The Bane of Captain Peg Leg

Thirty eight days and thirty nine nights that cursed storm has raged, he thought. 

Captain Peg Leg tossed and turned in his bunk, deep in the hull of the ship and far beyond the comfort of the officer's quarters aboard the Splintered Peg. Although the grime-stained sheets soiled his fine tunics and rats scurried right under his nose, only here could Capt. Peg Leg find solace from the tempest that threatened to destroy everything he had worked so hard for. But down there in the dark all alone, it was also the only place where it was impossible for him to forget his past, and day and night, Peg Leg found himself confronting the man he once was.

He thought back to the days when he was just Peg Leg, and then he thought back as far as he could go, when he was a boy of one and his parents named him little Harry Swift. And then he went in between to the day in the schoolyard when that nasty bully Charles Tyrwhitt gave him the nickname "Two-Legged Harry".  The nickname stuck, all the way up until he became Stump-Legged Harry, and finally just Peg Leg. The gradual transformation of young Harry's legs did not go unnoticed by his tormentors, who pointed their fingers at him and laughed deep from their bellies at each stage of his misfortune.  

This story probably isn't any less strange to you than it is to poor Harry. While he had always been a tall lad, by the time he was in upper primary school his legs alone were longer than most of his classmates were tall, perplexing every doctor his parents took him to. No matter what they did--bandages, splints, tea, and so forth--his legs just wouldn't seem to stop growing. As it was very hard to crane one's neck high enough to see him, to most people, he became just a pair of lanky walking legs with fine woolen pants that his parents had custom made for him. It was really a shame, because those blessed with keen eyesight could easily tell you that Harry was becoming a handsome young man.

Just when Harry thought things couldn't get any worse, the most peculiar things started happening to him. It all started with a tingling sensation in his toes while he was sleeping one night, and when he woke up, he couldn't wiggle his toes any longer. Upon further investigation, his toes had become connected together like some web-footed duck. By eveningfall, Harry Swift no longer had any toes to speak of, and by morningcome he had no feet. Even more quickly than his legs had grown, they were being taken away from him. It was a cruel jape indeed, and Harry liked it not. 

When the Swifts realized there was nothing they could do to stop Harry's transformation, they insisted that he return to school and finish becoming a learned man. Although Harry begged and pleaded to stay home so as to avoid ridicule and scorn from his schoolmates, his parents paid no heed, and brave Harry returned to school that week, sporting nothing but stunted nubbins for legs, covered with his rolled up woolen pants. 

Oh how the children and that horrible Charles Tyrwhitt laughed, just as Harry had predicted. Echoes of "Stump-Legged Harry" followed him through the hallways as he hobbled along in misery to class. Harry had never felt so down, and even wished for his long legs back. In fact, every night for two whole weeks, Harry perched below his bedroom window and wished upon the stars for his two legs to reappear. He wished so hard that sometimes he would fall asleep and dream they were back, only to wake up when the sun rose, with his nubbins curled up beside him in full view. One morning, when his nubbins burned bright in the first light of the day, Harry decided that he was done wishing. 

Pulling out his ink pen and pad, Harry furiously began drafting sketches for what would later become his famous peg. He worked day and night measuring his nubbins until he had the perfect dimensions, and only then did he visit his father's woodsmith to craft his design. The woodsmith laughed, doubting that any man could walk on pegs, but Harry showed him a silver penny and the woodsmith did as he was bid.

No more than a week after the pegs were complete, to the astonishment of the woodsmith, Harry took his first step in his peg. That followed by a second step, and soon Harry had no trouble making jaunty strides across the shop. What joy for dear Harry! Throwing open the woodsmith's doors, Harry jumped up over the stoop and clicked his pegs together as he flew through the air. He had a feeling that things were finally going to go his way. 

Feeling that he was on to something with these pegs, Harry convinced the woodsmith to let him set up a small stand next to his hut selling pegs. Under his meticulous eye, Harry had the woodsmith replace the legs of his table and chair with eight sanded pegs, and he made a fine sign carved with "Peg Legs Unlimited" into a plank of wood with red painted letters. The woodsmith helped Harry post the sign above his table and chair, and then the waiting began. 

At first a few only a few curious passerbys came, and Harry wondered if the stand had really been a good idea after all. But the passerbys started talking and soon the word got around about his peg stand, and people with all kinds of stumps from far and wide came to get a fitted peg.  With tears streaming down, scores of customers praised Harry for saving them from a lifetime of hobbling as all of their limbless predecessors had done. Harry, never one to get swept up in himself, pushed aside his sudden fame and continued to refine his business. 

By the following year, Harry had become so wealthy that he commissioned a goldsmith to make two solid gold pegs for himself, encrusted with jewels from the far side of the world and forged with metal at the tips. The pegs took months to make, and cost Harry a small fortune, but it was worth it, and they became his most loved, valued possession. Looking down at his shiny pegs, Harry realized that he had outgrown the peg stand, and asked the woodsmith to take over his shop while he set his ambitions to the horizon and beyond. 

And this is how Harry became Capt. Peg Leg. Loading up his fine peg samples and other goods to present to exotic peoples, he took command aboard the Splintered Peg, the very ship that he now cowered in. 

It was never meant to be like this, he thought as his mind drifted back to the present. He could hear the ship's wooden beams groan with every crashing wave, threatening to swallow Capt. Peg Leg and his crew whole. What have I done to deserve this?

His ruminations were suddenly interrupted by much commotion coming from the upper deck.  Although Capt. Peg Leg was inclined to stay out of the trouble, he decided that if he could hear anything through the howling gale, it must be serious enough to require his attention. Brushing off his tunic, he reattached his pegs and made his way into the storm's furor.

Upon forcing open the deck hatch, Capt. Peg Leg was met by such a powerful onslaught of water and air that he almost slid down the ladder back to where he started. A few crew members saw his head bobbing over the hatch and pulled him up, placing his pegs on the deck as gingerly as one could given the circumstances. Shielding his eyes from the elements, Capt. Peg Leg spotted the rest of his crew huddled over the starboard aft and gesturing wildly. With the help of his men, he made his way over and planted his pegs firmly between two joists, took a look, and was much distraught by what he saw.

There in the distance, but quickly approaching, was a ship that had to have been the work of none other than the devil himself. Its wood had been painted a terrible ebony with splashes of blood red smeared on the side, and carved in his likeness on the prow and the stern was the devil's double horned head and vile pointed tail. No crew was in sight but there were gourds, disgusting GOURDS galore--yellow and orange and green with warts and stems and hooks and bumps--filling the empty spaces of the ship and pulsing with the ups and downs of the choppy waters, as if they were gasping for breath like a great beast of the sea.

Suddenly a voice called out from the abominable ship, and a man stepped out from behind the far side of the devil's head. Capt. Peg Leg squinted, and gave a quick gasp--he'd recognize that man anywhere. Stroking the devil's twisted beard was none other than than that wretched, good for nothing Charles Tyrwhitt!  

"Looking surprised are we, Captain Peggy," Charles shouted over the storm. He jumped down to the deck, kicking over an orange pumpkin. "Thought you'd seen the last of me, huh? Thought you'd slip right between my fingertips, eh?! Well I'm not done with you, and now I've come to finish up!" His devil ship inched closer and closer to the Splintered Peg, threatening to gouge its hull with the devil's ugly horn.

"What is it you want from me, you little devil?" Capt. Peg Leg called out over the ship, "Tormenting me half my life, and now this, what is the meaning of it!" 

"What is the meaning of it, you ask me?" retorted Charles, "I will tell you straight, as straight as those starched woolen pants of yours used to be! How was it that whether your legs were long or short, you never failed to have the finest trousers of all the boys at school! It wasn't fair, damn you Captain Stump! Not fair at all! I made a deal with the devil, thinking that you could never find pants that would fit if your legs were too long, and then too short, but you always managed to get them tailored just so! And to think, all I succeeded in doing was to make you more wealthy--well it all ends today!"

By this point the two ships were so close Capt. Peg Leg could have reached out and touched the bright green squash hanging over the side. But this wasn't the time to contemplate gourds, it was the time to save his innocent crew from the nonsense of Charles Tyrwhitt, and it was time to save himself as well. 

Capt. Peg Leg declared, "Charles, let us forget this foolishness. Wealthy though I may be, you have undoubtedly succeeded on other ways. For one, you have certainly caused me great hardship, for I have nubbins for legs, and as gay as it may seem to walk around on these pegs, I can tell you it has been no picnic. For two, seeing as you have made this deal with the devil, I feel compelled to placate you somehow, so as to end this curse you've put on me. I, being a wealthy man, would be more than happy to share some of that with you, so that you too may commission some fine woolen trousers for yourself." Having made his point to his satisfaction, Capt. Peg Leg waited anxiously for Charles' reply, the rain still beating down between the two men. 

Charles licked his lips and looked at Capt. Peg Leg thoughtfully. "Fine, have it your way," said Charles with a wick grin plastered across his face, "if you give me your two golden pegs, I shall bother you no more, for I will be a wealthy man then, and the envy of all!" 

Capt. Peg Leg tried to hide the surprise from his face. His crew gave a collective gasp, unsure if he would ever part with them. Capt. Peg Leg drew a deep breath, and beckoned to Charles. 

"Here then, old schoolmate of mine! Though it be heavy on me to part with them, this I will do to end our quarrel once and for all. Reach out your hand and they will be yours." 

Capt. Peg Leg drew out his nubbins from the pegs and carefully leaned himself against the railing, outstretching his arm so as to relinquish the golden peg. Charles grabbed it hastily and gave a great cackle when it was in his arms. Suddenly, quick flashes of lightning filled the sky, the devil's horn seemed to pulse in the light, and the tail gave a great twitch. 

"You've always been a numb skulled fool, haven't you Captain Bone Toe!" exclaimed Charles. "The devil and I, we have everything we need for sure now to finish all of you! Now make haste and hand over that last peg, please don't make me come over there myself, I'm afraid my burlap breeches won't suit your fancy!"

As Capt. Peg Leg reached out to give in to the devil's wishes, and Charles' fingertips had just brushed a ruby, Capt. Peg Leg swiftly brought his arm back and whacked Charles over the head with his golden peg. The force of the blow knocked Charles over the side of his ship and into the sea in one stroke, and that repugnant, despicable Charles Tyrwhitt was no more. 

In an instant the sky stopped its tantrum, the wind ran out of breath, and the sea reduced to a simmer. For the first time in thirty-eight days and thirty-nine nights, Capt. Peg Leg and his crew saw the sun. A cheer went up amongst the Splintered Peg, and they hoisted Capt. Peg Leg above their heads until they could cheer and hoist no more. But there were still other matters to take care of.

"Let us not waste good food!" proclaimed a surly sailor. 

"YES, the gourds!" cried another. 

The crew made their way to the devil ship, and feasted on the good gourds until their bellies were bursting and there was nothing left but stem and seed. When all was said and done, they burned the devil's ship so that it would haunt those waters no more. The Splintered Peg went on to finish her trip, and Capt. Peg Leg found much interest in his products abroad, filling his coffers to the brim with their treasures.  After returning home, he was called upon by the Queen to pay her a visit, and as she had been regaled with the tales of his bravery and smarts, he was anointed Sir Peg Leg. 

Never, ever one to let anything get to his head, Sir Peg Leg continued his business in earnest, and he allowed himself a constant reminder of the struggles he had been through. Sticking out from behind a crushed ruby on his golden peg was a small, rectangular piece of scratchy burlap that would never come out. 

RIP D.A.

little furlough

little furlough lies in wait
unsure what tomorrow's rising sun will bring
so many uncertainties, who can we trust
in these dire times

he's saved up for years
gone halfsies on so many meals
but is it enough?
in these dire times

there's tweed and leather
there's wool galore!
waistcoasts and breeches
and stockings fourscore!

with no work to do, there's so much time
to stay at home and shop online
but you don't have to be a mathematician to see
all spend and no wage equals no money

"no worries" he says as he clicks 'buy now'
"it's not even a problem, i'll tell you how"
then he stands up for all to see
outstretches his arms quite fearlessly
"i've got a joint card", he cried to the crowd
that look on his face, you'd know he was proud.

there's buckles and frocks
there's tricornes a plenty!
feathers and canes
and tunics, oh luxury!

wait, what's that operator?
you say the deal is over?
no no no, give me that online discount
please, you have to understand, it's my savings account!!

when all's said and done
little furlough got what he wanted
when he walks down the street
there's not a head left unturned.
but his pennies are wasted
partisan gridlock's got no end in site
he'll be cursing his fancy tastes
within a fortnight

the fruit of the glutton

for the first time in the history of "ballin' in dalian", i have successfully been able to solicit a guest post. my guest author, being untrained in the ways of blogging, did not know what topic to write about. i thought for a minute, and decided to give my author something that i have been thinking about a lot as of late, something that is universal--that we as humans must all deal with. my author was very nervous to write a piece that could potentially be read by thousands of people around the globe, and my understanding is that they shook as they wrote, afraid that such a task might reveal too much. with out further ado, i am pleased to exhibit their work.

--------------------

if you are like me and like to eat foods in your house, you might occassionally get crumbs fall on the floor.  In this post I will share with you a primer about what to do if you see a crumbs in your house.  Your first decision is whether to ignore it or get rid of it.  If you choose to ignore it, maybe it will go away.  Insects or bugs might eat it.  Eventually, it might disintegrate on its own.  Some people don't mind a few crumbs around the house. But others think this looks unsightly and might cause guests to question the cleanliness of your house.  For this reason, you might want to consider removing the crumb.  If you choose to go this path, you must decide your method.  Some prefer to pick up the crumb between there thumb and forefinger and throw it away in the trash can, sink, or even outdoors.  Others like to use a broom or wet rag if there are multiple crumbs.  Another option is to use tweezers to pick up the crumb.  I have also had some success blowing on the crumb to make it go away.  Sometimes, though, this just makes the crumb go a different place in your house. If so, the problem isn't really solved.  You can become lightheaded from trying to blow the crumb from one place to the next.  So pleas use caution when using this method.  In sum There are many choices for getting rid of the crumb.  One is not better than the others.  in my opinion it is  a matter of personal preference.

How do you get rid of your crumbs?  Leave a comment with your tips!

the chuckwalla knows better

while ripping off chunks of jerky with flat paleo-teeth, some of my associates have made claims that animals are barely sentient and wouldn't know the difference between the bellagio and a slaughterhouse. on a moral level, i know this is false--my associates unfortunately just don't know any better. they probably haven't seen this dog who is living proof that animals at least have feelings:

but i have more proof than just this happy little doglet. there is also the chuckwalla, a lizard who knows the hard way that animals are indeed sentient. the chuckwalla knows there are some wounds that never heal.

when scientists saw the chuckwalla, they didn't see him as a rad reptile that enjoys lava flows, hanging out at Death Valley National Park, and eating yellow flowers. i'm sorry to say that all they saw was a stout-bodied lizard with a prominent belly.

and that is why the chuckwalla's scientific name is sauromalus obesus.

it is the rudest, most insensitive name scientists could have thought of. a few years ago a scientist named Bradford felt bad about what his predecessors had done and changed sauromalus obesus' name to sauromalus ater, citing that there was less variety of the sauromalus than originally thought, but everyone knows that this was just a feeble attempt at a make-good with the chuckwalla. plus, the damage had already been done, no one calls the chuckwalla by its new scientific name. petitions have been submitted to the Internatioal Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) to give precedence to the name sauromalus obesus over sauromalus ater based on its extensive use. the ICZN, clearly in cahoots with the scientist Bradford, denied the petitions, and went as far to call their claims 'dubious'.

make it through that crack? in your dreams, s. obesus. 

ever since the whole name fiasco, the chuckwalla has tried to keep a low profile and avoid both the jerky chewers and the forward thinkers alike. the chuckwalla never wanted to be the center of anything, much less controversy--it just wanted to bask in the desert sun in peace. as a result, chuckwallas all over the country have gone into hiding like in the picture above, which is what they typically do when they are "disturbed". they can't take the body bashing any longer.

so we have a disturbed lizard over here, and people are trying to tell me that animals don't have sentience? what a joke. next time you're cramming jerky down your gullet, remember the chuckwalla, our friend sauromalus obesus. treat animals how you want to be treated, and don't turn them into meat twizzlers.

happy mid autumn festival

today is my favorite chinese holiday, the mid-autumn festival. all you need to know is that on this holiday, you look at the moon from your windowsill and eat moon cakes, the famous yuebing. and you get a day off work to do this. what could be better than that?

mooncakes are so revered in china that they recently have been tied to corruption--high end mooncakes are often purchased by greedy chinese businessmen using public funds. after taking measures to stamp this out, luxury mooncake sales dropped 12%. i mean, if you're going to have corruption, at least it is over mooncakes and not something less savory, no pun intended :)

i found an interesting post today about the waste involved with mooncakes. it's an interesting look into the characteristics of china's consumer culture.

okay, i'm off to get my mooncakes at the only chinese bakery in chinatown. i hope they have my favorite, mung bean mooncake.

why are some people so mean

to survive living in china, i often depended on the kindness of people that were fortunate enough to be in my immediate vicinity in a time of need.  for example, i know there is a post in here somewhere about the evil apple vendor who sold me rotten apples in the dark, and how his neighbor, the pumpkin seed vendor, chastised him and tried to help me get a refund.

but america is not china, and i am not a special laowai here. i'd be hard pressed to find a random person in the street here that was willing to join my cause, and even more hard pressed to find a pumpkin seed vendor who was willing to join my cause. sometimes i question if it is possible to have any fun in this country at all.

we all need a little help from a stranger sometimes though. i personally always need help with directions if i'm going anywhere other than my house in DC. i don't have a gps, i don't have a smartphone, and i tend to print out google maps and forget to take them with me. some may say that i am foolish, i say that i take the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference....the difference being that i got to drive through the ghetto and you didn't.

the other day i took a wrong turn trying to get to my soccer game at a new field, and quickly found myself in unfamiliar territory. in these cases i typically call zach, but he wasn't picking up. i looked around desperately for help at each stop light, but my pumpkin seed friend wasn't around, and no one was paying attention to me. finally, i found a man with dreads and a rastafarian hat.  rastafarian=peace, so i figured this would be my best shot. he saw me look at him and roll my window down, so he did the same.

as i suspected, he told me i was way off track. even as he had to pull away because the light turned green, he continued to shout directions to me out the car window. that is a true compadre.

of course, this is not a typical interaction with a fellow motorist, which brings me to the title of this post: why are some people so mean? why can't everyone be like rasta man?

drivers are the meanest people of them all around here. i wish i had a picture for every face that someone has made at me through their car window. if i were to take all of those pictures and put them together to make some kind of conglomerate picture, it would surely turn out as a rabid monkey.

zach will say that i am a mean driver too because one time in the car i flicked off a taxi driver behind me and said "hey, **** you!" out the window, but i would argue that i did this in a "new york" manner--i was pretty annoyed that he wouldn't stop beeping at me while i sat a red light and couldn't turn, but my blood pressure was fairly stable and my veins weren't popping out of my neck. everybody needs to throw their hands up every once in a while and get a good "**** you" in, doesn't mean you gotta be super angry. that's new york, right?

the worst are the people who yell at the customer service reps at the front desk. dealing with irate customers has to be the most humiliating thing. i saw this happen last week in an auto shop and felt bad for the guy so i was very nice to him afterwards when it was my turn, and he gave me the VIP discount for my new transmission. it was like i was in china all over again. the lesson is that no matter where you are, good things happen when you are nice to people.

so it is imperative that we do something about all these mean people, they have gotten carried away.  i think humor and shaming work well to change people's behavior. rabid monkey PSA campaign?

lessons from the hair cuttery

tonight after work i decided to get a perm because i was bored with my hair. the perm took many more hours than i would have liked it to, and i wanted to give up during it. instead of saying that beauty is pain, they should say that beauty is pang, as in serious HUNGER PANGS. or beauty is pangs of pain from sitting for 4 HOURS. ahhhhhhhhh

while i was suffering i picked up a 'seventeen' magazine to see what i'm missing out on now that i'm not a teenager anymore. this is what i learned: 

jocks make good boyfriends because they are very disciplined from sports and will call you if they say they will call. 

so the jocks are the good guys now? 

hipsters make bad boyfriends because your date won't be any more exciting than swapping out pepperoni for mushrooms on a pizza.

OUCH

a good way to pick up a date at starbucks is to intercept their drink before they pick it up, write your name and phone number on the drink, and hand it to the boy with a smile. 

seriously? has anyone on the magazine staff actually tried this little trick? because if they had, i think they would have been yelled at and accused of trying to steal someone's drink. there's a difference between being bold and being a fool. 

there are 4 different kinds of faces--the heart face, the square face, the oval face, and the round face. each face type looks best with a certain kind of hair cut.

if you ever meet someone with a square face will you please introduce me to them, i'd like to have a word. all of the faces they used to demonstrate these face shapes looked exactly the same. 

funny advertisements these days use social media-related humor 

for example, an advertisement for pencil erasers: "i wish my awesome new eraser was also able to erase my mom's latest facebook post, har har har"

curvy girls should drape themselves in long skirts and sleeves to accentuate their curves

ie, you best cover that shit up

and i will end with a direct quote from an article i read about 2 best friends who grew up together acting. one girl said: "we have different body types, but we still have an appreciation for each other"

while that is the dumbest crap i have ever read, the editor who decided to highlight that quote in a text bubble off to the side is the one who deserves to be ashamed because he/she is a full grown adult. 

it's weird to think now that all those magazines i was reading when i was 12 that i thought were so cool were probably written by some 40 year old corporate stooge skilled in the art of marketing $5 face wash. perspective, all part of the joys of growing up. 

old age

I was trying to go to the UVA website today, and couldn't remember the exact URL, so I gave it my best shot: www.uva.com. That seems like a good guess, right? It took me to a page about high pressure grinding machines. Lo and behold, it is www.virginia.edu. I felt like a blithering fool.

My aging brain seemed significant enough to write a blog post.

back to the roots

"Look, here comes the liberal."

Who is that? It's me, I am the liberal, the only one. I have now officially entered the heartland of my forefathers, the land that is Western Pennsylvania. While my blood runs deep here, I am a foreigner--a city kid that doesn't know the ways of the "blue collar," that didn't grow up with countless members of my extended family surrounding me. Despite all my irregularities, I'm still kin, and that's good enough to be welcome here.

For Labor Day, Zach and I spent a long weekend at my Grandma and Grandpa's house in the motherland, driving through rolling countryside, eating freshly picked fruit, and visiting with relatives. My only regret is that we did not meet Frannie, my grandmother's Amish friend. This is what you do when you're in New Castle, PA.

Absolutely gorgeous Amish farm in an Amish community a short drive away from my grandparent's house

gma & gpa

The family on my grandma's side is big, and very close knit. Zach and I went to the county fair while we were there, and saw an award winning pumpkin grown by "Alan Gibson", who has my grandma's family name. Seeing that I am also a fan of large gourds, I could only assume that this Alan character was a distant relative. When I told my grandma about this, she replied, "I doubt it." It's not everyday that you find a potential relative that is a champion pumpkin grower, so I took little stake in what she said. However, when I told my dad the same tale, he also replied, "I don't think so." Apparently the Gibson's would never let a family member slip by undetected. Regardless, I still think he is my cousin, even if it is 50 times removed. Gourd growing can run in the blood too.

Me with my cousin's giant 900 pound pumpkin

Zach and I went to a family picnic and saw many of my relatives that I hadn't seen for years.  It's not that I am a bad person, it's just that some of these relations are really extended, but that doesn't stop them from all seeing each other on a weekly basis. At the picnic, one of my cousins lectured me about the importance of family, and that I should never forget that I come from a family of farmers.

But where is my hoe now?

Zach and I went to the county fair while we were there, and I have to admit that I was excited to see the cows, sheep, horses, goats, and the like. I probably see those animals as often as I see the pandas at the zoo.

Zach and I with the wild animals

So now that I am excited about the animals again, here are some pictures from the fair:

A mean-muggin chicken that tried to peck Zach

A friendly pig

A goose with a haircut

The most beautiful chicken I have ever encountered

Some sheep about to get sheared

A passed out pig

A llama with a sense of style

There's a lot more where that came from.

Anyhow, there are a lot of champions in my family in addition to Alan the pumpkin grower. One of my female cousins is a champion livestock raiser (or something like that) and my other cousin might as well be a champion, in addition to working a normal weekday job, he has a farm with over 250 cattle and hundreds of acres of corn to tend to. My grandpa is also a champion of sorts, he is 87 years old and just bought a tablet to check his email at the coffee shop. My great uncle is definitely a champion, he is a retired botanist that is now a reporter and blogger for the local New Castle newspaper. He keeps a police scanner in his house so he can be at the scene as soon as something happens. Last week he had to report on a man that fell under his tractor and died. 

If I had grown up there, life would had been very different indeed. For one, I probably wouldn't find Rooster Crowing contests and a Jr. Fair Goat Costume competition as amusing as I do now. In fact, I probably would have been a champion of both of those. 

But there's really no saying how I would have turned out. I doubt UVA gets many applicants from New Castle, so that probably would have been out. All I know is that I would be saying "you'ins" a lot, which according to Urban Dictionary is "Western PA for You guys. Common with 'more rural' types." And I probably would be running around barefoot a lot, because I love feeling fresh grass and soil under my feet, and there is a lot of that to be found up there.

jeremy's guest post

o sing to me mouse

with your little little paws

i hope to ensare you

with my brittle brittle claws

"please no mr. jeremy, i'm just a lil' mouse"

the evolution of catching a mouse

the mouse living in our house is no ordinary rodent. it is the smartest, most vile mouse that has ever haunted the lonely places no other living creature goes in a house. this mouse has unparalleled patience, and will lie in wait for hours until you go to sleep. it won't eat anything in your house, or leave any nibble marks, but it will scurry across the floor when you're reading a book and leave you wishing that night wasn't so dark.

when i first became aware of the mouse, i thought that as a newly independent woman and homeowner, i could do things right in my house. a mouse deserves the right to live, and it's not the mouse's fault we create these boxes full of comfort and delicious crumbs. 

but how quickly your mind changes about the rights of mice when you realize that you have been outwitted by a rodent. and you keep finding little pellets of poop everywhere. that's when you forsake the vows you took to love and cherish all of god's creatures. 

first we tried the PETA way, building a contraption similar to the one below. the idea is that the mouse can get in, but it can't get out, and then you can release the mouse outside. we put little goodies in the bottom, such as crackers and dried fruit, to allure the mouse in. it didn't work. 

i should have known the PETA folks were quacks when they said:

Release them within 100 yards of where they were trapped...Releasing a mouse or rat into a strange area will almost surely result in the animal's death because relocated animals don't know where to find adequate food, water, or shelter and often become weak and succumb to predation or foreign parasites or disease against which they lack a natural immunity." 

that seems a little dire. do they think people will be so scared of the mouse that they will drive as deep as they can into the middle of nowhere to release it? anyhow, if i followed that rule, i would probably end up releasing it back into my own house. 

so the next step was the glue trap, which some people from PETA have so kindly reminded me is inhumane:

this guy apparently thinks it's inhumane too:

but even with the glue traps, we still got nothing. this mouse is clearly at the height of its species' evolutionary history. so now we have some snap traps:

as of yet, even these evil claw tooth traps haven't worked. 

my next step is 

valar morghulis. everything must die.  i saw the mouse come into our living room, so i set up a barricade of evil so it can't possibly get away.

the only thing stopping me from stalking around the house with a hatchet is that i don't want to make dents in the hardwood floors. how swiftly evil prevails. 

there's always something happening on gales street

a building is being renovated

the morning glories are blooming

 some kittens were born

 a grape is in our yard

furnishing a house

recently, there has been much scrutiny over my furnishing choices. it is quite difficult for me to understand, as i think my taste is impeccable and every purchase i make near flawless. but i am empathetic kind of person, and i can see how my vision for the house could be misinterpreted. 

at first, i wanted to furnish everything within the few weeks. this is a very bad idea for many reasons:

1. to furnish it right, you need to understand the essence of the spaces in your house, how they are used, how they make you feel, etc. being deliberate takes time. 

2. you will spend a lot of $$ in a furniture store thinking you are buying exactly what you need, only to realize later that you were manipulated by the man. 

3. it's no fun. would you rather eat all your popcorn before the movie begins, or take a breath between handfuls and eat it the whole way through?

one thing that is overwhelming is the number of choices available for any particular item you need. after doing my due diligence shopping online/in the store for hours, comparing different items, considering what will really make me seem like a cool home-owner, i usually end up deciding that everything i've seen is an overpriced piece of sh*t and i'll just make it myself. if only i didn't have to bother with that pesky job all day.

the good news is that you can easily solve all of these problems in one simple step. shop at goodwill, my favorite store in the world. 

i've always said that a good serving tray has a story, and the one i bought tonight at goodwill is certainly no exception. 

after searching the home goods section for what seemed like minutes, i finally came upon a slipshod pile of serving trays pushed to the back of the shelf. there were only 3 to choose from, and they ranged in price from $2.96 to $3.96. one tray was fashioned in a standard box shape and painted shimmery green, another had felt on the bottom and was most likely not a serving tray at all, more likely something to hold papers on a desk, and then there was the red serving tray with the longhorn cows on it. although the red one was the priciest of them all, i knew it was the one when i saw it. 

the least i could have done for my poor tray was taken a picture of it in good lighting, tsk tsk

DONE. i had been looking at trays earlier at pier 1 imports, and became wary from the vast selection of $45 brown trays. of all the things i had vowed to make after getting pissed off, a serving tray would have been the easiest by far, but i'm happy to save some time. 

while i would certainly not suggest using this decision making tactic for all items in your house, sometimes it just feels good to go with the flow and take what is right in front you. being too deliberate is stifling. i wouldn't say that it is my favorite serving tray in the whole world, although the brown trim is a nice touch and the detail on the cows is very realistic. but perhaps i will come to love my cow tray as the years go by, which i can't say i would expect to feel about a $45 brown box, even if it did make me seem more dignified when i carried my drinks outside. or maybe i will come to grow tired with it, in which case i paid $3.96 for it and will have no issue re-donating it to goodwill and getting a new one. what beauty!

ps, although there are cows on my tray, i would like to ensure that it was bought in the most unironic way possible. purchasing things out of irony at goodwill is low.

stick tree

the stick tree stands solemn in the wind
indifferent to the world around it
beautiful as ever, that sturdy stick

a moon ago it wasn't a stick
it was a plain tree like any other

but one artist had a vision.
a raw vision.
it was: banish the frivolity of the fir

snip snip snap snap
and away went the leaves
snip snip snap snap
next fell the twigs

behold!
the essence of the tree emerged
but the vision still incomplete.

SNIP SNIP SNAP SNAP
the dance became a frenzy
SNIP SNIP SNAP SNAP
he squeezed with all his might

shears flying
artist sighing
boy becomes man
tree becomes stick

now brown beauty rid of baggage
reach to the sky
sure of root and straight like arrow
pure, unadulterated stick

Beware the Cactus Fiend

This is an addendum to The Exotic Planterium and Card & Comic Collectorama post.

The two green plants are doing more than well--the stringy green one is growing like wildfire and I might need to get a bigger container for it soon, and the succulent has a nice greenish-red hue to it (that might actually be a bad sign but for the purposes of this post we'll say it's good).

The problem is the poor little cactus. It always had an odd bend to it, but now it's bending so much that it's touching the container. For once in the slow but sure death of a plant, I do not blame myself. I blame the cactus fiend.

I have noticed on more than one occasion when I come into my office in the morning, my little cactus has been moved, sometimes to the other side of the window sill. The small clumps of dirt left where the cactus used to sit prove its change in position.

Today the cactus was disrupted so much that it's falling over onto one side of the container and it looks like it's coming uprooted.  The cactus had moved to the other side of the window again and I noticed there was a dirt trail. Evidence, I thought. I followed the dirt trail as far as I could, hoping it would lead me straight to the culprit. When the trail stopped at the wall closest to me, I realized that I had been fooled again by the cactus fiend. I smashed my hand into the wall in frustration, and a passing co-worker shot me a worried glance. They obviously had not been a target of the cactus fiend yet. Or they did not keep a cactus in their office.

In all truthfulness, my first thought was that all of this must have been the work of a devilish little cat. My impression is that cats would most likely dislike cacti. They are sharp and pointy and I think that would piss a cat off.

That was the only likely explanation I could come up with. Some would say that the janitor was the more likely culprit, but I would say, really? There is an evil janitor working in my building who likes to yank on my cactus until it's about to fall over and then puts it back down in the wrong place? And doesn't touch the other plants? Hmm...I think not.

Who do you think is the cactus fiend?

go away monk seal

The past 2 weeks have been....stressful. So I didn't post. I see that while I was gone my blog got spammed, really really bad. I am not pleased.

But what is more important right now is I learned that Hawaiian people hate the monk seals. They hate them so much that some of them go as far to kill them. It's a long but interesting article if you have time to read it.

The article touches upon the Hawaiians' lingering resentment of the US for annexing the island (which they believe was done unlawfully), and how the stringent rules NOAA has enacted to protect the monk seals and other animals has disrupted Hawaiian lifestyles, leading to further resentment. One example in the article was called "the situation with the birds".  Basically some species of bird flies through one of the islands every fall, which coincides with their football season. Coincidentally, these birds become disoriented by bright lights (aka football stadium lights) and often end up falling from the sky. Supposedly children would run around collecting the dazed birds and bring them somewhere nearby to be tended to. Problem solved, right? WRONG.

The bird is a federally protected species and the Hawaiians on this island were told that these downed birds were a violation of federal law and they could be fined up to $25,000 per bird. From there, they moved the football games to an earlier time, losing the games as a form of community entertainment, and retrofitted the stadium lights to get in bird-safe compliance, which also involved keeping track of the brightness of the moon. hard core. There was "anger, incredulity and T-shirts that read “Buck the Firds.”

Now come the big, blubbery monk seals, who seem to be good for nothing except taking up (a lot) of space in the sand, and everyone wants to coddle them, rope off the beaches, and protect areas where Hawaiians roam and fish. The implication is that no matter what-- be it tourists, birds, monk seals, whatever, the Hawaiians always come second. And in retaliation, the Hawaiians killed some monk seals. Very few leads have surfaced besides a man who was reported to be badmouthing a monk seal, but it didn't go anywhere.

It seems very ridiculous and serious at the same time. NOAA obviously doesn't understand the idea of "community buy-in". But the article raises some interesting questions--like how many monk seals are enough monk seals? How does one co-exist with so many monk seals? Can I badmouth the monk seals with impunity?

What is the ultimate goal here?

Certainly we can't be running around with thousands of wild animals. That's why they became endangered in the first place. The whole conservation balancing act seems tricky. Sure I can save the monk seals, or the tigers, or whatever else, but where am I going to put them? NIMBY!  No one truly wants to share their space with something that's made of blubber for a prolonged period of time.

I do have to admit though that it's unreal thinking about a whole species becoming instinct. I'd be so sad if I met the last living animal of a species whose whole line was about to vanish, never to be seen wandering around this earth again. If only we could all just get along right? I for one blame the animals for that--I'm pretty sure that no matter how nicely I asked, a monk seal would never scooch down a little to make room for me. Until it can learn to do so, we are always going to have problems.

My favorite part of the article was about a guy whose family bought a small Hawaiian island a long time ago and he still presides over the affairs on the island today. Here was one story about him:

A gifted horticulturist, he started growing many imperiled, native Hawaiian plants on his family’s land on Kauai in the 1980s. This included a particular subspecies of Caesalpinia kavaiensis, a Hawaiian hardwood, which was coming close to extinction in the wild; Robinson managed to produce a single tree from surviving seeds. But in the mid-’90s, he discovered a draft document from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expressing the agency’s wish to “secure” and “manage” the tree on his land. He jumped to the conclusion that this meant seizure by eminent domain. (John Fay, a former botanist for Fish and Wildlife, told me, “Basically, it was a misunderstanding.” Deeper in the document, the agency asserted that Robinson’s work should be “supported and assisted.”) Robinson called the agency in a rage. He recounted the phone call to me several times, always in a single, Homeric run-on: “I also stated that if they wanted to take my reserve over, they would probably have to engage in a gun battle with me, and kill me, and I said that coming after the debacle at Ruby Ridge and the debacle at Waco, which had just happened a few months before, if the government’s next heroic exploit was to attack and murder a conservation worker in his own reserve to take over work that the government was too lazy and incompetent to do itself, that might look a little strange to the public.” Seventy-two hours after he hung up the phone, Robinson told me, his Caesalpinia kavaiensis tree was dead. The implication was, he killed it. He felt sick about it, he added, but freedom comes first.

Yes, I suppose it does.