door bells

Two things to add to your wisdom ledger - one a receivable and one a payable. Actally, I have no idea which is which but when I typed the word ledger I immediately transformed into accounting man, circa 1981.

X brought back a wonderful set of chimes from Vermont and they've been hanging in our front yard tree for a few weeks. They're quite subtle and well-tuned (that sounds of a restaurant review) and can't actually be heard from any great distance. In fact, L. told me she can't hear them from her side of the house. Last night they seemed loudish to me whilst vaguely keeping me up around 3a; I worried that they might be bothering our neighbor so I decided to hop up, head outside, remove them from the tree, and put them on the ground for the rest of the night. Right. If you ever come upon the urge to 'gently take down some chimes in the middle of the night', rest assured that there is no way it won't sound the equivalent of strangling a cat in the middle of the night. Feel free to glance at the chimes, ponder the chimes, attempt to come up with the calculus that allows you to gently free them from their own noise - just know that it won't be quiet or pretty. There's a lot of clanging that essentially could be mistaken as a chime thief running rampant through the neighborhood.

On to doors. Our gym has one set of double doors. Every time I visit I end up waiting for X to finish yoga and I'm sitting by the doors and watching 70% of the people pull the one door that is locked. Why is the door locked? It's always the same door. Is it broken? Is there an issue with people using that door? Why even have the door? I know that somewhere within the blog is another similar story about a half-broken door in Barcelona. Who writes twice about doors in a single lifetime?

collections of things

I try to get out as often as possible - there aren't many  venues in D.C. that I haven't seen/done/did. Last weekend the 61 headed to the Philips Collection for an amble and coffee. I've certainly been missing quite a bit: it's a fantastic collection that fits nicely into my top list of doable-sized museums. As X pointed out after about 75 minutes, the eyes and mind begin to glaze. We ejected to the courtyard cafe and drank coffee on a coolish (by August standards) D.C. morning. Truth be told, joining the Collection would be well worth it to simply have free access to what is a very nice cafe in the midst of DuPont Circle. I'll be checking the cost.

As a last DuPont aside, the single CD store in the greater D.C. area that I routinely 'clacked clacked' music in has finally shuttered. I've bitched about this before so I won't get too deep, but it's horribly depressing. I do have an exchange in my area that stocks mostly used with the occasional new release hidden amongst the gems. I always feel a little more complete when I wonder into the dusty bins.

After the Philips we wandered a few bookstores in search of who knows what - I bought a 1932 edition of a 'Games' book that covers more than one person needs to know. What we immediately learned that night is that what we play as Charades is officially called Burlesque. I'm fairly sure the adults will be much more interested in gaming if the rascals are screaming about a Burlesque in the living room.



As we plan for the next bit of time off I'm gathering information for NYC - we going to be in the city for four days/three nights in early November. We are staying at an Army base hotel in the southern portion of Brooklyn (Bensonhurst) and will train into Manhattan in the AMs. We've already booked a journey to north (?) Brooklyn to visit some legendary bar owned by one of X's boss' family; it looks stunning in the bar (and grill) tapestry of America. I think, speaking of tapestry, we are planning on a shot up to The Cloisters during the weekend; together with a visit to the New School for L., that's the current agenda. Input appreciated and desired on other hot spots. (I'm already deep into checking on music venues....)

Lastly, prior to our collection visit and bookstore journey we stopped at the beloved Litteri's for a sandwich and fixings for pizza night - pepperoni, great cheese, etc. The crew knows L. at the deli counter and as she headed from the deli to find some more balsamic, the king of the deli looks at me and says, "She knows her stuff. Never gets anything cheap," I created this, don't I know it...

just a bunch of pussies

I was shopping yesterday and noted a woman studying the ingredients on a loaf of WonderBread; there’s no need for that kind of behavior. You will read exactly zero on the WonderBread bag that will entice you buy the product.

Okay, let’s talk cats. There was a study a few weeks ago that outlined (via mounted cat-cams) how many small animals and birds cats generally kill. There’s some follow-on talk about it at Andrew Sullivan today.  (The video is pretty creepy so watch at your own risk, you don’t need it to understand the questions I have.) Is there some environmental issue with the number of birds and bunnies that cats kill every year? I’m not being cheeky, I honestly want to know – even as a somewhat environmental liberal you’d have to show me some serious facts. I’m sure Lemon kills two or three living creatures every single day – she’s like that. Do I care? No. I do wonder about a few comments in the post: first, what is an “outdoor cat apologist” exactly? My generally pet- having rule is that I don’t want any pet that is locked in a house or cage-like venue, ever. I’m much more likely to hassle people who keep their cats locked up as if they are living on the Serengeti and they fear the dingoes (I have no idea if there are dingoes on the Serengeti…). Second, what does “Still, the bird death toll could be even more seriously reduced if people stopped letting their cats roam about unsupervised,” mean? Does this person think there are cat parks out there? Or that anyone can actually supervise their roaming cat? “Hey, Henry, get your cat supervision kit on. I need you to follow Pumpkin around this afternoon for four hour and make sure he isn’t doing any, well, cat stuff.” Lastly, anyone whose advice – or solution to this massive dead bird ‘problem’ – is to keep cats locked up in a house is a moron.

“…We found that house cats will kill a wide variety of animals, including: lizards, voles, chipmunks, birds, frogs, and small snakes.” Yep. Yep. Yep. And Yep. What is a vole?

Okay, I read some of the study outline/presser and the implication is that “one in three American bird species are in decline,” because of cats. I’d like to see some more data on that fact. The University of Nebraska punditry added that feral cats were responsible for the “extinction of 33 bird species worldwide.”  Once again, there are no other factors involved in declining/extinct bird population aside from my cats? I’m not buying it.

mysterious

As an opening, The Eleven is engaged. Very happy. I don't know a better way to write that news - now you have it.

We are on our way back from a week in Vermont; in Danbury, CT, to be exact. I think nearly all of my readers were actually in Stowe with us so my update might wander a bit from the norm. The weather was clear and hot for most of the week. P., L., and I drove up to Craftsbury Common one lovely afternoon and if you'd like to find me five-to-seven years from now then you'll have to drive a ways into the Northeast Kingdom. We can get X working at the high school and I'll finagle my way into work as an in-house cook/chef at the college. I'm not kidding.

Sam Johnson. I don't know if that's his real name, but based on vague internet work he's the man we call the 'slack wire king', of Burlington, VT. I saw him on Church St. in the summer of 2006 - a consummate professional entertainer. Apparently, he's worked of late in Washington State and New Zealand. He has no internet presence, except for a few youtube clips, and we'd hoped to see him at this weekend's Festival of Fools in town. It wasn't to be - his mystery life and, in fact, actual presence on Earth is standing on shaky ground.

G. won the second Ducketta on the river last night. My entry, Nut 3 (heir to defending champion, Nut 1) drown at the first challenge. Needless to say, he was unable to keep the syndicate's winning ways intact. I managed to defend my Stowe Invitational Golf in Miniature title via an absolutely lucky 18th hole hole-in-one; a move that took me from two strokes down to the trophy. Wholly unfair, but what can you do? The three teens all spend a morning ziplining out at Smuggler's Notch, and gabbed for a few hours afterwards about the seven zips - one that ran for 1,000 feet. One of their tour partners was filming a bit for the resort and if you look quickly you can spot all three in the video.

X has a new job - it was a busy week - that should commence in about a month. Updates as the time nears.

Fantastic dinners at both A Single Pebble and Cafe Shelbourne.

Lastly, I hate the New Yorker's new e-reader format. Consider yourselves lucky to only have to hear about it for one sentence.