speaking of ...

here it is, staring me in the face. death. the other morning (monday? tuesday?) while she was working out kara heard an explosion and (perhaps) saw a orange light, and then all the power went out in our house. even the phones. (i was already at work, if you're wondering.)

when she got to work she called the power company and was told it was probably a squirrel, touching something it shouldn't, as they do. hardly a freak occurrence. a few hours later our power was back on. thanks, power company!

yesterday kara told me she saw a dead squirrel in our front yard, and today i took a look (see figure 1, above).
and directly above the body, the doer (figure 2). nice day, huh? well, not for the squirrel, i suppose. it is rather sad, this death. a life snuffed. i confess i shed a tear. well, i imagine it was swift, the passing, the transition, the crossing, which is all we can hope for, is it not?

i'll know the exact cause of death after i've done the autopsy.

some would say it has gone to a better place but i'm of the belief that it's just plain nowhere. which is much freakier.

i'm actually rather hesitant about picking the corpse up. i guess i'll tease it onto the blade of a shovel, using some other implement (of destruction). garbage is collected tomorrow. say, that reminds me ...

... you can get anything you want
at alice's restaurant ...

too bad it's not thanksgiving. and there's not a draft. (have i lost everyone? does any non-blue remember arlo's massacree?)

sense of humor, questionable, early

this doesn't happen to me too often. i woke up laughing. it was bursting out of me, the laughter, and i tried to hold it back because it was 1:30 in the morning and i didn't want to wake kara.

(kara, it turned out, was already awake, her mind aswirl with job concerns; she heard my stifled guffaws and thought i was ralphing.)

keanu reeves was there, as was leopold nee yellow, and a few other people. we were walking in a suburban neighborhood, not one familiar to my waking life. it seemed like it was immediately after church or something, some regular event, and this walking together was a regular thing too. then we were in someone's house, in a laundry room. there was a washing machine and a dryer in the middle of the room. we started playing with a ball, tossing it about, from one to another, keeping it from hitting the ground. this was fun. we talked and laughed as we played.

keanu's a nice guy.

my attention was directed toward a cassette tape on a counter. i don't know if it was audio or video. the cover was brown, as a paper grocery bag, plain brown wrapper. the label looked hand-printed, though the letters were carefully formed.

oh poo! i'm forgetting what the title was. i told kara at the time. it was in all caps and it was something like REAL DEATH or TRUE DEATH. something like that. not something in itself hilarious, but it did graze my humerus just right and i could not stop laughing.

i woke up laughing. it was weird. that's happened maybe three or four times in my life.

i told kara the dream, as she was awake anyway. she didn't think it was terribly funny. i got up to pee and went back to sleep. i hope she got some sleep too.

ubermilla

yay! "ultraviolet" arrived from netflix today! ooh it's going to be so bad! i'm so excited!

plus it has fichtner in it, and i like him a whole bunch too. a fine, fine man ... though i don't know what he was thinking when he took this gig.

i'm telling you now, watching this movie (i hestitate to call it a "film") is going to, i expect, run the gamut between agony and ecstasy.

i'm a bit put off, though by the evident availability of an unrated version, while netflix sent me the pg-13 version. yeah, i'm not down with that. i know i'll want to see what they cut (or what they added). i do hope netflix is not following the wal-mart censorship path.

nevertheless, we'll view this monstrosity (starring milla as a futuristic vampire! with a sword! and abs!) this weekend sometime. possibly tonight, actually, but probably not. we'll see. ha!

eswl, tmbg, early

this is what i read now. i finished the book about dealing with death (death dealers!) a few days ago and i immediately picked this one off my shelves. "complications" by atul gawande. so far i'm totally digging it. another nonfiction book, by a surgeon, about the fallibility of surgeons and of the science of medicine in general. it's well written and (pardon the pun) incisive.

and it probably prompted the dream i had a few hours ago, the dream that woke me and kept me awake. i was a surgeon, planning an eswl for a patient with gallstones. i kept checking and rechecking (as i would) that i had the correct patient in front of me, that i was focusing on the correct quadrant of his (sure the patient was a he. what of it?) abdomen. then of course i had to be sure i had the correct abbreviation in my mind for the procedure. e-s-w-l. then i went back to confirming the patient. at the rate i was going, i would never even begin the procedure.

i woke and i kept going over it. you know sometimes when you wake up in the middle of the night, mid-dream maybe, and try and get back to it? return to the dream? i seem to be able to return to the dream fairly frequently. but such was my anxiety within the dream over making sure everything was correct and properly prepared that i kept waking up. absurd.

plus i had lyrics swirling in my head from a perennially favorite band of mine, tmbg.

don't don't don't let's start
this is the worst part
could believe for all the world
that you're my precious little girl
but don't don't don't let's start
i've got a weak heart
and i don't get around how you get around ...

chronicles

i'm reading this book now, "the fairwell chronicles" by anneli rufus. it's nonfiction, a straightforward look at some of the myriad ways people cope with death. i am consistently moved by each chapter. i recommend the book.

i'm about halfway through it, and i'll probably read a bunch tomorrow.

other news? i'm on a three-day weekend now. because there's planned computer downtime on sunday, i've got the day off. i'll make up the time a week from tomorrow. so: a three-day weekend this weekend, and a one-day weekend next weekend.

i'm thinking about browsing in a couple of bookstores tomorrow: king's books, the tacoma book center. a relaxing morning doing that, i think. i'll probably spend some time in the poetry aisles, as that's where my mind has been leaning this week.

i've jotted down some startlingly lyrical lines i come across in my job. there are strange turns of phrase in this gig that strike me from time to time. i am sometimes surprised at the vividness or the meter of a given term or string of terms, such contrast to the usual convoluted language that does its best to hide the meaning of the sentences.

i can see myself stealing a little, here and there, for the sake of an original poem.

that "jotted down" is a brash euphemism; truth be known, i kept an email to myself at home open through the day and typed such phrases (as well as words with interesting sounds) in it. at the end of the day i sent off, into the ether ... and it hasn't landed yet. i hope it lands sometime during the night; i might want to use some of those gems in the morning when i sit down here.

thanks johnny

i had another literary sort of dream. it's been a little while since i've had one. this one was about john ashbery, my favorite poet, easy. i'm nutty for his work, truly. in the dream he was terribly aged, all lumpy and pocked and puffy. and yet i recognized him! he had given up writing poems but was spending time with local youths, perhaps in something of an eccentric big brother capacity, and i don't mean orwellian. he was very doughy and friendly but i was sad that he had stopped writing.

maybe he was writing dorothy-parker-esque doodads but probably friendlier ones than hers, and on construction paper, and as inspirational gifts for kids. the setting was kind of sesame-street-y, but a little darker. if you can imagine such a thing. i was just visiting, or i was new to the area, and i could tell john had his eye on me.

in reality, i saw him read at the university of washington (in seattle!) not too long after i moved to the area. so this was 1999 or 2000. i really enjoyed his reading and then he signed my copy of "self-portrait in a convex mirror." a wee thrill.

so the dream makes me want to go back to writing poems. i have this urge twice or three times a year, maybe. stop with the fiction (the novel isn't going so smoothly at the moment anyway) and say whatever it is i'm wanting to say through free verse.

poo. i don't like these conflicts. poems? fiction? where am i?

sagan was here

uncanny, no?

erie canal etc

back from a little trip. errands and such. sundries.

i found an aspect of the new vehicle that i do not like. perhaps i will get used to it. in my hyundai, beautiful little car, when i desire to merge left i tend to look over my left shoulder and thus see what's what. safety and that. in this new vehicle, when i look over my left shoulder i cannot see out of the car. i see headrest, i see the left rear corner panel thing between the windows. i have to use mirrors and mirrors alone. perhaps i can change the position of the seat (the seat is crazy adjustable; i don't know the half of it) and thus somehow afford myself a leftward rear view. we shall see.

otherwise, may i say, the car is the shit.

and! kara gave me the cd above for my birthday and i was listening to it in the car (along with neil young and the dixie chicks) and it is kicking my ass! in a good way. damn i like the sound. old pete seeger songs i remember from my youth, rendered in big messy fashion. some fine songs.

not quite pets, not quite children

let's not knock our previous vehicles. i'm quite pleased with my 2000 hyundai elantra. it's treated me very well. we bought in 2002 just after the transmissed died again in my honda accord (quite a good car too).
kara's truck, a 1995 ford f150. this is the truck she drove across and over and around the country in. such an adventure that must have been. we're not actively selling the truck, but if someone's interested, we'll entertain an offer.
but yeah, these older vehicles are relegated to street parking now and the newby is cradled in the relative safety of our short driveway, as below.

bubble hasn't burst

the car is so friendly. it greets you. i think it currently has something like 15 miles on it, which is crazy. i did drive it yesterday evening. we went to the store, just for somewhere to go. it drives nicely, it really does. it's got a lot more pickup than my hyundai and the brakes are quicker to respond too. that will take some getting used to.

it is a pretty vehicle. it will have the use of the driveway for a while, to keep it clear of the crazies up and down our street. i'll drive it today on the errands i have planned.

check out my new ride

or, well, rather, kara's new ride. i'll get to drive it some! actually, she's going to make me drive it tonight when she gets home from work. i confess to a touch of anxiety regarding driving the thing. it's akin to my original fear of driving, which kept me from becoming licensed until the ripe age of 27. it's not as bad as that though. i just don't want to ding the thing! it's pretty! lots of bells & whistles.

these are not good photos, as it was dark in the dealership yesterday evening when we took possession. better snaps will come, rest assured.

there was no issue, by the bye, with the abrupt departure of the salesman who dealt with us those weeks ago. this mazda dealership is family run, currently on generation #4, and they seem quite reputable. if you want a mazda (or, apparently, a suzuki - but why would you want a suzuki?!) you could do worse than russ dunmire of tacoma. after the hushed-up disappearance of "brian" (if that was his real name) we worked with matt dunmire and his sister (whose first name i have forgotten, but she's a dunmire when at work and something else when not - there's an annoying jingle on tv and she told us how rough it was for her in high school over that).

anyway. everything was groovy. actually, better than groovy, because we got a good rate on our financing so our monthly payments are going to be lower than "brian" had suggested (i hesitate to say "promised").

so yeah. mazda 3, hatchback. 2006. moon roof. six-cd changer. airbags up the yinyang. it's crazy comfortable. and it's red but not fire-engine red. it's called "copper red" i think. kara has mixed feelings about the color. it's not as red as she would like, yet it's not a color car one sees a whole lot. and we were told that mazda won't be producing more cars of this model in this color any more. so we have a limited edition vehicle here.
the headlights are kinda cool, no?

no brian no

from our uh-oh department, this news:

kara just called the mazda dealer to check on the status of our new car. last we heard it was being shipped from the factory in japan to tacoma. it's due any time. however, apparently, since we were in there buying the car and putting money on it, just two weeks ago, the guy who sold us the car ... quit.

so at this point i think the people at the dealership are trying to find our paperwork. our fear right now is, as this is a popular car, it was sold out from under us after this guy quit. his name is brian. another fear of course is that they have no trace of our paperwork or the fact that we gave them money.

i advise all to steer clear of brians and brads.

i hope we're not getting totally screwed about this car.

no brad no

well, the dinner was largely disappointing. on prior visits the service was excellent but this time it was plain poor. if you go to stanley and seafort's ask not to sit at brad's table. he was very tall (which is not in itself a bad thing, i suppose). i've decided i don't at all care for waiter chatter. waiters chat in seattle; they're probably trained to chat. they tell jokes and have a patter. brad wasn't so bad in that regard, though there were some unnecessary jokes. he talked with his hands as well as his voice and everything was "my pleasure," "absolutely," and "excellent choice," to the extent that i did not believe a word he said. he was an insincere waiter.

kara ordered a steak and she likes her steaks well done. no pink, no blood. on our prior visits to this restaurant, and to other finer steak places, the waiter has waited (as is a wait staffer's wont) after the steak is delivered for kara to cut into it and evaluate its done-ness. negligent brad failed to do so, and of course the steak was not cooked to kara's satisfaction.

it was 15 minutes before brad came back. (i had grilled salmon and it was cooked fine and quite delicious.) we flagged the man down, after a few attempts. finally he took her plate away at our request. many minutes later kara, from across the restaurant, saw him hand the plate to another restaurant employee, who returned it to us. it appeared brad was afraid to face us! although, perhaps, the deliverer of the plate was a chef of some sort, an authority. though he did not identify himself as such. the handing-off thing was weird and suspicious.

anyway, then the steak was cooked enough. still, though it was not nearly as tasty as other steaks had at this restaurant or other places. gary's steak house, asado, both on 6th, close to home. and kara was ticked. we did have further drinks and dessert but the tip we left reflected our views.

aside from brad and the meat, however, the experience was good. we drank some wine, talked about things. then we came home. it was fine. now it's saturday and i'm eating shredded wheat. kara's sleeping. i think we'll bake some chicken tonight, simple. it's overcast at the moment and likely it will remain so. i'm going to do a little writing for a while, and then have a shower.

now we are 4

oh yes. four years ago today (i won't say four years ago this minute, because i might not have been awake yet, but i would be awake soon), pretty much all day long i was a-shaking in my shoes, because on the evening of 6/8/2002 i got married.

happy anniversary to us, then!

we're going to stanley and seafort's for dinner, where we'll likely drop a pretty penny on food and drink. kara's developed a taste for the finer whiskeys and likes to broaden her knowledge. i don't know what i'll have to drink; i'll probably try something new. but they do good steaks and fish and things and we'll have something excellent to eat.

there's a small rush of anniversaries in our family coming up. my parents were married on 6/11/1966, which makes sunday their 40th. i find that impressire and inspiring. my sister and her husband rick (who is currently doing this) were wed on 7/1/1995, so their 11th is impending. my cousin ian married betsy on (i think) 7/5/2002 (correct me if i'm wrong, someone), so they are in the same boat as kara and i.

quite a month, then. happy marriages to all! i still think it's weird that i'm married. it's wonderful, don't get me wrong. there were just a lot of years in which i couldn't imagine such a thing happening. it's not what i had expected to happen.

but then, how much of what i'm doing with my life (being married, living in tacoma of all places, working as a transcriptionist of all things) would i have forseen a decade ago? heck, in 1996 i was living with the abovementioned ian [this is an old, old site] in a small apartment in carrboro, nc, spending time with christa, working at visart video.

or had i moved to blacksburg, va, already? no, i didn't move to blacksburg (definitely a retarded move on my part) until 1997. that was still in my future, while thankfully it's now in my past. anyway. blacksburg is a story of a totally different girl, a story i don't particularly enjoy reliving.

but being married to kara is the best thing that could have happened to me. i cannot imagine living out my life with anyone else. kara is my life now. i love her like crazy. and tonight we're going to eat a really good meal!

on the down-low

well, in a manner of speaking. in an effort to make life easier for our injured dog and for our infirm dog, the other day we took apart our bed. it's rather a tall bed and sagan's agony upon attempting to jump up has been poorly disguised. so we took the bed apart so it would be lower.

unfortunately, it's still too high for sagan to make it up there without a yelp. that dang boxspring. there have been three attempts on sagan's part to get up there, and kara's fear now is that sagan will not want to even try again, even once she's better. sagan's a dog what learns. (of course, i don't particularly mind that she's not on the bed!) kara will retrain her, once she's better.

eliot was freaked out by the change, but then he's rather dumb even for a cat.

anyway. i like the bed on the floor. it's firmer now. and it's kind of cozy being on the floor. a touch cooler. feels kind of collegiate.

the bed's for sale, by the way. it's a four-poster, handmade, hewn from a living tree. well, okay, not quite. kara's cousin-in-law made it specifically for her. but it won't go up our stairs; the posts are too tall. so we're done with it now.

any takers? shout out.

followup

i'll end the suspense. it's not bone cancer.

at least, bone cancer wasn't mentioned. it's not entirely clear what sagan's problem is, but the x-rays were clear. i saw the films. we have them to show our regular vet, in case sagan doesn't improve. not that i know how to read a radiograph, but they look kind of cool. doggie hip bones. so: evidently, no fractures, no bone spurs.

it could be hip dysplasia. it could be arthritis, though she's a bit young for that yet. most likely it's a muscle strain in her lumbosacral area. it could be a pinched nerve, and we'll be watching for signs and symptoms of that.

she was given medication at the clinic that doped her up. we have pills that are antiinflammatories and analgesics. sagan takes pills well. she was much better when i got home from work yesterday afternoon than when i'd left in the morning. and this morning, when i let her out of her crate (we were going to leave her out all night, so she could stretch out and not be cramped, but she wanted to go in) she didn't squeal in pain. so she's already improving.

the weird news is that the vet said she thought sagan had some pit bull in her, based on the shape of her head. that would explain her aggression (recently in check) toward max. pit bulls are dogs kara has long avoided, so it's a touch disconcerting that there's one (a fraction of one) in our house. but there it is. it's sagan.

kara's off today, because she worked the weekend. she's taking max to the vet to get followup bloodwork, rechecking his liver enzymes. his liver could be going. the first set of enzymes didn't look so hot, apparently. today, otherwise, kara will watch over sagan and get some much-needed rest. she was coughing again through the night.

me? i'm going to work. in just a short while.

sagan

sagan has an unknown ailment. yesterday, when kara was at work, sagan seemed to have a pain in one of her back legs. when she put a lot of weight on it, when she tried to jump up onto the bed, she yelped in that awful high-pitched screech dogs have, and didn't jump. i looked her over, checked her out, but could not find an injury. she seemed happy to have my attention.

she was pretty quiet for the rest of the evening. once, she was lying near the dishwasher and i went to put a dish in, she got up quickly and yelped again, but again i could find no source of her pain.

there was no blood. she let me touch her rump and legs and feet with no problem. no yelping.

she was quiet all night. when i opened her crate this morning, she yelped when she stood up. kara of course came running. right now kara's made a small bed on the floor and is lying there with the dog. kara, who was up all night coughing; her cold's not getting better. and i'm feeling bad for being up here typing and not down there, even though there's nothing i can do.

before i leave for work this morning i'll help kara put sagan in the car. they'll go to the emergency vet clinic and see if they can see what's going on with this dog.

i don't know if she has a fracture somewhere or what. even if i think of horrible serious life-threatening things it could be, i don't know what to think. i don't know what it could be.

vulnerable

my new pet. i had to act fast with my camera (and my wits) or this little creature would have gotten clean away. this is one of about six i saw in our front lawn this morning. i rather like having them around. though they're probably bad for something, right? i don't know what the longterm goals of a snail are. (i took another couple of pictures, that didn't come out, of a pair that appeared postcoitus - will they die content now?) they eat grass or dirt or something else i want to keep, right? will they eat my house? am i going to have to open up a can of whup-ass on these sweet slimy snails? say it ain't so. i've already named him felix.