wideeyedfunk

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Far in space, far in time.

Published by wideeyedfunk

The mighty Pathfinder and I rolled down Main Street, heading home after a day of thinking and talking. Same as everyone, same as always. My freshly opened bag of Tyrrell’s Handcooked English Chips – Mature Cheddar and Chives flavor (flavour?) – rustled on the console next to me. “Crunch, crunch, crunch,” my chomping teeth said at a red light. “Crunch, crunch,” while we waited for a school bus to drop some kids.

I checked the back of the bag for interesting potato chip news at an egregiously long red light. I was eating Lady Rosetta Potatoes grown in Herefordshire. Well ok. I examined the next chip in the afternoon light. It sorted of looked like a Herefordshire potato. “Crunch.” Tasted like one, too. I got to wondering about that potato. Who planted it? Was the farmer dreaming of a better life, or was she living the rural dream? Did the tractor need a new water pump and was the mortgage due so all hopes were with this potato and it’s brethren? Could the potato feel the sun and the rain as it grew? I bet it bounced along the conveyor all full of potato joy and fulfillment as it headed into the Tyrrell’s chip factory.

That potato traveled so far for me. I marveled over the weirdness of our world that I could know where my chips were grown, in another country, across an ocean. That they shook and shivered their way to me on a big cargo airliner, in trucks, through customs, across states. I selected another chip and crunched with appreciation. Perhaps just one more…in thanks for all the folks who cooperated to bring me the chips.

The Pathfinder and I wheelied onto our street and backed up our drive. Then I saw it, the pallet of fossiliferous limestone flagstones had been delivered! I threw the Pathfinder into park and flung myself out of the car. The flagstones are deep marine blue with reddish layers of fossil crinoid stems and brachiopods and chunky masses of flattened vegetation. My heart pounded. I have an ocean from millions of years ago resting in my backyard. I sniffed the rocks. They smell like rocks, not ocean.

My potato chip wonder now seems absurd, but I leaned against the ancient ocean and ate a Herefordshire chip. I looked at my iron garden koi, who was made 6,000 miles away and who will float in the air above an ancient ocean once the patio goes in. Far in space, far in time – converging in my world.

WideEyedFunk Progenitor is Also WideEyed Over Spring

Published by wideeyedfunk

*Guest written by WideEyedMom from her home in central Virginia.

“When we left for Florida last week there were little peeping buds of pale chartreuse on the trees and a smoking yellow mist at the tops. We arrived back yesterday afternoon to a darker chartreuse and a deep spicy aroma of oak woods. The mist from the trees is now on all the porches. The oaks are alive with bug-eating woodpeckers, darting bluebirds, finches and cardinals. A little bird again built its nest upon the patio light fixture and Choppie the Cat monitors it every day from the upstairs decking. I have peas and onions waving their heads and summer is almost upon us…”

Surrender to the Sweatpants

Published by wideeyedfunk

Miss Tibbit-the-Useless-Little-Black-Dog is pressed against me here on the sofa. She is super fluffy and still a little damp. Hamish is asleep in his chair looking rumpled. We all had a tense evening and I made an early surrender to the sweatpants.

You know what I’m talking about. There comes a point when a person submits to the notion that the day is over. That there is no need to be in any way presentable. In this moment, sweatpants are the only choice. Not pajamas because those aren’t even clothes. Sweatpants. Elastic waist. Sometimes, preferably, elastic ankles. Droopy. Large. Sickeningly comforting. So horrifying that even if the house were on fire I’d change into other pants.

Mine are 11 years old. I bought them when I was writing my PhD thesis and I vowed I would wear no other pants until it was finished. That took four months. Now they are a faded navy blue. They have zips at the ankles just in case I’m being active and need to shed my sporty outer layer. That’s just funny to think about, really. Because sweatpants activities in the WideEyedHousehold include 1) getting another glass of wine, and 2) watching tv. They used up their energy and intellectual capacity during the thesis writing.

Today I lost a conflict with a copier/scanner, fed the dermestid beetles, struggled to make sense of conflicting bone measuring schemes, researched grants, skimmed an entire volume on the extinction and extirpation of birds in Oceania. I returned overdue books to the library and filed paperwork in three places. I was thinking about the sweatpants before 3pm.

Then, just when the day should be verging toward evening: The Laundromutt.

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Members of the WideEyedHousehold are cleaner. Softer. Less objectionable. But worn down to the bone. WideEyedSpouse just walked past my end of the sofa – in pajamas. “Straight to pajamas?” I asked. “I’m cutting out the middle man,” he said.

San Francisco and the Stealth Cast

Published by wideeyedfunk

My WideEyedBrokenArm and I stumbled through San Francisco last week. We presented research findings. We learned about other people’s new research. We fumbled through botched handshake attempts and embarrassing dropsies of all kinds.

Then, the Stealth Cast and I went out into the world. (The bone doc says a black cast is a Stealth Cast because of its Ninja-like invisibility. The eye slides across it. Sort of.)

SFO trolley I slung my good arm around an outside pole on the Powell-Hyde trolley car line and wing-dinged my way across Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Chinatown to Fisherman’s Wharf. I could feel the wind of our passage blowing through the fiberglass of my Stealth Cast as it dangled in the open space of the city streets. The trolley driver rolled his eyes at me and kept yelling for me to “Hold on!” I held on even though my knees got weak when the Golden Gate Bridge loomed over the city next to us. Even when the curviest street in the city went by. Even when I saw San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz gleaming in the sun.

My WideEyedFriends patiently waited for me to make squashed penny souvenirs all over the place. We poked into galleries filled with garish, sublime, lovely art and gee-gaws. I fell in love with a $4,000 painting by Bernard Weston. The Stealth Cast, intoxicated by the trolley ride said to get it. The Spouse thought not when I mentioned it via text message.

WEF SFO Bay We heard sea lions barking in the distance and tracked them down. They had taken over an entire set of docks where they lounged like the laziest dogs in the universe until a tourist boat went by. Then, “ook, ook, ook,” they all barked and hollered, squirming for position. Just like Miss Tibbit in the parlor window at home. How nice. At lunch I went mad and bought a two foot long crab made of sourdough bread to haul back to Buffalo. I just toasted one of his claws for lunch. “Tasty, but weird,” the Spouse announced.

SFO ch Chinatown tempted beyond all reason. The Stealth Cast prevented real shopping – but my WideEyes still worked and I saw and wanted so many things. In the apothecary, tea for broken bones. In the gee-gaw shop, a jade chicken. Foo dogs by the dozen, silk robes and scarves and dresses. Woks. Terracotta soldiers. I dreamed of a packing crate and a small army of non-casted minions to pack and ship the goods.

So tired I was mostly just falling forward with each step, Stealth Cast a weight at the end of my arm, the Friends and I holed up in a small Italian restaurant at the top of a hill. One plate of mushroom ravioli and a glass of Chianti SFO fire later and I was ready to retire to the fireplace sofas in my hotel. The Stealth Cast and I stared into the fire and thought about packing up and riding the BART train back to the airport.

We also thought about staying.

You can’t drink the ocean.

Published by wideeyedfunk

Hamish the Corgi, Miss Tibbit the Useless Little Black Dog, and I piled into my parent’s old Chevy truck. I opened the passenger window just enough for Tibbit’s head and shoulders and so that Hamish could get his nose into the air. Any more than that and Miss Tibbit would shove her entire body out of the window and air surf her way to the beach. As it was her ears flapped in the rainy wind of Upper Township while we cruised through the marshes and neighborhoods on the way to the beach.

The WideEyedHousehold was on a mini-break to the shore – and while the WideEyedSpouse wasted his time inland, meeting with a friend and talking about cars, moto-cross, and computers, the dogs and I hit the beach.

We walked for a few miles but in the dense fog we couldn’t tell. Our feet were moving but the scenery didn’t change. Gulls flapped at Hamish when he ran in looping arcs around them. He was bound to be frustrated in his corgi heart, no one told the gulls that they were meant to be herded. Miss Tibbit sniffed a hermit crab carcass all over, she’ll know that carcass when she meets it again. I took deep breaths of the one hundred percent humid, salt air. It made the back of my neck tingle and I felt the positive energy to my toes. The Buffalo winter soot clogging my lungs eased a bit. My hair grew and grew into a witchy curling mass that reeked of ocean.

Hamish sampled a tide pool. “Hack,” he said and looked at me. “You can’t drink the ocean,” I told him. “Haaaack,” he said. Miss Tibbit tip-toed on hind legs to see the giant yellow claw truck hauling metal drain tubes around on the beach. She barked at it. “Monster!” she yelled and hopped up and down. “Monster!” Hamish didn’t see what the fuss was all about.

We clambered back into the truck and the dogs fought for prime positioning. Too bad they couldn’t decide which was prime position: window or shoved up against me. They aren’t used to riding up front on a bench seat – were we in a car or on the sofa? Time to rest or time to sniff? Confusing. Miss Tibbit ended up sitting next to me like a person without personal boundaries – pressed tight against my side and watching the road with me. I could feel her tilting her head left and right as I did to check for traffic at stop signs.

Starving and thirsty, and not sure if these were my problems or the dogs were using mind control on me, I hit a Wawa convenience store for hot dogs and something to drink. My hot dog had ketchup and mustard, Hamish and Miss Tibbit shared a plain one, minus the roll. I poured water into the empty container. Hamish appreciated getting that nasty ocean taste out of his mouth. Miss Tibbit liked drinking hot dog flavored water. “The best water ever,” I could tell she was thinking.

We drove home, ocean-blown, bellies full, content. Windshield wipers flapping against the pouring rain, dog eyes drooping heavily in the warmth of the truck.

Spring on my bookshelf if not on the ground.

Published by wideeyedfunk

Outside it is snowing. I can’t stand it. Miss Tibbit can’t stand it. My mouse keeps clicking on garden websites. I pretend ordered over $500 worth of dry, sunny condition plants yesterday.

I bought tulips in an act of desperation.

They are keeping me company in the office, nestled among the things I look at everyday…my dried frog from a beach cliff road in Estramadura region, Portugal. A favorite rock from the Rat Islands. Binoculars for staring down squirrels at the bird feeder. Beethoven on the radio because the Beethoven Festival is this week in Buffalo and that’s what’s playing. Grandpa WideEyed’s Perfect Attendance Certificate 1915-1916. My dented clock. Which would not be dented if it chose to stay on the wall like a normal clock. And, from my salad days – a Certificate of Award for participating in the Middle School jog-a-thon in 1981. I jogged 6.9 kilometers – I jogged in KILOMETERS you’ll note because the school system was still pretending to the metric conversion back then.

Spring tulips among my everyday things. They are making me smile.

May you all have spring tulips today – in your hearts if not in actual fact.

Ludwig’s No. 9 on a Spring Evening

Published by wideeyedfunk

We dug deeply into the closet for The Suit and a Dress. The WideEyedSpouse installed cufflinks. I glued a dangling sequin back onto my dress and pulled out the outrageous silk and roses wrap I made last fall, just as my world turned dark and winter.

It is Springtime now. And, of course, Ludwig deserves the best and brightest. So last night we sparkled and gleamed the Mini over to Kleinhans Music Hall, leaving glitter and joy in our wake instead of carbon-rich exhaust. It was that kind of feeling.

Have you spent much time with Beethoven’s Symphony Number 9? It overwhelms. It fills a person with complexities of sound and silence. There are whispered conversations between flutes and violins, there are arguments between basses and tympani drums, French Horns have opinions all over the place and eventually more than one hundred voices join the instruments, yelling in German about Joy. More or less. The lyrics don’t actually make a lot of sense – I don’t know if it’s the translation from German or changing social contexts – “Millions, be you embraced! For the universe, this kiss!”

Huh?

But I don’t have to get it. I can feel it. From across two centuries of unfathomable change, I can feel despair, contemplation, redemption, and Joy. I think about the millions of us who have listened to the Ninth and how we are all connected through the biological construct that was Beethoven’s brain. I think about cultural change and how long will our ability to hear Joy in the Ninth last? – When will we be so different that we hear only cacophony?

Set aside an hour or so of your life. Play the Ninth. Let yourself be. You’ll get a little bored here and there – that’s because you are overstimulated by the music. Then you’ll be sucked back in and you’ll realize your skin is prickling. You’ll think unexpected thoughts. Last evening I spent a little time realizing that if the zombie apocalypse came during the concert, I’d be ok with this being the last thing I experienced. Then I thought about how to defend the balcony from zombies and considered which of my seat-neighbors would be a liability in the fight. Then the music changed and my brain moved on.

If you are like me, you’ll sometimes be so full of the music that you can’t breathe. You’ll realize that you are inside of it or it is inside of you – and you should marvel that Beethoven, who doesn’t know you, can’t know you, understood so perfectly how to craft sounds that reach you across time and space.

Celebrate Spring. Clear winter’s mush from your brain. Play the Ninth and play it loud. Joy.

Fear.

Published by wideeyedfunk

We were on the island to learn about prehistoric Aleuts and the ecological past. But between us and Aleut occupation of the place, World War II happened. We hiked across maritime tundra landscapes scattered with symmetrical cereal-bowl bomb craters. We mapped what felt like an endless series of Japanese entrenchment features and the young men on the crew talked about gun emplacements, turkey shoots, and the Pacific Theater of War. They were terribly excited and they stood in the old emplacements waving their arms around, arguing over probable tactics, logistics, and use of terrain in defense of bays.

Japanese trench on Bering Sea coast. Photo by H. Harmsen 2014.

I sighed over my graph paper and measuring tapes because I wasn’t there to learn more about World War II. Nonetheless, I was there, the WWII sites were there, and finally it occurred to me that I was thinking about the soldiers who built and maintained these trenches as people – not as machines of war and history. Young men scrambled in these irritatingly numerous trenches in the same howling wind and rain I was experiencing. Except, I was wearing newest generation protective clothing and they wore wet wool and soaking leather. Except, I was listening to the slush of the Bering Sea and they listened for incoming planes. Except, I was there because I fought for the opportunity and they were there because they were sent.

And, in fact, these young men were enemies of the United States. If the plan had worked, everything would be different now. Empathizing with their peril and discomfort felt awkward.

Then, someone on the crew found the caves.

Japanese WWII cave openings on the Bering Sea coast. Photos by B. Hoffman 2014.

Japanese WWII cave openings on the Bering Sea coast. Photo by B. Hoffman 2014.

Japanese soldiers excavated tunnels where ever possible on the island. They are narrow, low, winding tunnels carved into poorly consolidated deposits. I stooped into one a few years ago and thought about being packed in there with hundreds of other people during a bomb raid. Didn’t feel safe. At all.

These caves were different in execution if the same in theme. Two small openings peeked out from tall grass on the wall of a tiny stream valley. You could poke your head in and see bits and pieces left behind. You could tell that the two caves curved around and connected deep in the hillside. The situation could not have been more adventure-style archaeology if it tried. Small, secret entrance, dimly-lit cavern, treasures – we all acted calm but our little archaeology hearts were pounding.

Japanese WWII cave opening. Photo by B. Hoffman 2014.

“Ok,” I told the crew, “None of you are going in there. It’s too risky and I’m not getting on the sat phone to tell your families I lost you.” The young men with WWII fever gave me hard eyes. The determined young women gave me hard eyes. The other senior researchers didn’t care. The openings, after all, were very small. There was going to be crawling through mud and soldier yuck undisturbed for more than 60 years. “I’ll go,” I stated. There were mutterings of various kinds, I employed selective deafness protocol.

I strapped on my headlamp. Shoved measuring tapes in my pockets. Hung my camera inside of my raincoat and heaved myself up into a cave opening. I dangled there, balanced on my waist. My head was in WWII, my feet in 2014.

WEF thinking about life, science, fear. Photo by B. Hoffman 2014.

I looked at the floor – how deep was the muck? I looked at the shredding timbering on the walls and ceiling – how rotten was the wood?

The timbers. Photo by B. Hoffman 2014.

I looked at the slabs of rock on the ceiling – up close they looked sort of massive. And tilty. And broken. I dangled in the opening for long enough that a few crew members shoved their heads in next to my hips to see.

The ceiling. Photo by B. Hoffman 2014.

We breathed in there together. I tried to calm my pounding heart and stop my shaking hands. It looked terrifying. I was surely going to die in there. I thought about The Spouse. Hamish. I had a philosophical discussion with myself about the pursuit of knowledge. About eccentric and driven versus insane. When I was pretty sure my legs would hold me and my voice wouldn’t quaver, I slid back out – rebirthed myself really because at that moment I got my life back – “Too risky,” I said. And learned, once again, that fear keeps us alive.

* You can visit B. Hoffman’s Flickr page for other project pictures.

Sun shining on suet. Briefly.

Published by wideeyedfunk

I looked in the fridge and discovered that the WideEyedSpouse and I had successfully filled the backs of the shelves with containers and objects of mystery.

Crème fraîche container. Actually contained crème fraîche. From New Year’s Eve caviar, blinis, and a bright-sparkling Spanish cava. I sniffed it. “Seems ok,” I told the Spouse. My tongue tingled and burned under the little sample. Perhaps not.

Tarter sauce jar. Actually contained tartar sauce. Expiration December 5, 2014. No one can remember why or when it was purchased. Now we have a warehouse club bag of 115 frozen fish sticks waiting for saucy additions. I wacked the stuck on lid on the counter a couple of times and cranked it open over the sink so the crumbly bits didn’t go all over the floor. I sniffed it. “Seems ok,” I told the Spouse. I dipped a crunchy warm fish stick into it and tasted. “Tastes ok,” I announced and plopped a few tablespoons on my plate. If something happens to us, tell them to check the fish sticks AND the tartar sauce jar. Which is now back in the fridge. Because now there’re 93 frozen fish sticks waiting for saucy additions.

Wegman’s 4% cottage cheese container. Contents unidentifiable. Did not sniff. Sniffing was, in fact, unnecessary as the aroma instantaneously saturated my sinuses. Miss Tibbit, who helps with food investigations, sneezed.

½ head of Chinese cabbage. Felt solid, did not sag. I peeled it out of the thin produce bag and sniffed it. “Smells ok,” I told the Spouse. He looked at me over his fish sticks. “It’s black,” he said. I peeled open the layers, “not inside the leaves,” I told him. “It’s black,” he said.

Daisy Sour Cream Light container. See cottage cheese container. With blue fuzz.

2.5 pint Ball Jars of bacon and beef fat. Clean, pure, lenses of suet collected throughout our years in this place. No, there is no logic to this. We cook bacon or whatever. Fat is bad for drains. Thus, we dump fat into jars and refrigerate. Problem solved. I opened the jars. Sniffed. Smelled like meat. The dogs offered a solution, which I ignored. I thought about our long, cold, snowy winter. I thought out the chickadees, woodpeckers, crows, sparrows, robins, thrushes, and finches. “I bet the birds are hungry,” I said to the Spouse and traded clearing the fridge and eating fish sticks for a run to the hardware store. It was an easy decision.

I melted the fat, tossed in some old cornmeal and old oats – because mystery containers are not restricted to the fridge – and piled in as much premium Northeastern bird seed as the greasy liquid would take. After cooling the whole thing down for a couple of hours I cut it into six suet cakes and hung the first from the grape arbor in the back garden.

It’s out there now, dangling in the winter sun. There are a couple of peck marks in it but not much action so far. Tibbit got stuck in the three feet of snow below it. She cried for help. She knows there is something wonderful up there. Come on birdies, there’s something wonderful here for you!

Then, as I was writing about the suet cake and hungry birds…

A good mattress.

Published by wideeyedfunk

I love a good mattress. You just don’t see too many of them at this time of year. Maybe it’s so cold that people aren’t moving here and there as often in the winter. Maybe there’re good ones under all the snow banks – I don’t know but I miss seeing them.

We were out on patrol two days ago when it got a little warmer. I didn’t even have to wear that horrible coat. I HATE that coat. A lot.

…

Oh, right, we were out checking our blocks a couple of days ago and there it was. A big, floppy mattress slung across a snowbank. I ran right to it and shoved my face into a really nice looking dark spot dribbled down the side. I breathed in hard and snorted back out. I rolled my eyes back in my head so I could really concentrate.

I snuffled my chin hairs along the edge, to catch interesting spots along the whole length. I sneezed and looked around. No one seemed to be in a hurry so I hopped up on top. I pressed my nose here, and there, and over there. I can’t even tell you what feast of scents I had – I’ve been stuck in that house and yard for days because it hurts outside and this mattress was a real treat.

Hamish popped up onto the side of the mattress. No! Mine! I lunged at him and he left. Probably peed on something, that’s all he does on patrol. I could tell we were moving on soon so I took a bunch of fast, small sniffs all over the middle and edges, storing them up to think about later. I really do like a good mattress.

Guest writer: Miss Tibbit-the-Useless-Little-Black-Dog

Tibbit on the Sofa