Mao-Mao Part I

I am a dog person. I've always owned dogs and, if I have it my way, always will. Dogs are whip smart, love you unconditionally, are loyal to a fault, and care whether you live or die. Cats are annoying, sneaky, irreverent, and if you are hanging off the edge of a cliff on the precipice of death, may - just may - wander over to see if you've fallen yet. I don't hate cats, I just prefer dogs. No cats! No, no no. And now, I am a cat owner. *sigh* Okay, here's the deal. Around October, the library staff at work noticed a tail-less gray cat and her two kittens (one fluffy gray and the other deep black, but all with bright gold-yellow eyes) hanging around behind the library, hiding under the shed in the back. We were compelled to do, what all animal lovers do, that is, we ran out and bought cat food and crowded by the window to watch them wander out and eat from chipped workroom dishes. Being the aforementioned "Non Cat Person," I participated in the care of the little family, scolded other staff members for forgetting to put out water and kibbles on my off days, and watched from the window during my lunch hour but tried to remain detached. More involved staff members bought kitty toys, tuna fish and spent their lunch hours sitting outside by the shed hoping to lure the kittens out. Mama Cat glared at us through the window, daring us to make a move toward her babies, who delighted us with kitten play. Our library family was drawn together; united toward the care of this little trio. Unfortunately, our worst fears were realized when Mama Cat disappeared, perhaps struck by a car in the traffic that raced alongside our building. Now our concern for the kittens was magnified and we redoubled our efforts to capture them before the weather got cold. Gray was captured in November and adopted by one of us, which left Black alone under the shed and became the focus of our efforts. Only in Texas can you say, "I need to catch a cat" and have six people step forward and offer traps. Traps...eek. The first few tries ended in disaster, with the capture of a nasty, snarling possum and then a huge black adult cat that I dubbed "Lucifer" due to its evil glare from the cage. Where was Black kitty and was she okay? I, the self-professed non Cat Person, went home worried every night. Finally, with the aid of a co-worker's determined dad, who showed up almost daily with traps, small cups of mystery meat and dressed in camouflage, kitty was captured! But now what? Gray kitty's new owner couldn't take in another and no one else was interested. Finally the decision to take her to a shelter (with dubious hopes that she would be adopted) was made and off she went. The right thing to do, certainly. But after all these weeks of worrying and watching, the emptiness was palpable. The library staff turned away from the window and went back to work. (Part 2 to follow)

Who Let The Cat Out of The Bag?

Meet the newest member of our family: Harley. She's so named because of the deep, rumbling motorcycle sounds she makes when she's purring, which I'm told means she's happy. Her story is kinda sad but has a happy ending because we're happy she's part of our family. Sam...not as thrilled, but he's working on it. Maybe later I'll blog about how Kitty Mao-mao (that's her nickname), the no-tail kitten who doesn't know how to Meow, came to be: Secret Asian Ninja Cat. 

Sheltie vs Kitty

Uh oh...

Stuffed

Thanksgiving is ofver? I is ready for left-ofvers.

The Kiddie Table

Bill Melendez Prod., Charles M. Schultz

Every Thanksgiving dinner brings to mind the iconic status symbol of the real difference between generations. The ultimate measuring stick of the vertically impaired. The true distance between childhood and adulthood.  Yes, I'm talking about the "Kiddie Table." I have fond memories of the Kiddie Table. As children, every holiday my sister and cousins and I were relegated not just to another table, but to a whole different room, separated from the adults.  We were allowed to dip from the adult buffet table (pronounced "Boo Fay" by my family) but then were shooed into "our place" as soon as our plates were filled. And we knew our place. If one of us strayed into the grownup room and took a seat, the rest of us would immediately sense the infraction and scurry to correct the insubordination. New additions (adopted) or visiting cousins were given the shakedown by us older cousins and shown their empty spot at the card table. YOUR chair folds up, don't forget that. The grown up table was for serious conversations like, who was getting a kitchen remodeled or how much one could expect to pay for a used lawn mower at a garage sale. That was fine by us. The Kiddie Table was OUR area. We told gross jokes, mixed all our food up in one cup to create the Ultimate Most Disgusting Thanksgiving Meal Ever and then tried to talk the younger cousins into tasting it. We hid terrible things in mashed potatoes, dropped cranberry sauce into glasses of Coca-Cola when one of them went to the restroom, and excelled at quickly reverting to the the Model Minority - we were trained to be - whenever an adult wandered into our sacred domain. It was a mini hierarchy of sorts, with us older cousins acting as babysitters; some shaking their heads at the juvenile behavior of the others, some participating.  Me, I was right in the thick of it, usually recommending what prank to play and then leading the charge against the uninitiated.  I know you're shocked. I think of those days with great fondness, when we didn't even have to worry about cleaning up, much less preparing the mountains of food that magically appeared every holiday.  After dinner, we'd scatter to play tag or Fruit Basket Turnover, which I just found out is an Asian game (who knew? I guess I'm oblivious; I still don't get Chinese Fire Drills). The grownups retreated into their requisite gender-specific corners: men in front of the television, women in the kitchen to clean up (that's another blog rant). Those were days unencumbered by scary news stories or those pesky government safety warnings. We burned leaves in ditches and leaped through the smoke, set off bottle rockets in the city, biked alone where ever we wanted and spent many summer hours on our stomachs dipping styrofoam cups into sludgy ditch water for tadpoles. Those were our Wonder Years, forever gone. Would I ever have let my son do any of those things when he was my age? Are you kidding? As an only child, I didn't let him light a match until he was ten, and he sure as heck never sat at a Kiddie Table. I'm glad for the extra safety precautions, I suppose.  But sometimes I mourn the fact that he never got to experience the pure, joyful satisfaction of watching your younger cousin swill his glass of Dr Pepper, completely unaware of the nasty Brussels sprout waiting for him at the bottom.  Ahhh. Eventually, we all graduated to the Grownup Table and, sadly, to all the work that came along with it.  Had I known that, I would have stayed at the Kiddie Table forever (here Tristan would say, "well, you still fit!"), still wondering in blissful ignorance where all that food came from. No wonder they called it The Wonder Years.

Just Because

Always beautiful Sam.

Happy Birthday Tristan!!

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a 
hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you."

~ A. A. Milne

Happy 21st Birthday, Tristan! 

(This is how I'll always think of you!)

Hard Times

 

I'm In A Philly Mood

Great song...great voice.

What Secret Asian Girl is Reading Now: Life in Eighty Minutes

"There are lots of deficient numbers that are just one larger than the sum of their divisors, but there are no abundant numbers that are just one smaller than the sum of theirs. Or rather, no one has ever found one."

"Why is that?"

"The answer is written in God's notebook," said the Professor.

- exerpt from The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

What would it be like to only be able to remember your life 80 minutes at a time? Every 80 minutes, your memories would be erased and everything would start over. That's the premise of a sweet and substantial novel by Yoko Ogawa, The Housekeeper and the Professor. A young, single mother and her ten-year old son take on the daunting job of keeping house for a brilliant professor of mathematics whose mental abilities have been hampered (but not diminished) by a head-on car accident. Although he requires the aid of scraps of paper scribbled with notes like, "new housekeeper," and, "I can only remember 80 minutes at a time," pinned to his tattered coat to function, there is no forgetting the logic and comfort of his beloved mathematics.  Math provides order to the Professor's chaos and his near-superhuman abilities to clarify the most complex mathematical equations give testament to the tenacity of the human mind even when injured. The only character with a name is "Root," the housekeeper's ten-year old son, so nicknamed by the Professor because his head is flat and dipped down at the end, like a square root symbol.  "A symbol which is strong with infinite capabilities" is probably the highest compliment one can get from a math genius. Root triggers deep, grandfatherly feelings within the elderly teacher, and likewise Root learns how to make sense of his world through the teachings of the professor. Together they discuss math, baseball and life itself, in 80 minute increments. As the three become family, secrets are revealed, and even the housekeeper finds her mind wandering to mathematical equations to make sense of it all. As I read this story, I was amazed at how the professor could simplify the most difficult equations even for math-challenged people like me. Simpler, but still baffling. I think that's why some people like math so much. There's always an answer...one correct answer. But I prefer to lounge in the uncertainty of life's problems.  Simple solutions come from simple minds, I always say. Life is more complex than that. As the professor explains, some things are unproveable and the answer is only written in God's notebook, not meant for any human to know. Still, I wouldn't be against forgetting some things I've experienced in my life. God's notebook has perforated pages, right?

You May Think It's Funny....But It's SNOT

Why have I had a head cold all week?

"Honey, take your lieberry card out of your 
mouth and give it to the lady!" 
Good grief.

Get Your Flu Shot

Swine flu is still out there so get your flu shot! It's a 3-parter this year but combined into one shot. Apparently, I'm too OLD to get the nasal spray. Pppbbttt!!!  Check out this site for some popular misconceptions about the flu shot. Remember: You can pick your nose. And you can pick your friends.  But you can't wipe your friends on the couch. Remember who told you that.

Tree Frog The Sequel: It's Not Safe To Go In The Back Yard

Damn yoouuu, Tree Frog! Why are you terrorizing me?? Only a few moments ago, I had my second encounter with the tree frogs living in the passion fruit vine outside my back door. If you remember, the little "cuties" kept affixing their sticky little bodies to the glass door and then flinging themselves at me when I'd open the door to let Sam out. The last time almost gave me a heart attack. I've taken to opening the door in "armed Ninja protection mode." Okay, so I crack the door with a towel over my head and hold a salad fork (you use what you've got). I think those frogs must be training the newly born froglets in a sort of miniature amphibian Jihadist attack camp aimed at giving me a seizure of some sort. The past few days I've noticed a new fellow on the door, albino, I think because instead of bright green, he's mostly white with just a splotch of green on his back. I just now opened the door for Sam and the little critter was staring at me from about 6" above eye level. I tried to shoo him away and...he HURLED himself at my head (much like seeing a flying squirrel in full spread formation launch himself from a tree at you) straight at my HEAD, landing in my HAIR. AAIIIIIIYYII!!! Now, let's pause and take this moment to imagine the frenetic gyrations I was able to perform in order to shake the sticky booger out of my hair. I'll have to imagine with you because the whole episode is a blur to me.  I vaguely remember screeching and flinging my head in and out of the curtains much like dancing the Hokey Pokey on acid. And at some point, there was a cold, wet, stickiness on my cheek. Unless someone pitched a pre-masticated GummiBear at my face, I'll assume it was Frogzilla. As for Sam, I think he watched me with detached interest for the first few minutes and... then left the room.  Finally, I saw the terrorist all splayed out on the side of the couch (in my mind it was the size of my open palm) and I was able to gather my wits about me enough to herd the Great White Amphibian out the door and back into the wild from which it came. Leapin' lizards!!  'Course, I'm sure the frog is at home now going, "Dude, you should have seen it, it was freakin' HUGE. And that hair could use some conditioner..."  Oh, sorry, I digressed.  Sam, I'm sorry but you're never going outside again.

Book Review: Killing Mr. Griffin

Each year, to celebrate Banned Book Week, I try to read a challenged book that I have not previously read. This year, I was intrigued by a selection that, the last time I checked, was #33 on the American Library Association's Most Frequently Banned Book List.  In case you're not familiar with this list, it contains books that have been challenged. According to the ALA, "a challenge is an attempt to remove or censor materials based upon the objections of a person or group. A successful challenge results in a ban." There are many reasons why a book can be challenged: inappropriate language, offensive terminology, plot inappropriate to age...the list goes on and on.  In effect: censorship. If you know anything about me, you can imagine how this makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom has recorded 7,000 challenges since 1990; over 500 in 2002 alone. Lot of closed minds out there.  And a LOT of sharp sticks where they shouldn't be.  So I not only discourage anyone from paying any heed to the warnings, I ENCOURAGE young readers to go of their way to read what people who think they know what's best for us DON'T want us to read. "Read irresponsibly" is my new favorite mantra.  So, this year I read Lois Duncan's Killing Mr. Griffin. This one has been around since 1978 and was ALA's Best Book for Young Adults in 1978 and 1994. The plot is what caused parents to freak out, and to be fair, I can sort of see why. A group of social fringe teens get mad at their English teacher and plot to kidnap him to scare him into giving them easier assignments. They rope in a nerdy girl who doesn't really share their grievances but agrees to help in order to be accepted.  Old, old themes. Teen angst, teens trying to fit in, teens being stupid and using poor judgment.  Unfortunately, the plan goes wonky when Mr. Griffin unexpectedly dies from a heart ailment that goes unmedicated during the kidnapping.  There's a few curse words but nothing most teens haven't heard before 10 o'clock in the morning. Of course, the problem is the plot. The parents who challenged this book were afraid that reading about killing a teacher might put the idea into their children's brains and mayhem would ensue.  I think kids are much more sophisticated (and smarter) than that. I WAS a teen in 1978, and although some twisted individuals might have entertained the idea after reading this, come on...it's not a NEW concept. Who *hasn't* been so angry at someone that you wished they would die? Not literally, but disappear from your life?  Okay, maybe it's just me. But no work of fiction can *make* anyone who is not already predisposed to this kind of behavior commit an act of violence. Columbine caught us, as parents, asleep on the job. Yes, bad things can happen. So let's talk about it and understand why it's a bad idea. At least that's my opinion. If anything, I think a book like this is important for teens to read. Without being preachy or judgmental (which is more than I can say for the folks who filed the complaint), the book demonstrates the consequences of our actions and how frivolous ideas can quickly turn into life changing moments. Life can turn on a dime and doing something uncharacteristic just to "fit in" is simply not worth it. I think it stands up well for a 32 year old book. The story is more relevant today than ever and I believe kids will see themselves in the characters and will encourage critical thinking.  Put this one on your teen's night stand and talk about it together. Read irresponsibly.

Can't Seem To Get Over....Unngh!

It's like this for me every morning.