sad tomato

we were grilling up a few burgers. nothing fancy. i picked up the tomato we bought two days before at the grocery store. ordinarily, we buy our tomatoes from farm markets because they taste like tomatoes, but we weren't sure we'd make it to the farm market so we grabbed a few at one of those fluorescent light stores. i put them in the window because they didn't look quite ripe.

but we needed a tomato, so i took one from the window, put it on the cutting board and sliced off the stem end. i'm sure that's not how you slice your tomatoes, but i'm less likely to lose a finger if i do it my way. at first, i thought it was full of worms. let me tell you, you do not want to slice open a tomato and find it full of tiny white worms. mostly, this is because my own experience of tiny white worms suggests that if they're tiny, white, wormy and on food, they're maggots. it didn't matter that the tomato was blemish-free on the outside. maggot swarm was my first thought. but i looked again. they were sprouts. like bean sprouts. how on earth would bean sprouts get into my tomato? i know. i know. but bean sprouts in a tomato was a bigger problem for me than how the maggots might get in there because at least maggots would make sense. it took me a second to realize the tomato seeds had all sprouted. how old was this thing? i sliced again. it was sprouts all around and stem end to whatever is not the stem end. it was like a little chia tomato turned inside out.

so we sat on the front porch during a spectacular thunderstorm and ate our burgers. nice slices of red onion. home made cheese from the farm market down the road. corn on the cob. no tomato.

squirrel in the floor

the sweetie called to me from the bathroom. "can you hear that? he said. i could hear nothing over the sound of two full sets of dachshund toenails clacking on the wood floor as they came in to investigate. we picked them up and listened again. it sounded like they were still walking around. in the walls. the bathroom upstairs is under the eave of the house so half of it has ceiling and half of it is a slanted roof. the small clattering walking around sounded like where that slant of roof meets the wall, down near the baseboard. clatter clatter. a bit later, downstairs, it sounded like guthrie was walking around upstairs. clatter clatter. except for the fact that there are rugs where the walking was happening. and guthrie was snoozing on the sweetie's lap. it walked all over upstairs, from the front of the house to the back. and it sounded like a ten pound dachshund. clack. clatter.

i decided it must be a raccoon (because raccoons and i are sworn enemies and i blame them for many things) and began to harness the dogs up and put on their leashes. why? the sweetie wanted to know. in case it gets loose or is rabid. i don't want it chasing them or them chasing it. oh. the sweetie is used to this sort of thinking and frankly i'm surprised i had to explain things to him this time. he got the flashlight to investigate. he likes to investigate and i like that this usually means i don't have to investigate. i am shaggy to his fred. we'd been having a sporadic thunderstorm quite a bit of the evening but only the light show and sound effects were left as the sweetie stepped out into the wet night to find the creature.

he did not find it, but found how it got in. by the time the dogs and i got ourselves together and got outside to gawk into the darkness, the sweetie was saying, firmly, "well, he'll just have to come out." i didn't know who he meant and said so. the animal. of course. because saying it so forcefully will certainly make it so. i'm pretty sure mr. raccoon up there heard the sweetie and said, "dear, pack up the kids..... well, we've got to go...... i'm not sure, exactly. the people seem to think we should be somewhere else..... i know. if it's what they want."

when the sweetie showed me the hole the animal got in through, a place along the roof of the porch where two boards should meet but don't, i couldn't believe it. the animal making the noises in the house was too large to get through there. i was sure of it. i tried to imagine stuffing one of the dachshunds through there. not a chance. guthrie's little plow of a chest would get stuck, not to mention his rather un-dachshund-like backside. and max would simply refuse to fit by willpower and anger alone. he has that jedi thing.

but now it's clear that it's not likely a raccoon. maybe a squirrel. so when we are downstairs, there's something running around right over our heads. when we're upstairs, it's below our feet or in the walls. there's a pretty big amount of empty space inside our house we didn't know about. space we're going to shoot full of that sassy injectible insulation one of these days soon.

until then, the sweetie will fashion some sort of mechanism to get the thing out. a one way gate, so to speak, so the animal will be able to go back to the wild but no matter how many of his pals he tells about the place, none of them will be able to get back in. the sweetie knows how to do these things just like he knew how to rewire the lamp sitting across from me right now. just like he figured out how to build some contraption that removes humidity from the basement and managed to do most of the work on an ancient volvo for several years.

see, for me, every obstacle is a horrible raccoon, probably frothing with rabies, waiting to bite my poor, defenseless, little dogs. for the sweetie, everything he encounters is an opportunity to see if he can do something spectacular and unexpected.

camera

the new supernatural nephew called the other day. i hadn't heard from him for a while, but i knew he'd been busy entertaining houseguests- family from spain who don't have the luxury of seeing him any time they want. i know how they feel. it is tough to pack everything you want to tell someone so new into such a small time and i didn't want to call right when they were getting to know him and were storing up for the long time in spain when they have to be without him.

but he dialed up on his own and everything sounded muffled. "you've got to help me!" he said. he sounded like he was in a very soft cave. "cola, where are you?" i asked, worried he'd got himself dumped in a hamper or something. cola is not his name. it's not even what i call him, but we've been playing a game called renamer, where we try to come up with as many variations on his name as possible, giving him and endless supply of uncomfortable nicknames. cola has stuck a bit because it makes him laugh. eventually i will transfer cola back to nicolas then to nikolai and it's only a matter of time before i start calling him tesla and make his ringtone on my phone modern day cowboy or something. when i call him cola, he sometimes calls me root beer. he thinks this is endlessly funny. we are now so far from the point we're going to need a map. hang on.

small child, muffled phone call. "she thinks i'm asleep," he whispers. "i'm under the blanket in my bed. i have to be quiet." "okay," i say, trying to imagine how he got down, got a phone, got back up and dialed without getting her attention. "but why? your mom seems pretty mellow about the whole baby thing and she hasn't blown your supernatural cover, so what' the problem?" "i see them in my sleep, coming at me from out of nowhere. cameras, videocameras. when i open my eyes, she's there expecting me to be cute. look. i can't be cute all the time. she swoops in so close the camera is this horrible monster coming to devour me!" "oh, come on now," i say, laughing. "if you're smart enough to know it's a camera, you know it can't eat you. don't be silly." "i'm speaking metaphorically," he snapped. i laugh again and begin to explain the difference between simile and metaphor. he's only four months old, so i'm not going to be too hard on him. then i think a moment. he really is speaking metaphorically, sort of. although he's also using some personification (monsterification?), i figure it's best if i just don't mention it.

so now i have a problem, a conflict of interests, so to speak. because i can talk to his mom about the paparazzi-style scene she's created in her home and he'll know i'm there for him, on his side. he'll know i've got his back and that i'd cross even my own sister to make him happy. then there's the other choice. because i still haven't actually met him yet. i've never seen him for real so all those pictures and movies she's constantly making are most of how i know who he is. the earliest i will get to meet him is october and he'll be around seven months old then. he'll be driving, i'm sure and will probably be practicing his supernatural skills as well. flying. invisibility. he doesn't even know what i look like. if he stepped off a plane by himself, i'd need to have a big card with his name on it so he'd find me.

i should be used to this, of course. the older supernatural nephew has been growing up half a country away as well and visits are every six months, every year. so although the new nephew is coming to me for help and because he has faith in me, i'm at the point in the superhero movie where someone has to make that big, selfless choice and this is where my own inability to think beyond me me me dooms the hero to a great deal of suffering and indignity. because i would look at new photos of him every day and i would listen to his chirps and gurglings as long as as she can hold the camera on him. so i try to make it sound like this is the small bit he has to give as a supernatural to keep her in check, to keep her going along with the whole normal infant story line. he doesn't want to blow his cover. he buys my story because he has very little experience of the world and simply doesn't know any better, but he whines a bit and wants to know if it will let up at all. it will, i assure him.

i know tomorrow she'll grab the camera and wave it in front of him, daring him to do something adorable. and he will, because i told him he has responsibilities. he hangs up the phone and i think to myself he's really being sort of a baby about all this. i hope he'll grow out of it by october.

cookies & milk

i went to the co-op to get some cookies and milk because, well, that's just how things are. a person needs cookies and milk from time to time and it was time. the co-op is now the big store in the hood so even though milk is more than $4.50 for a half gallon, i went.

when i got there i went straight to the paul newman cookie section. i love paul newman. sure, his movies are nice, but the man runs a great company. cereal. pasta sauce. salsa. popcorn. coffee. tea. snacks. cookies. mints. dog food. our dogs discovered paul newman during the great dog food poisoning scare. you've got to have a little more faith in a dog food company that tells you the name of the farm where they grow chickens for the food. look, the chickens lead a better life than most people i know and happy chickens are tastier. so at our house we love the paul newman, his "shameless exploitation in pursuit of the common good" and his cookies. i knew the sweetie was expecting mint oreo-style cookies but i saw some soft cinnamon cookies we'd never tried sitting right above them. i'm grown. i can buy what i want. i got both.

i strolled up to the register with the two bags of cookies, some of that solid gold milk and a cup of yogurt or two. the teenage girl at the register said hello, then started singing softly. whiskers on kittens. bright copper kettles. schnitzel with noodles. she didn't sing the way teenage girls sing, all trilling and woobly and over the top. just soft and very simple. sweet. but then the teenage boy bagging up my cookies joined in. not what you'd call a confident singer, but his voice next to hers sounded like it should be there. and they were singing a song from the sound of music. it made me laugh. she smiled and said they were trying to make people feel happy. i've never thought about teenagers working together, while at their grocery store jobs, trying to make anyone feel happy. but i was, so i said thank you. as i walked out, she turned to the boy and said, "when rod stewart did a cover of that song it was awesome!" and i giggled the whole way home.

i don't usually plug the companies, but i think mr. newman and i vote similarly. for more information on the sassy paul newman go to: http://www.newmansown.com there's more stuff at the newman's own organics section. i can't guarantee your check out person will sing just because you're buying mr. newman's cookies. maybe.

rail

the first time i saw it it was sitting on a flatbed trailer across the street in front of the bed and breakfast. some sort of tiny orange car with metal wheels. i stared out the living room window and felt dizzy. my chest was collapsing in on itself like my heart was trying to devour my body. it is rare that i feel an overwhelming desire for objects, but when it happens, it's crippling. the need makes me sick. i didn't know what it was, what it was called, but i knew i needed one. maybe more than one. my need was so great i was unable to speak. i went out onto the porch to stare at it some more.

on the back, near the top left side of the orange body was a plus, the sort you see on first aid things. some sort of tiny railroad ambulance, maybe. i sat on the porch, forgetting the mountain and the birds and everything else. little orange rail car. little orange rail car. then it was gone. the sweetie mentioned he'd seen another one and we thought maybe some sort of convention was going on. tiny rail cars everywhere. then, yesterday, it was back. sitting on its flatbed in the evening. how many were there in town? how many could there be?

this morning, we drove by the depot, which is nearly impossible to avoid, because it is about a block from our house. they were lined up. ten. twelve. more. mostly orange but a few yellow. some had two seats like my orange ambulance. some had four. and there were old guys milling around everywhere grinning like little boys, sitting in the things, wandering around with reflector vests. gray hair. white hair. orange vests. orange cars. we kept driving. we had someplace to go. but when we came back, we saw them a few miles down, driving on the rails, spaced out like cars on a highway, full of still grinning old guys, two in a car or four. like they had new bikes or something.

the depot was empty so the sweetie called when we got home. the woman on the phone called them "putt-putts" and said the old guys were a gang who roamed the country riding around on little bits of railroad in these things. i'll bet when they're not riding, they're working on their putt putts or talking about engines and parts and railroad history and bridges made of stone or iron from before even they were born. and when they're riding, they don't say much. they just grin like idiots and drive somewhere between 20 and 30 miles an hour down the track.

eagle

this morning the alarm went off at 5. funny thing is, we were all four already awake. the sky outside was a color that doesn't exist anywhere during the day, a little difficult to look at. 52 degrees. the dogs pretty much went right back to sleep, but the sweetie and i got ourselves into the car and drove three or four miles down to the east branch delaware.

it was cold enough to feel the air hit your insides when you breathe and i was surprised to find the water warmer than the air. we stood in the water and cast and reeled, cast and reeled. i've recently noticed i like fishing. it's not so much the catching part. the sweetie likes that. he catches them, too. but i like standing out in the water, looking around at the mountains and the rocks and all. i like the repetitive casting and reeling. i like the not talking and the sounds the birds and water make together. so while the sweetie focuses on reeling in the fish, i wander around, look at the sky, watch the tadpoles.

and then i saw it. "look! an eagle!" i yelled and pointed. the sweetie looked up. "that's not an eagle. that's a heron." oh. it had a white head. it had gray wings. it was big. and i wanted it to be an eagle. everyone around here blathers on about all the eagles they see all the time. like they're stray cats or something. although i know it isn't possible, i watch every day from my old lady rocking chair, expecting an eagle to come flying down the road. i already said i know it isn't possible. so the sweetie says it's not an eagle. and then two seconds later i yelled, "look! an eagle!" and he looked. and evidently (according to the sweetie, who tends toward factual information) while he looked i said about seventeen other sentences, each with the word "eagle" in it. it is an eagle. wow. that's really an eagle. it is an eagle, right? eagle. eagle.

it was. not more than a few seconds behind a great blue heron, it came sailing around the river bend and followed it upstream, right over us. and i was too stupefied to get my camera. i've never seen an eagle flying around in the wild before. it was certainly worth the early morning. we also saw two deer, one of which i thought was a bear. i am working on my animal identification skills.

for kevin, where the fish go

pepacton reservoir during drought. it looks like "former site of olive" may be taking back a little. this is on the way to d.e.p. fishing










the road to nowhere on pepacton reservoir, a d.e.p. site, where you can walk right down into the fish on a road that used to go to one of the towns that's still under there.



pepacton reservoir, just before a large storm came through and slightly before some jerk asked if we caught anything. when we said no, he snorted, "how could you not catch anything down there?" well, jerkweed, maybe i wasn't trying very hard. or maybe i'm really bad at fishing. feel better about yourself?





pepacton reservoir from shore because we do not have a boat. when we get one, it will not be able to leave pepacton reservoir because the d.e.p. says so.

fishing on esopus creek off 28 near allaben, state land











fishing on esopus creek off 28 near allaben, state land, the other direction

along delaware and ulster rail bed trail, where there are many fishing streams, but also a pleasant walk with scenery enjoyable by nonfishers, even small children.









d.e.p. fishing site on route 10 near south kortright.

trans am acres. just past the above fishing site. i do not believe the d.e.p. is in any way connected with this.










d.e.p. fishing site on east branch delaware near margaretville. that's the remains of an old bridge abutment.

knitting on east branch delaware, a d.e.p. fishing site, not zoned for knitting at all















nests under bridge over east branch delaware, a d.e.p. fishing site. the birds living here have a deal with the d.e.p. and do not require a permit to fish.