.

You would not believe how tiny this yard is.

The lower raised bed, the higher raised bed and the edge of the chicken run.

I realized we were waiting for the creature to die. Believe it or not, I felt completely alone. At 3:03 am, I awoke after awful fever dreams and could not fall back to sleep. At 3:43, I worried. At 4:14, I worried. At 5:07, I despaired. When the alarm sounded at 5:50, I asked Pete to set it for 7:40, when I could call out of work.

Seriously, it's a small yard.

The chickens amaze me every day. I’m not sure how they feel about me, though.

This afternoon, I said to Pete, “We have to get the dead creature out of that tiny space.” Reluctantly, he agreed. I took up the hose and forced it into the small space. Nothing came out but rushing water. Eventually, I saw a foot. I grabbed the foot and pulled. Out of the small space came another foot, then a body. The next slight tug tore the head off the broken body and answered the question of whether we could have rescued this bird. No. The bird fled attack into this space somehow, but it was not coming out alive again.

I put the body and the head into our composter and whispered, “I’m so sorry this happened to you. Go in peace.” Maybe it’s too late. Maybe now is the only time we have.

 

 

 

Alabama’s Trying For None

Posted by Tata on

In about another 11 days, the daylight hours will begin to be longer and the nighttime will begin to feel shorter and that’s important because right now, 6 p.m. feels like the middle of the night. That was kind of groovy when I lived the vampire lifestyle, dressed in black all the time and super-pale from the lack of daylight-enhanced Vitamin D coursing through me, but times change. I changed. I want freaking sunlight.

diamondy

Last week, friend of Poor Impulse Control Paulie Gonzalez renewed the domain name for another year. Thanks, Paulie! I’ll send a decent bottle of wine the new address in the wilds of Asbury Park.

In other news, Panky is a little too smart and quirky for the adults in his new school, so I’m thinking he should hang out with other supersmart kids this summer. Panky’s had a rough go for the last few years with a couple of schools going so far as to try illegally tossing him out. Education policy in the U.S. has gone crazy, and kids need us to do better. For my part, I can’t do much, but I can find some money to send that kid to a place where he’ll meet other smart and quirky kids just like him, I hope. And they will make robots who I also hope will not use us for spare parts.

I’m winding up my year in fiber arts projects and stitching as fast as my fingers can manage. Do not think I am ignoring you because I am not! Until I am genius enough to be able to crochet and blog at the same time, I will continue to have conflicts. Do I blog? Do I stitch a thing? I feel exqueezed! But I am here, and I will be here, for PIC’s fourteenth year.

 

 

 

 

 

The Feeling That I’m Under

Posted by Tata on
Rustic!

Rustic!

My super-duper stepmommy from the Land of Canadia stayed with us since last Tuesday and left last night. Her car was promptly smasheroood by a New Jersey driver. Darla is okay but confused by an insurance company that would not take an accident report because of a missing letter in her Canadian insurance policy. This should not matter because she is not to blame, but here in the wilderness of You Want A Piece Of Me, even the insurance policy numbers start with F.

It's all a matter of fucking perspective, my dainties.

It’s all a matter of fucking perspective, my dainties.

People Get Sick They Play the Wrong Games

Posted by Tata on

Well, lookee here. The river done blowed up:

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ–A gas pipeline owned by PSE&G ruptured today under the Raritan River, causing two geysers of natural gas to erupt near the Northeast Corridor rail bridge.

The ruptured line has sent strong odors of natural gas wafting through the area, with complaints of the smell coming from as far away as Highland Park High School.

I stayed home from work this morning because I am currently arthritis’ bitch and pools of slush froze everywhere overnight. Skating rinks are not for creaky me. Thus, I was surprised when Pete told me a pipe under the river broke and the sleepy, ice-clogged Raritan was bubbling up like Old Faithful. But wait! The article includes video!

Bless my buttons, that is the train bridge for the Northeast Corridor train and the video is taken from the bridge Pete and I bicycle across on our way to the library. The bridges do not feel like they are far apart and they aren’t, probably about one-third of a mile at most. The high school mentioned in the article is less than a mile away.

New Brunswick and Highland Park took decent beatings during Hurricane Sandy, the hurricane before Sandy and a good handful of storms since. We had two water main breaks recently, then a lengthy power outage problem after a couple of substation fires. We have the totally unneeded but not unexpected problem of Chris Christie’s corrupt business practices laid at our doorstep and now the Raritan’s a geyser. We can’t afford those natural gas pipelines across the state the Powers That Be propose because they don’t take care of them and shit happens. I, for one, am finding infrastructure investment increasingly meow-meow sexy.

From the West Down To the East

Posted by Tata on

This is a new low:

“If it was your son, in fact, screaming as you testified, that would suggest that it was Mr. Zimmerman’s fault that led to his death,” [Murderous moron George Zimmerman’s attorney Mark] O’Mara observed. “And if it was not your son screaming, if it was, in fact, George Zimmerman then you would have to accept the probability that it was Trayvon Martin that caused his own death, correct?”

“I don’t understand your question,” [Trayvon Martin’s mother Sabrina] Fulton said. “I heard my son screaming.”

“You certainly had to hope that was your son screaming even before you heard it, correct?” O’Mara continued.

“I didn’t hope for anything,” Fulton insisted. “I just simply listened to the tape.”

“I don’t meant to put you through this any more than necessary, but you certainly would hope your son, Trayvon Martin, did nothing that could have led to his own death, correct?” O’Mara tried again.

“What I hope for is that this wouldn’t have ever happened and he would still be here,” Fulton shot back. “That’s my hope.”

“That’s a real dick move, Mr. O’Mara,” said all dick moves ever.

Pete and I took our little grandchildren, my daughter Miss Sasha, my mother and stepdad to the American Museum of Natural History today. This is my grandson Panky.

What? There are more dinosaurs? Lemme at 'em!

What? There are more dinosaurs? Lemme at ’em!

If some pathetic douchebag harmed my grandson and the pathetic douchebag’s attorney asked me if the blame rested anywhere but on the pathetic douchebag, I’m 101% sure I’d look that attorney square in the eye and tell him – or her – what sort of monstrous pigfucker he – or she – was. Sabrina Fulton deserves a medal of some kind, but at least the conviction of her son’s murderer.

The Story Of How We Begin To Remember

Posted by Tata on

I may not look busy, but I’m actually brining a turkey.

hematite

A zillion years ago, when I converted to Judaism in my twenties, the rabbi explained that Jews do not believe in concrete forms of an afterlife because nobody can testify to the truth of the matter. There’s no Heaven or Hell as Christians describe it because Morty who died last year has not reappeared before the congregation with real estate listings. So Jews says that good people walk with G-d. As for Hell, it’s called Gehenom, because some scholar asked some guy what was the worst place he could imagine and that guy said, “It’s gotta be Gehenna, because those people burn their children.” I don’t remember a whole lot from this part of my life, but that explanation penetrated the fog, since we now live in Hell.

Fly Again And Learn To

Posted by Tata on

Currently a bit stinky.

We have been sick a lot. We had a hurricane and days in the dark. People around us suffered big losses and some are still without power after 10 days. My sister Daria’s house on LBI is covered with a layer of foul-smlling filth. My son in law is being deployed to a desk job in Afghanistan in the spring. There was an earthquake in Guatemala today. Sweetpea got sick, got better and is sick again. I feel ground down and so tired I’m considering making a casserole. Yes. I said a casserole. That might really happen.

Be Guarded By Monkeys

Posted by Tata on

I have 2 usernames for Google and Blogger with a password each, one each for WordPress, two account numbers with passwords for the credit union, two usernames and passwords for my retirement accounts, a password for both my personal phones’ voicemails, a password for my laptop, a username and password for my work PC, for the database and my old work phone, a username and password for my work, personal and blog emails, a username and password for my blog’s service provider, for my cable TV account, for my AmEx, for my savings bonds and a pin number for my debit card. I have usernames and passwords for several blogs I frequent. This is not a complete list. I do not know my land line number at home.

My job wants me to choose a new password for my new phone, which has a new number.

I’m doomed.