map of mom, bionic highlights

the parents are up to more shenanigans. as a result, i bring you the map of mom. this is a map of the ways my mom and a bmx racer, snowboarder or other extreme sports participant are similar. well, besides their obvious collective total radness and disregard for convention.

this particular map only highlights structural damage to my mom. this is similar to what building code inspectors would look at. each star represents a fracture, shattering or attack by aliens requiring some sort of repair and replacement of something. if you ask my mom about the structural damage, she will tell you she has had a string of bad luck, that each bit of damage was caused by some freak accident that could have happened to anyone but should happen to no one. if you ask a competent medical doctor, you might hear that a thirty year span with no dairy products, combined with a surprisingly willful refusal to take (or forgetfulness, about according to some more generous than the author) calcium supplements added to recent senior citizen status could COULD sort of shape up to create a little bermuda triangle of osteoporosis. you know, with the brittle bones that are always breaking if you don't put some calcium in them. the sort of thing that could possibly be managed with some of those sassy chocolaty calcium supplements you see everywhere or even that once monthly stuff the flying nun is always selling on tv. possibly. that's what i hear. i am not a doctor, so i don't really know. my mom, however, who evidently became a doctor recently on the sly, says i'm a smartass. she knows.

the nice thing about science and modern medicine is that the two communities together have worked to create some spectacular bionic elements for human beings. mom has most of them. some would call her a collector of sorts. i am grateful to all these science and medical folk for their hard work. it would be difficult to spend time with a boneless mom, just lying in a puddle on the floor or being carried everywhere in a plastic sack. and i've been impressed with their structural repair work. it's much higher quality than what the landlord did in our bathroom here in brooklyn when water started falling from the ceiling or what he did when the porch fell in.

lagniappe

note: click to enlarge photos. there's eagley goodness in some.

we were back at that little bridge fishing place. the sweetie was interested in evening fishing as he's not so much a morning person. i did not try to explain that all those famous fishguys are morning people. we went around six, to the longer side of the trail. after an hour or so of uneventful fishing, i switched to the camera. it was about time to eat and as i've mentioned before, everyone fishes at the same time. the little birds were getting feisty.

a tiny green blur caught my eye and i noticed a hummingbird right next to me across the railing. this one was celery colored, so pale i hadn't noticed it in there with the weeds. my first thought was that there aren't any celery colored hummingbirds, at least around here and i figured i'd found something fancy. it was darting around fast in among the thistle and queen anne's lace. hmmm. pale purple flowers. white flowers. i've found some sort of mutant pastel hummingbird that feeds on pastel flowers. surely this is something special. i fumbled to get the camera ready. you may remember that i use the automatic setting which can take some serious managing on my part. there's a considerable amount of time between when my finger snaps the button and the camera chooses to open the shutter. the camera and i are developing an increasingly hostile relationship which appears to be entirely my fault for not learning how to use manual settings. and the little bird was gone up over the river. my eyes tried to follow it but there's not much you can do when a celery-pale bird smaller than most butterflies goes flying off against the sky.

but i looked up at the sky anyway and there it was, a black dot on the horizon. i already knew. and it was flying right toward me down the river. it wasn't one of those brown headed juvenile birds. it was a great big monster full grown bald eagle. now, i know. you're already sick of my eagle fascination, but i grew up in missouri in the seventies and early eighties. sure, i knew about noodling 30 years before anyone ever put it on tv, but i didn't know about eagles. in my mind, there were about five eagles in the united states and they all lived high on craggy edges of the oregon coast and nobody ever saw them because they only flew at the altitude of large jets. i'm sure you hold fast to some ridiculous ideas, too. as the bird got close enough for the white head to be visible, the folks fishing the other side of the river oohed and aahed and i kept snapping away. right along after it came one of those crazy necked herons. fantastic. this is really why i fish.

i wandered around a bit more, snapping stormclouds and mountains like you'd see in sympathy cards or those "footprints in the sand" type inspirational cards, when another heron sat itself down right across the little side creek from me, taunting me to get a good photo. i made so much noise tromping through the brush to get a good view the bird flapped up and down the creek a bit, but still in sight. so i walked up the trail toward the car and found a good spot. i took maybe twenty blurry photos of a white bird with black and gray decoration doing all sorts of acrobatic preening, but he never flapped up again.

restlessness and hunger overshadowed my interest in this lazy bird and i walked back to the edge of the bridge railing to see what the sweetie was up to. just one or two more casts with a new lure was all he wanted and he climbed down the bank and disappeared at the edge of the water. it was about 7:30 and just starting to feel like evening. the sun hit the edge of one of the mountains and the shadows got serious. i was leaning on the railing, just enjoying how nice it was to be out in such a place but at some point i looked back toward the car. my, the shadows were really quite deep back there in all those trees. that one on the left looked like night. and then that shadow over on the left moved. it walked from the brush to the left of the trail right out into the open, onto the grass. this might be a good time to remind you that paranoia is a part of my brain's little toolkit. chainsaw wielding lunatic was the first really good idea it came up with. and the shadow kept moving. it was black. it was furry. it had shiny eyes when it stopped and looked at me. bear. my brain amended its earlier serial killer idea and i looked again. it shambled over into the path a little further. it was about three quarters of the distance between us and the car (look at the path right down there). bear. definitely.

i know i've mistaken deer for bears in the past when they were stomping through the forest, but this was standing out on a grassy path the width of a road and it was looking right at me. it didn't seem worried. i said the sweetie's name several times. he was down at the water, about twelve or so feet below the landing i was on and he was right in the middle of catching a fish. i kept saying his name and kept watching the bear. the sweetie thought i was getting ready to take a picture of him with his catch when i leaned over the rail and said a string of words that included bear. the words didnt' sound as scared as i was. bear. are you sure? he asked. definitely. never been more sure of anything. the bear kept walking slowly right on over the path and onto the other side, down into the brush. and this is when my brain got really excited and started to celebrate. i'd seen a bear in the wild! i'd survived a bear attack! well, really, i'd survived a bear sighting. but that was fantastic. i was thrilled. nothing could be better.

and then the sweetie came up the side of the embankment. i was ready to go. he wanted to know where the bear had been and where it had gone which was when i realized we would be walking by the bear to get to the car. i had not yet survived a bear attack. not even a bear sighting. the walk back to the car was uneventful. the bear was busy somewhere else, probably fishing or telling his bear pals about his human sighting. "they're bigger than you expect, but they smell like chocolate." we got in the car and headed back on the old road that winds along the river. as we turned a curve we saw him. the chainsaw wielding lunatic was wandering down the road. he didn't have the chainsaw with him at the time, but even the sweetie recognized him.

devil's pantsuit

i do not have babies. as a result, i rarely shop for baby clothes. i had no idea what a luxury this was. if you've spent any time visiting this blog you know i knit and that lately most of the knitting has been clothing for the small folks. and i know a little bit about babies, mostly scientific stuff like how babies respond best to bright things the first six months they're around. it's not that they can't see other things like pastel bunnies and blankies, it's just that they react more strongly to the intense stuff. high contrast. babies won't wither and die without it. it's just what they're drawn to. and although i do make the cute little pastel things from time to time, it's more interesting for me as a knitter to do bright stuff, especially stripes. and devil pants.

so i made some devil pants for a friend who lives across the country and with the leftover yarn made some black and red striped shorts. cotton and silk, good for desert winter. i thought i'd pick up a little black t shirt somewhere and send the whole packet out into gila monster territory. since i live in nyc, close to some of the best (or most easily available) boutique shopping around, i wasn't worried. i live in flatbush, brooklyn only a few train stops away from park slope, ground zero for overindulgent parents. finding a hipster t shirt for a baby should be like shooting fish in a barrel. park slope is a loose confederation of brownstones, small restaurants, ridiculously priced clothing and trinket stores and maybe 900 little meccas for ornamenting babies. all different. all preciously hip. tragically hip? no, that's a band.

and like always, i come up out of the subway at 7th ave and head toward salvation. it is 90 degrees, which means the station is slightly warmer. i have the devil pants in my bag, thinking i'll be able to hold them up to whatever i find to get the right size. i go into the first tiny store filled with precious things. there is a stroller near the register. the price tag says it costs more than my first, second and third cars all together. the woman working there glanced at me and gave me a face that suggested maybe i smelled different than i should. she spends her day surrounded by babies who are pooping, peeing and barfing so i suspect it's just the look she gives the barren. yes, that's right. women who work in boutique baby stores can recognize a woman who isn't shopping for her own baby, a woman who can't be convinced to buy the bazillion dollar humvee stroller, and she doesn't like us. although i was the only person in the store, i had to say, "excuse me," and squeeze past her to get to the small fry clothing. she didn't budge and nearly knocked me over. she also still didn't acknowledge me by saying anything. hello. may i help you? please get out of my store, you barren monster. then in walked a mommy, dragging two screaming children in a stroller. the store woman was delighted. the two women abandoned the screaming children and began squealing over new merchandise. the older child, a girl of four or so, stopped crying when her mom held up a little shirt. the mom put it on the counter. this shirt cost more than everything i'd dragged onto my body today. and i'm talking all store-bought clothes. no thrift store stuff and no long term loans from a sister. but the baby kept screaming. i edged around the stroller log jam and peeked in, half afraid i'd see the baby covered with scorpions. it was that sort of crying. attack of the scorpions crying. but the two women were able to carry on as before, ignoring this poor child. as i sidled out, another mommy came in with a six year old screaming, "i want..." whatever. she was unintelligible, but i'm sure whatever it was, her mom bought it for her after she found it, grabbed it, and threw it across the room. there were no black t shirts there.

the next store was a little larger and after a few minutes wandering around the store alone (again, there was nobody else there. just me.) i finally asked the terribly bored woman behind the counter about black baby clothes. she led me to some beautiful pink t shirts with ruffles on the sleeves. "these are very nice," i said, "but they're not really as black as i'd hoped." oh. she didn't realize i wanted black clothes. no. they don't carry things like that. especially not for the little babies. fifteen blocks down and across the street i walked into yet another empty store. you'd think these folks would be all over a customer since it seems like they don't get many. i told the woman what i was looking for. a black t shirt for a 3-6 month old. "you should really get a onesie," she said. so i revised my search. "do you have any black onesies for a 3-6 month old baby?" no. she then proceeded to tell me that she carried very nice things and her prices were far better than those of nearby stores. so how are your prices on black baby clothes? i wanted to ask. she said to check back in the fall. "black is a cold weather color." she also suggested i go a few more blocks and cross the street.

i did. very chic store. very expensive. at this point i was ready to drop fifty bucks for a stinking black t shirt if it would get me out of baby clothes hell. there were two women working in the store and i asked my question. do you have any black t shirts. i want a black t shirt or onesie for a baby, 3-6 months. it's pretty specific. the stores are small and honestly, the small baby sections of these stores are pretty limited. it's not a tough question. one of the women simply walked away. the other paused, thought for a very long time, then wandered back to the shelf (one shelf) where the little baby things were. she looked for a long time at the four little piles of shirts. purple pile. yellow pile. pink pile. green pile. what was she looking for? is this what happens when people go stare into the fridge at night? they're hoping something will materialize that wasn't there before? finally, after what seemed like two hours, she said, "no, i don't think we do. but we have this nice purple one." why can't people hear me when i speak?

so i left seventh avenue for fifth. more restaurants and bars than baby boutiques, but it still boasted plenty. you're remembering that it's still above 90 degrees outside. i've walked about two miles at this point. the woman in the first baby store on fifth eyed me like i was contaminating her store. i should say at this point i knew a little of what i was up against and actually got dressed up for this. blue linen skirt and a red shirt (not made of t-shirt material) with a ruffly bit of a cap sleeve and a real live v shaped girl neckline. and i was carrying a bag that was not made by the u.s. army. i looked like a grown up. in fact, i looked like a teacher. i was clean and i'd brushed my hair and put it in a loose bun. perhaps the relatively sleeveless nature of the feminine red shirt let her see that i don't shave under my arms and she deduced, properly, of course, that i am a horrible animal. a monster of some sort. maybe i just smelled from two hours of walking in 90+ degree heat. but she assessed me and knew who i was. i asked my question. "have you tried the mall?" she said flatly. "i'm sure old navy or target would have something like that." actually, i was pretty sure they wouldn't so i didn't even try. but she had my number. i didn't belong in a store with forty dollar onesies. my ruffly red shirt came straight out of old navy.

on my way to old navy, i passed by one more baby boutique. i went in, asked my question. the kind woman pointed me to a precious yellow t shirt with a frog on it. it was really a lovely frog. why didn't she understand my question? what is so difficult about "black t shirt"? so i said, "that's really a lovely frog, but i'm looking for a black t shirt. plain black". and she looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. she smiled that smile you get when you're telling a child monsters don't really live in the closet and under the bed. she was getting ready to tell me the truth. "well, they don't really like black". wow. that's a loaded sentence out of context, but i interrupted, nodding. "yeah, parents like to put their kids in soft colors..." "no," she insisted. "the babies. they don't like wearing black." oh. i see. i guess she got that email from all the babies in the world where they decided to boycott black. and before i could stop myself, i blurted out, "babies do like black. they like it a lot. parents just force them to wear pastels!" and i continued on my way to old navy.

to be fair, although the parents i know do buy pastels for their kids, i think that's mostly because pastels are what's out there. and i make pastel things for some folks all by myself. because, like most things pastels are fine in moderation. little girls can wear pink. they can also wear a joan jett skirt if they want in black and red. i've sent quite a bit of black, white and red out into the baby world with no complaints from parents or babies. so, on to the mall. daffy's. there's a rack of stuff and i find a cool glow in the dark bat skeleton shirt with long sleeves. perfect. there's only one. it's for an 18 month old. target. what a depressing store. at least the one at atlantic center. at least in the baby section. everything was hannah montanna. i'm not exaggerating. there were several empty racks which will at some point be refilled with more hannah montanna, but nothing in black and nothing at all under 6 month size. same with old navy and target. this is sort of what i'd expected, but i was hoping against hope. i considered, just for a minute, going into the consortium for haitian empowerment office there in the mall. they, at least, like black. instead i struggled back up flatbush avenue toward my stop. after nearly four miles of walking, all of it at 90+ degrees, i stopped in at a nearby cafe to reward myself for my suffering. iced mocha. no matter what you say, i deserved it. as the very kind woman, a woman who said hello to me when i walked in the door, smiled, asked what i wanted, said no problem and then set about to help me get exactly what i wanted (whipped cream? why, yes. thank you) made my mocha, i gazed out the window toward the subway entrance. right next door is american apparel. you know them. they put those emaciated women in panties in their ads. they look like the grown up versions of those save the children children. glassy eyed. starving. hideous. but they do sell tons of cotton in every color of the rainbow. and the other colors as well. free range cotton with no sweatshop labor. shade grown. heh. so i grabbed my mocha and got myself over there. the first thing that hits you when you enter an american apparel store is the tinny, heart attack music. my students don't listen to junk like this. but it's blasting. it's an assault. did i mention i'm starting to realize i'm really forty? the teenagers behind the counter stared like deer. i walked straight to the baby section. black. black black black. hoodies. t shirts. onesies. thank you, american apparel. truly, you are kings among men. and for $18 i had a black hoodie made without sweatshop labor in a 3-6 month size.

then i got home. perfect. exactly right. and i started thinking about the desert and the gila monsters. i know most deserts get cool at night, especially in winter, but have you ever been to phoenix? phoenix has designed this horrible zone around itself that stays warm even during an ice age. so today i will go back. i will brave the music and the slack jawed teens. these are things i am familiar with and feel safe around anyway. i will get the onesie or the tee and will pack up the silk and cotton devil pants and shorts along with the tee and will send it to the new child living among the rattlesnakes and scorpions and gila monsters so they will welcome him and his pointy tailed self as one of them and will help keep him safe. and i will send the hoodie on to the new supernatural nephew as soon as i knit some pants to go with it. it's a cloaking hoodie anyway and i don't know this new desert dwelling child well enough to send him something a complicated as that.

dad's punishment #1

my dad is not very good at lying. i say this because he tries way more often than he should in light of this fact. he must be aware of it. he always gets caught. i suspect i have inherited my poor lying skills from him and that's fine with me since i'd never remember the intricacies of telling a lie. but then, neither does my dad. but he plows on anyway.

most of the time these "misunderstandings" (a term i'm sure he would use) or sins of omission (my own more accurate term) center around his own health. for instance, when my dad had cancer. cancer is not a thing you "forget". oops. it slipped my mind. i forgot to tell you about my cancer. yeah, right. because i live half a country away, i depend on the accuracy of phone and email communication to know what's going on back in the homeland. and my dad managed to not realize he hadn't mentioned cancer for quite some time. i found out when my mom said something about after his treatment. treatment? i was scanning my brain. had i forgotten a surgery my dad was having? it's always a possibility. i played along. i played along until it was pretty obvious this wasn't a little surgery to remove a mole but was something a little more substantial that had involved time. time my dad had used to talk to me about all sorts of stuff that didn't include cancer. so he got in trouble. and my mom, too, although it's difficult to punish your parents from so far away. but this is what he does. "forgets".

he also reinterprets events. for instance, he had a boat. i say had because he sold it this week. his take on why he sold it is this: "your sister (that's my sister, his middle child) won't let me take the grandson out in the boat anymore so i'm going to sell it." now, while it's true this sister can be a formidable adversary, she doesn't just make up random rules and she's pretty good about letting her kid experience lots in the world. the child was allowed to set off fireworks on the fourth of july as soon as he was old enough to hold his hand steady to light. so i pushed. no, he said. that's it. she just won't let me. so i talked to mom. dad and the nephew (his grandson, you know) take this boat out on a friend's lake. it's a small lake, pond-like. the child is nearly eight and knows how to dial 911 on a cell phone (which his mother taught him because she knows her father). she knows she has to tell dad the rules (don't let the child get in the lake because he has an ear infection) and then she reminds the child. she tells them in front of each other so they'll both know the score. they'll know she knows they both know. so when she picks up the child later and he's not quite dry she asks, "what happened. did he dangle you by your feet over the side of the boat?" the child's eyes get huge. he did. how did she know? she knows her dad. and he got in trouble. and she suggested that if the two of them couldn't stick to really simple rules that kept the kid healthy, they couldn't play together on the boat. so all dad would have to do is promise to follow the rules and then he'd have to do it. he'd rather sell his boat.

he is a stubborn man with a set of internal rules nobody can understand. he will not deviate. in his sixties, he chooses to mow the lawn between noon and two regularly, without anything to drink, with no sunscreen, in 90+ degree weather. did i mention regularly? why? it's 20 degrees cooler in the morning. yes, but that's when there's dew on the ground. you can't mow wet grass? really? it will clump. holy cow! really? clumped grass is horrible. it's terrible. it's definitely worse than DYING FROM A HEART ATTACK BECAUSE YOU'RE MOWING THE LAWN WHEN THE TV AND RADIO ARE SCREAMING ABOUT HEAT ADVISORY AND TO STAY INDOORS!!!!!

so let's go back to the health thing. my dad has always been annoyingly healthy. he smoked cigarettes during my entire childhood and when he quit, his smoke and tar clogged lungs went right back to being pink and healthy and fit. and although when he quit smoking he took up aggressive eating and gained weight, his cholesterol and blood pressure have stayed right where they should be for years. through bacon and eggs at least once a day. through absolute inactivity and tv watching. through four popsicles and two fudgesicles a day. until recently.

the other day i was on the phone with him and i heard my mom in the background (a woman who, in her sixties, has broken every large bone in her body in the last few years and still refuses to take calcium supplements "i don't have osteoperosis!") yelling, "tell her about your lab tests!" and he did. honestly, they weren't what you'd think they'd be for a man who makes the choices he does. most folks who make his choices have been dead for years. he mentioned high blood sugar levels and a mild concern he'd become diabetic if he didn't change things. duh! probably. so i suggested some very simple, non-threatening things he might do. cut back to one popsicle a day. walk around when he goes to the mall instead of just sitting in the food court for hours on end. get a two egg omelet instead of a three egg one. nothing huge. nothing about cutting out all popsicles.

then, in a different call, i mentioned the conversation to mom. did i mention she's an instigator. come on. where do you think i get it? when he came home from golf/the mall/wherever, she yelled at him. and he called me. and here's what he said: i never told you anything like that. right. he was steadfast. i never told you anything like that. don't worry. i'm healthy. but then he called my sister. not the formidable one. not even he is up to a confrontation with her. he called the baby. the baby sister is the mother of the new supernatural child and i think he must have been counting on new motherhood to addle her brain. he accused her of telling me about his tests. motherhood has not addled her brain and she let him know. so he demanded to know how i'd found out. which is when she cornered him. she told him he must have told me (duh!) and then said, "so your blood sugar was high." and he was caught.

my next phone call involved dad doing a lot of backpedaling and speculation about who might have said what. i'm sure he thinks his health is his own business and not mine. well, he's wrong. although i will not have to choose a hospital or nursing home for him if he stops taking care of himself (that pleasure goes to the formidable sister) i will have to go to his funeral. or maybe i will have to make a new rule that sits next to that "i do not go to funerals for drug dealers or gang members" rule. it will be "i do not go to funerals for people who eat four popsicles a day and complain that they can't get their blood sugar lowered without medication".

eagle buzzard osprey eagle

just west of margaretville the east branch of the delaware river helps fill the pepacton reservoir. right before the river changes to reservior the platte kill flows in and just upstream, another, smaller stream flows lazily into the delaware. it is where this slower stream enters the delaware that the d.e.p. or some such agency has converted the feet of an old bridge into a sort of fishing gallery. on either side of the river, wide grassy paths lead up to the edges of a bridge that must have come down some time ago. we've driven by and seen folks working there and thought they were putting up a new bridge. instead, these grassy paths lead to wide cement platforms fenced with wood and cable, reinforced below with boulders.

this is where the sweetie brought me to fish. the past few days' rains brought the river up quite a bit so it was roiling and brown. and five in the afternoon isn't really the best time to fish. not to mention these platforms are twenty feet above the water with a slope of rock below keeping the bank of the river out at least ten feet from where a person might stand. not so bad for casting, but unpleasant for reeling in. so i had my excuses ready. i lost the first lure when i dragged it across a submerged slab of the old bridge and managed to wedge the thing somehow in a crack of the cement. the sweetie wanted to set me up with something less snaggy. he produced something that looked like a 20 tentacled squid and situated it around the hook so the hook wouldn't snag on brush or any of the other mysteries of the deep. i had me a guaranteed no-snag lure which i lost in a deep section in the middle of the river where the water was pretty fast. i thought i had a fish, really big. i could feel it tug at the line so i was sure i wasn't snagged. when the sweetie took over the reeling in because he was sure i was snagged, even he became convinced that i'd snagged a monster fish. one that didn't move. there was nothing out there- no branches or anything and looking back i probably hooked one of those massive snapping turtles we'd seen submarining around from time to time. but if i did, he got away with that squid lure that was unsnaggable.

i took advantage of my complete failure at fishing and began to wander around the platform with the camera, trying to will the snapping turtles to swim close enough they'd be clear in a photo. turtle minds are impenetrable. frustrated, i was putting the camera away when the sweetie said, "well, there's your eagle!" i managed to get the camera out and on just as a huge bird perched on a tree above us. i could see his giant yellow claws on the branch but not much else. i snapped a photo anyway, just in case. the sweetie was saying maybe he was a buzzard after all since he didn't have that white head but then again maybe he was a young eagle, not yet all white feathered. he didn't look like a vulture, didn't fly the way i see them fly. buzzards get up so high and just sit there. i don't think i've ever seen a buzzard flap a wing. and buzzards don't fish. nope. they do look a lot alike, though. those long feathers at the ends of their wings like spread fingertips, white along the underneath of the wings. i know i have no credibility what with my earlier confusion of heron and eagle, and then deer and bear, but i knew this was an eagle.

then i did what i see fisherfolk doing all the time. i waited out that bird. it was early evening and he was out fishing. i knew he wasn't going to just sit there all evening staring at me when the fish were starting to jump. the small birds were starting to swarm around like bugs, skimming the water. everyone fishes at the same time. and i waited. he was still the way rabbits get still when they're out in the open and you see them. he moved a heavy claw a bit to the side on the branch and i began to snap photos. i should probably mention here that i have one of those fantastic little digital cameras that thinks for me and most of the time that's fine. i take most pictures on the auto setting. here's the thing about auto setting. the little camera brain says, "hmmmm. let's see. what is it she wants a photo of? is is the thing in the middle of the frame or the thing over to the side? there sure is a lot of stuff here. trees. water. some sort of large bird. well, we'll just try to catch as much of it as we can." and i can hear it whirring inside, focusing back and forth, thinking for me. and then, "well, the light today certainly is challenging. early morning light, but look at all that fog. well, well, well. that's going to be a mess, all fuzzy and way too bright. let's tone things down a bit and we won't use the flash." and no matter how many times i smash down on the button while the camera is thinking, it won't do a thing. it has to be ready. it has to know exactly what it's planning to do, which can take several seconds, before it will allow that stupid button to work.

as a result, from the moment i saw that bird move his foot, i started snapping and didn't stop until i could no longer see him down the river in the fog. several seconds during which my finger snapped down on the button probably thirty times or more. for all that, i got five grainy photos of a giant bird flapping out of a tree, past the mountains and down the river to the reservoir. loch ness monster. big foot. and i checked all sorts of websites about ospreys, which look pretty much like a juvenile bald eagle when they're out and about. but the 2 or 3 year old eagle is a mottled white and brown with incredible yellow claws. not ospreys with their gray feet. and eagles have a wingspan of seven feet. that's right. lie down on the floor. now stretch your arms out past your head. eagle wing span. way bigger than an osprey.

when you see an eagle out fishing where you're fishing it's like seeing your favorite actor in the diner where you get lunch. you're both in the same place. and for the same reason. and although i know the poor eagle would just like to sit in his booth and order his patty melt and milkshake in peace, i'm always going to be that clod who stumbles over, begging for an autograph right when the food arrives.

hissy fit on a grapevine

helpful hint: click on the photos to enlarge. they're a bit grainy, but you can really see the bird rage. you want to see bird rage, don't you?

coming back to brooklyn didn't mean we'd left the wildlife behind. we came back to two hostile cats (no, they didn't miss us. they resented our return.) and an endless supply of squirrels and their flying counterparts, pigeons. first, the cats are inside cats. that's because our last outside cat went to the great catnip factory in the sky courtesy of local traffic. so these two are indoor cats. jim, a very mellow 17 pound marmalade monster doesn't seem to mind, but ruby, the one who hates all things, does not want to be an inside cat. she was a rescue cat and was found close to feral and "rehabilitated" at a shelter and she has hated us since the day when she was eight months old and we brought home jim so she'd have a pal. he was three or four times her size and she immediately tried to kill him. he does not spend time with her now, choosing the uneven attention he gets from the small dogs over the consistent nastiness she dishes out. but she is very pretty and we are mildly afraid of her so she continues to control our house, the other cat, both dogs and, of course, us.

and then yesterday i opened the back door and she escaped. i yelled her name because she knows who she is and in fact she did turn around. she looked at me. her face said, "you are stupid. i am leaving." all this after i brushed her stupid fur all morning and brought her canned food as a treat. ruby is small and wily and impossible to catch so although i went after her, i knew i wasn't coming back in the house with her just yet.

i went back in the house to finish up some devil pants for a friend's new baby and heard a horrible ruckus out back. screaming. now, we have a tiny back yard that shares a fence with nyc transit's glorious q train, which runs in a cut below the house. the train platform for the southbound train is just below our fence and sometimes we hear drunks or deranged folks ranting from the platform. i didn't pay it much attention. but it continued. it sounded like squirrels in a lawn mower. or at least what i imagine they'd sound like. horrible. screeching. swirling.

so i went to the back porch. i could hear them squeaking so loud i figured there must be five hundred of whatever they were out there. but there were only two. two mockingbirds. they were tearing around from tree to grapevine to porch rail. you wouldn't imagine four ounces of bird could do what they were doing, making such a racket. and then i thought of ruby. she must have climbed a tree and destroyed a nest. that's how they were acting, like she'd destroyed their family. certainly she's capable of such things. her hatred extends far beyond her immediate family. and when i looked around i couldn't find her. i scanned the whole yard, looked up in the tree, under the porch. the screaming continued. she must be somewhere because they were still flipping out. i looked past the porch, behind the tree and there, under a big pile of metal scaffold junk our landlord keeps against the fence, sat ruby, cowering, terrified. i have never in my life seen her like this and i'm mildly ashamed to admit that for a brief moment i simply savored the image. but she was really scared. she was convinced those birds were going to kill her and i wasn't so sure they didn't have a right to. she looked very guilty. but i went out under the canopy of screaming and called her. she belly crawled a few feet and i scooped her up. generally, picking up ruby requires something similar to hobbling a barnyard animal. you grab her front ankles in one hand and the back ones in the other and carry her with the claws pointing away the shortest distance possible. if you choose to do something looser, you look like something that could be used in a horror movie. but not this time. this time she leapt into my arms and shoved herself against my chest like a normal pet. it was terrifying.

i brought her in and put her down. the birds continued their swearing for at least ten minutes more, and she was back at the door watching them before they were through. i suspect ruby's brain has a memory loop of about two minutes most of the time and i wonder how she can maintain her hatred of us so consistently and purely. although right now she is sitting next to me on the couch, purring. if i just continue to sit here and i don't make eye contact or try to pet her, she may continue to let me live here and occasionally rescue her from mockingbirds.

gun

i own a gun. it's an old one and very pretty. it is not a gun i will ever use as a weapon, unless some fool breaks into my house when i'm at my desk and i use the butt of it to smack the person across the head. it is a solid gun, so it would probably slow a person down a bit and let me get away. since this sort of foolishness is unlikely, we'll go back to the fact that i will never use it as a weapon. it is a long gun with a lovely wood stock, made for the new york state militia, manufactured upstate. it is old enough to be considered an antique, something i don't have to register, even in nyc, as long as i don't by bullets for it. i don't intend to. but it took a lot to get me to be willing to have it here in my house. because the only thing it can be used for is to kill. in this case, it was designed to kill people. this makes me uncomfortable, even as a piece of history. i do not like the idea of killing people and probably would not be very good at it anyway.

here's the thing. when you decide to be a teacher and you go to teacher school, there's plenty you learn. i really did learn a lot. but i didn't learn to deal with things that make my heart and stomach relocate to the same place. like when a child dies. there are lots of ways a child can die and as many ways to manage yourself. in the four years i've been at my current school, we've had what seems like a surprising amount of deaths, both current and former students. illness and suicide are strong contenders for claiming the most children, but there's also self-destructive behavior (drunken car crashes, overdoses, falling from something you were never meant to be on) and one i have only dealt with once before this week. shooting.

shooting is tough, especially when you know the child who was shot dealt with guns or at least talked a big (and very realistic) game. because what you want to say is "violence begets violence" or "live by the sword, die by the sword" but then you don't expect them to really do it. so i want to tell you a little about this boy i know who was shot to death last week because he was pretty complex. and i told him more than once i was worried he'd get shot. he'd laugh and say, "not me." sometimes there's no joy in being right.

he came to our school midyear on a safety transfer. he was tall and looked too old for ninth grade, really, too old for high school. he wore an impressive scowl and the colors of a well known gang. he tagged up on the chalkboard (again with the gang stuff) and i called him on it. he walked up, towered over me and insisted i didn't know what i was talking about. i said i did. we argued back and forth for a while and then he did something i didn't expect. he didn't back down and he didn't threaten me. those are the two normal responses. he laughed. and when that scowl disappeared it was easy to see the child in there. he said i was alright and he laughed again. i erased the board. everybody won.

in the months that followed, he walked out of the room randomly, sometimes didn't show up, once ordered some delicious-smelling hot wings which he ate in class, threatened a girl and nearly beat her in a hallway because she grabbed his "flag" (a bandanna of a certain color worn in a pocket to signify gang membership or gay preferences, depending on the community, although i think the latter use has nearly died out). in class, though, he was brilliant. he knew strange and obscure answers and asked questions that led the class in fascinating directions. and the kids worshiped him. he was a born storyteller. the sort of boy who would do well in a college english program if we could get him there.

here, then, is the problem. the kids didn't worship him because he was smart. they worshiped him because he flashed large wads of cash and other kids were terrified of him. they worshiped him because of what he said about his exploits with weapons and drugs and in jail. because to a teenager, that's all very romantic stuff. of course, to teenagers, being shot is also romantic.

but then there's this other thing. teachers really liked him. we all knew who he was. he was very honest about it, but he was smart and just incredibly nice. drug dealer nice, i'd said at the beginning. see, if you're a drug dealer you have an excellent client base in a high school so you don't want to get in trouble. and he was drug dealer nice. but i think he was genuinely nice as well. a kid with these two parts- gang life and academic life. he was very good at both and was even managing to be very good at both at the same time. for a while.

but that doesn't last, and in the early hours of 14 july he was at a party with friends when two people with guns showed up. there was an argument that included this boy. one of the people with guns shot this child in the chest. he died out back of an apartment building in brownsville at 2am. now, two other boys were shot but survived and there were plenty of people around and i know some of them know what happened. but they won't say a word. they'd rather let the man who murdered their brother go free than be seen talking to cops. if people watch you being murdered and they don't help find the killer, are they really your friends? this is a real question i will ask my students. which brings me right back to the first murdered student i had eleven years ago. a drive by in a park on a sunday afternoon. plenty of witnesses. nobody saw a thing. the man who murdered him is still free, although i guess if he's been doing drive bys there's a good chance he's underground just like the two children he shot.

see, to anyone who reads an article in the paper on this child he's just a street thug who is part of a community of violence. that's what i think when i see other people shot in situations like this. to the kids who knew him he's a hero for standing up to a man with a gun, even though he's dead now and that doesn't really matter. but to me he was a smart child who would really like college if we could trick him into getting there. he had an easy sense of humor and an odd, unexpected kindness to him. he was important. he is important. and i don't see how it's ever going to be okay for the person who took him away to be walking the streets of brownsville with a gun.