Maple's Place

Friday, April 19, 2013

June 9, 2012

O.k., the heck with humble! I just got 71 points in Words with Friends for the word “trivet.” Woo hoo! So why is it that I can get these great scores and still lose? Sheesh, some of my friends are playing two games at a time with me. I can hear them in their air conditioned homes (while I sweat and stick to my chair in front of an anemic window fan), “We got a live one here! She’s going down in flames, flames, I tell ya!!” Oh, well, it keeps me out of bars.

You might have guessed that it’s a tad warm here (83 F. in my kitchen). So tonight I called Phyllis to see if she wanted to eat at the air conditioned diner. She did. We had a great time gossiping about everyone we know and since Phyllis knows everyone in town, it was a lot to talk about! I had moussaka and she had Philly cheese steak. That’s what I love about diners – there’s something there for everyone.

So the diner’s décor got me to thinking of the 50’s and while I was on vacation, someone made what I thought must have been a 50’s hors d’ouevres. On a cracker, she put a slice of pepperoni topped with cream cheese. On that, she put a blob of mint (I kid you not) pepper jelly.

Which got me to thinking that we thought we were so fancy when we put a hunk of ham followed by a pineapple chunk on a toothpick. Phyllis said she thought she was fancy when she squirted Cheez Whiz out of a can onto cracker; she also really liked the mini wiener pigs in a blanket.

Enough of that. So when the skunk lets his perfume fly at 1 in the morning in front of my house – and it’s deadly quiet – what is making him do that? If I can find out why, maybe I can stop it. The goal is to be able to leave my front door open without dousing my living room in eau du skunk. Phyllis thought that maybe he was looking for a date. If that’s the case, I’m glad I’m not a skunk. Come to think of it, I’m glad I’m not a skunk anyway.

Today, I was sitting at my desk working (I do that occasionally) and the nice volunteer who teaches ESL students asked for the room key. I got up – and walked into a metal hanging file folder that has been in the same place on the floor for years. I had hit my shin. You know when the pain is so bad that you can’t move and you can’t speak? This was one of those times. I was finally able to give her the key (from the other desk in the other room) and when she left, I pulled up my pants leg to see blood from a gash and a rapidly swelling shin. So I got the cold can of seltzer out of my lunch and put it on top of a tissue. (I really didn’t want a blood spot on the front of my slacks.) The swelling went down considerably, but this little gash must be the shin equivalent of a paper cut because it hurts like a sumbitch.

When Sharon (my boss) got back from her meeting, I requested sympathy, which I got after I showed her my leg. Chris came down from upstairs and I showed her my leg. (She offered alcohol to sterilize it, but I thought I had had enough pain. Did I tell you I had started the day with a mega headache?) So by the time Glen, the letter carrier, arrived Sharon and I were really laughing about the whole thing. Sharon said, ‘She’s showing her leg to everybody.’ After I told Glen how it had happened, he said, “You want sympathy after you did something stupid?!” That got me to really laughing! Only your friends will tell you when you’ve done something stupid.

It must have dawned on Glen how that sounded because he said, ‘Look at this scar,’ (he’s wearing the summer shorts uniform). He went on to say that he had been playing golf, missed the shot, got mad and slammed his club down – into his leg. Now THAT’S stupid!

Nothing much else is new here. Except that a fox ate a miniature poodle. Oh, did I mention that the owners had previously shooed the fox away? And then they must have put the dog out in the yard again. Helllooo … predator here. Some people are too stupid to own dogs.

Speaking of stupid, and we were. A naked man has popped up in at least three places in Town. Nobody seems to know if all of the incidents were the same man. Doesn’t anyone think to put a can of spray paint in their purse? Just whip it out and mark that sucker! (I did but the cap fell off and I’m still drying out the inside of my purse. It’s now neon hot pink.) If the sprayer were really creative, s/he could make a smiley face using the nipples as eyes and … oh, never mind.

So I’m ending my first week back to work after vacation. It seems like but a vague memory of doing nothing. Absolutely nothing! But I feel very privileged to have had a vacation, so I can’t gripe too much. Have I shown you my leg?

July 11, 2012 Musings

Hot 6-20-10

6-20-10

Yes, it’s hot. Thank God, the Library is air conditioned. A lot of people felt that way today! I just looked up at the thermometer in my house: 100.3 F. at almost 6 p.m. Oh wait, it went down to 99.9 F. Nope, back up to 100.4 F. Some damn bird must be having sex outside of the window...

As you can probably tell, I’m a bit cranky. (Hush up, I can hear that.) Last night, my dehumidifier in the basement went to the great junk pile in the sky. So I had to replace it, and at the same time I bought a small window air conditioner. If I’m going to work (and I have to in order to pay for the air conditioner and dehumidifier), I need to sleep. I can’t sleep in this heat. They claim it will go down to 70 F. tonight (I don’t believe it), but by the time it does and the humidity really soaks in … that means I don’t sleep. So, thank God for Miguel.

He’s still a wheeler dealer. He charged me $30 to go pick up the stuff at Rocky’s and install everything. But then he charged me $25 to dispose of the old dead dehumidifier. Now wait … I know what you’re thinking, but this was AFTER he told me that he doesn’t pay to dispose of the junk because his brother in law is at the recycling place in Springfield. At that point, I was so hot, I would have paid him $100, so I’m not really mad.

So this morning, I’m driving to work and realize that I’m behind a pickup truck with three Portapotties (Portapottys?) in the back with a rope stretched across to keep them from toppling out. And I’m thinking, what if they did? That would be a hell of a way to die: crushed by a Portapotty. But moving on to more upbeat thoughts (after all, it was the beginning of the day), I thought, “I’ll bet that rope is to keep those rowdy Portapotties in line. They have been known to party all night.” O.k., so maybe the heat is getting to me.

I read yesterday on MSN that some zoo is really upset because a tortoise pair who have been a couple for 115 years have broken up. They noticed when she bit chunk out of his shell. (She has done it again, apparently.) They have tried enticing them with ‘loving food,’ whatever that means. It shows a zookeeper offering them fresh tomatoes. Maybe they should add pasta.

I know why they have broken up. No, it’s not lack of marital intimacy. It’s not even the fact that she has heard every one of his stories – 18 times. No, it’s because she wants to travel and he doesn’t. Now she gets to travel to another zoo because they don’t want her to keep beating him up. But it brings up the question (which was not answered in that story): what about the kids? Were there any kids? If so, will she visit them? Will the new zoo try to pair her with someone else? Do they have to get a tortoise divorce? Maybe there’s a prenup. I hate it when there’s no in depth reporting going on.

Speaking of which, for the first time in ages I tried to go to Atkins where they are installing two (count ‘em, two) roundabouts. Don’t get me going. The road is closed right at Hampshire College so instead of driving about two miles, I had to drive six or seven. Anyway, coming out, they let me go into the first roundabout which ended in the detour. (I was also annoyed because the store was closed at 7:15 p.m. when their web site had said “Open 7 days per week until 8 p.m.” Apparently, Sunday is the 8^th day.) But back to my mini rant. The lane, bordered on both sides by sharp curbing is so narrow that I felt as if I were driving a summer luge track. I can just see the 80 and 90 year olds negotiating this with a bit of snow. Ha!

Atkins says their business has dropped off by 30% due to this detour and construction which seems endless. There was another man there just as disappointed as I was, so maybe it has now dropped off 31%. I hope not. We need their butcher shop.

Finally, some things are just nice. On the spur of the moment, I decided to have conversations with Marlon to help him improve his English. He’s from Brazil and speaks Portuguese. I am learning a lot about his works. He’s an oceanographer studying the sediment in the water where the fresh water meets salt. (Neither one of us could remember the word for that in either language.) He looks at mango groves in certain coastal areas and he’s looking to see how the ecosystem is affected by changes. Last night I learned how he gets his core samples. The time before he tried to explain the methodology for carbon dating items. I know, I know, but I don’t know what to talk about with this 27 year old. Apparently, he’s working day and night, leaving his wife (who can’t speak English as well) to take care of their son and take English classes and look after the apartment. Wait. That sounds familiar. Anyway, we usually spend an hour or so just talking and I correct his pronunciation. I can really take him aback with one word: why? Poor guy, but I think he’ll be prepared when he has to do postering.

By the way, I’m not really sure he understood me when I told him how ceviche is made. But then he told me he likes sushi, but he likes the seaweed in a cone, filled with good stuff.

Time for me to get out of my work clothes and put on shorts. Stay cool. (It’s now 101.2 F.)

Wild Kingdom 7-22-12

I was all ticked off at the beginning of the story on CBS Sunday Morning: Someone had stolen all of the flags from the service members’ graves in Hudson, NY just a couple of days before July Fourth. Then it happened again, and a third time. By then, the cemetery caretaker (an Army veteran) had announced “… a $500 reward for the capture and conviction of the dirtbags who did this.” At that point, the police had had enough and set up motion activated security cameras. (Why it took them three times of losing the flags, is beyond me. Maybe they had to wrest it out of the hands of the middle school principal.) It didn’t take long for them to catch the culprit: a groundhog. It was the TV interviewer (probably from CBS with the big bucks) who stuck a camera into a groundhog hole (burrow? Den? House?) and you could see a flag there.

Then the question becomes: why? Were the groundhogs redecorating? Are they unpatriotic and does every one of those varmints think the US flag represents terror? Are they mad at the caretaker? Do they just like red, white, and blue? Come to think of it, can groundhogs even see color? (I know that dogs don’t because they lack the rods and cones combination in the eye that humans have.)

Shortly after that, I was in the bathroom, powdering my nose. This is my best vantage point to my back yard flowers, sounds, and fire pit. And there is an unbelievable racket going on. Many crows (I could see eight, but it sounded like more) are squaking and screaming like crazy. “Must be a cat,” I thought since my new neighbors have two outdoor cats. (One likes my front porch and the other one likes my tiny back deck. I think it’s quieter here for them and the hunting’s good in the overgrown weeds.) But as hard as I try to find even one cat, I can’t see any. So what set off the crows? Were they witnessing local ground hogs stealing flags?

More in the wild kingdom mode: it’s my frogs. Technically, they are in my neighbor’s swamp, but I consider them my frogs. (That’s on the other side from the cats.) It’s not really a swamp, but a marshy area created by a rivulet branching off from the Mill River. Or maybe it’s the Fort River – I wasted 10 minutes Googling and I’m guessing it’s the Fort River because the Mill River seems to be in North Amherst and I’m in South Amherst. All right, I confess: I have Googled both “swamp” and “marsh” and both are correct in this instance. I had always thought of a swamp as more dense and smelly, but my neighbor does indeed have a swamp. And I’m used to the Boston saltwater marshes that smell awful at low tide, but I’m comfortable calling this a marshy area. But I digress.

So it used to be three frogs that I would hear outside my bathroom window, approximately 60 feet away. Now it’s a bucket load of frogs that sing all night, apparently, because they are always singing in the wee hours of the morning when I get up to go to the bathroom. And they all have the low, bass, tones of a thick rubber band stretched across a cigar box. It’s quite a symphony at night, coupled with a light show.

That would be my solar powered color changing ball stuck in the middle of the brown eyed susans. Last night I thought I was hallucinating. No, the hardest drink I had had was pomegranate juice mixed with mango-nectarine juice. The ball appeared to be moving laterally! I finally figured out that it was the brown eyed susans blowing in the breeze. But then I noticed that there was no breeze. So I began to wonder if it were a critter brushing past the lit up ball. Or maybe more than one critter. It’s the stuff that ghost stories are made of because at that moment, the mother of all lightning bugs floated by, adding to the otherwise boring spectacle in the pitch black yard.

Perhaps it was a cat since I have noticed the tabby going into those flower beds frequently. He totally disappears in the vegetation. I don’t know if he’s hunting or using the flower beds as kitty litter. At any rate, one of the cats left me a present of a mouse on the driveway for me. I was going to get into my car to go to work and I see this almost perfect (one puncture) dead mouse in the driveway. I thought that I would have to get a shovel to move it after work, but when I got home, it was gone. The cat probably thinks I’m ungrateful and didn’t want the present to go to waste. Or maybe the crows thought it was starters for their dinner …