All posts tagged: Buffalo NY

Three’s Company, Two’s Just Awkward

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As it turns out, Miss Tibbit the Useless Little Black Dog and I don’t have all that much to say to each other. Hamish the Corgi was in the dog hospital yesterday. This left Miss Tibbit and I alone in the house. Hamish left early in the morning, and Miss Tibbit sat on the bed and stared out the window at the Pathfinder as it left the driveway. When the truck was out of sight, she turned to look at me over her shoulder. I shrugged at her. What could I say? Hamish went somewhere and she didn’t. Morning walkies were weird. Miss Tibbit didn’t pull at the leash. She didn’t bark at other dogs. She sniffed everything twice as hard as normal, lingering over the little hedge branch that sticks out too far and rubs against EVERY dog who walks past. I think she sniffed the bark right off of it. She kept aiming quick little glances back at me. The office situation was even odd. I sat at the desk, clacketing away as …

The eerily prescient fortune cookie.

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I love fortune cookies. The way they snap and crumble into shards of fresh tasting, sugary crispness. That crunch. Learning to say a word in Chinese. shí liú. grape. I hold fortune cookies in my hand and think about the fortune before I crack them open. Will I meet new people? Should I trust the man with green eyes? Will monetary advantage be mine? Does adventure keep the heart young? Should I learn to dance? What are my lucky numbers? 15. 22. 37. 8. I never pick the fortune cookie, I let it pick me. Yesterday a long delayed, blizzard-stuck package arrived at my snowy door. The boys (dogs) and I dumped it in the front parlor, which is our official package opening location. Rejected items never make it out of that room. Dirty antiques found in other people’s estates begin new lives in the WideEyedHousehold there. It is the ante-chamber to my life. It’s the room where I let guests linger until I decide if they are permitted to participate in my greater homestead. Sometimes …

The House Brew

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Brew pubs offer finely crafted, house made ales and lagers,– more or less hoppy, light or dark, crisp, earthy, or silky smooth. Sometimes a drinking establishment of quality and personality will specially offer a select microbrewery batch, maybe something nutty in the fall, something grassy and bright in the spring. These pints are spendier than the general population beers, they demand the respect of being savored as the goal, rather than acting as the plastic-bottle-bourbon shot chaser. The point is, the house beer is generally acknowledged to be something special. Something a brewmaster synergized effort, experience, and science to create. A house brew is a signature accomplishment perhaps, and stands as a signal of the class and quality of the establishment. Even having a house brew evokes the sense that a business has catalyzed a personality from the mystique of the brew and the patrons who love it. My encounter with Big Flats 1901 Premium Beer was laid on such foundational expectations. Big Flats, brewed in both La Crosse WI and Rochester NY, claims a …

Splashy blood, a 7-tentacled octopus, and holey plaster on my birthday.

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Two score and some years ago I was born to the WideEyedParents during one of the longest, darkest nights of the year. The event was remarkable only in that I proved to be a girl – although this is a matter for debate. Not whether or not I was (am) a girl, but whether or not it was expected. WideEyedDad says he pretty much expected sons, reasonable considering that girl-children are rare among the WideEyedFunks. WideEyedMom claims she had selected only girl names for use on me. The Parents rushed me home for Christmas, where Mom discovered that Dad had left the old, discarded washing machine on The Front Lawn, For Days, At Christmas. Dad advises me not to discuss this further as it remains fresh in Mom’s mind. Inside the house, I imagine that the Older Brothers found my pink self a bitter disappointment. Probably they asked for a race car track, a rocket, or a tape recorder and Santa brought a squally doll instead. And so, my arrival to this world and the …

Saturday shopping list: Christmas tree, egg nog, Victor rat traps…

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“Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining,” I sang to myself while I smeared chunky peanut butter on the bait bar. I walked across the kitchen to peer out the back door. The snow was easing up a bit. I could smell the Frasier fir warming up in the living room. We had just bought it, half price because I guess you’re supposed to get your Christmas tree as soon as December hits and the local garden center was looking to liquidate their remaining tannenbäume. So, while the cut rate tree warmed up from the 15°F outdoor world to our balmy mid 60s living room, I loaded up the rat traps. “We’re ready here,” I called out to the WideEyedSpouse and bundled up for unpleasant outside conditions. We gathered up our shockingly large rat traps and headed out. “It is the night of the dear savior’s birth,” I sang as I crawled under the back deck, spider webs trailing from my Nome, Alaska ski hat with a goofy white pompom, nastiness clinging to my …

Lemme me see the other side.

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I’ll tell you what. I have lived in Minnesota. I know what cold feels like. I spent a couple of winters in Anchorage. I know what big snow looks like. I grew up at the South Jersey shore.  I am familiar with bone cutting, sand carrying, January winds that administer the midseason microdermabrasion treatments. Stings a bit when the feeling comes back into your cheeks. Now I’m in Buffalo. And I am becoming expert in the wintry mix. Sloppy.  Gusty. Raw. The Christmas pine garlands are flopping all over the place. And dog walks are wretched. “Yeah.” Sorry, that was Miss Tibbit interrupting us. This afternoon she pranced onto the back porch, got blasted in the face with a sleety snow, and turned around to come back inside. Wasn’t worth it. No thank you ma’am. Buffalo winter means that Hamish the Corgi and Sweet Tibbit come home from walkies with salty wet feet. Hamish’s undercarriage is a cindery mucky mess. Every time. (The cat just sneezed in my wine by the way. Just saying. Nice …

The geese were flying without moving: a portent or just the end of a long week?

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I watched a lopsided arrow of nine geese hover above a leafless oak. The massive oak was far larger, more truly there than the tiny clapboard church it grew near. I could see the willows on the far side of the intersection, their fronds fluttered nearly horizontal in dense gusts of wind. In the Mini’s speakers, Rihanna and Eminem sang about being friends with the monster under the bed. An old man wandered in the graveyard across from the church. The light turned green and the Mini and I accelerated away. That was Friday. I thought about the geese, the trees, the old man while the WideEyedHousehold cleared and mulched leaves on Saturday. They all wandered around in my head while we did the Fall housecleaning on Sunday. Here it is Monday, and I’m busy at the desk, those geese still hovering in that mental space just above my eyes. What did I miss about that moment? What was I supposed to see that I did not? I want to go back to campus and …

Walking dogs in the fall has a certain frisson.

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The leaves changed in here Buffalo in that last week or two. An orangey road glow replaces the striking sun to shadow dichotomy of summer. Bowers formed by century-grown wrinkled and twisted tree branches, trimmed into arches over the sidewalks, allow a little more of the post autumnal equinox sun through so that there is a gloaming rather than pools of shade. Miss Tibbit and Hamish kick up leaves as they trot along, noses in the air to catch the damp scents. Fall dog walks joyously beautiful. They are peaceful. The fair-weather dog walkers have abandoned the parks and streets and Miss Tibbit has fewer dog friends to yowl toward. Hamish has fewer challengers to his tiny and vulnerable Corgi dignity. Yet, fall dog walks are fraught with danger. It is a social danger, sure, but no less frightening for that. It is all Hamish’s fault. As you may know from past chronicles, Hamish is a Master of the Craft of Display Defecation.  His joy in his craft is unsubtle. A car full of family …

The snow shovel crept to the front of the garage.

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Five months ago the bright yellow snow shovel lurked in the back of the garage, giggling and biding its time. It was creepy and irritating. Today the show shovel made its move to the front of the garage. It rests on the snow thrower. The WideEyedSpouse and I excavated the snow thrower from under a heap of empty plant pots and landscaping tools in the back corner. It now lives in a prime position in the front so that when, not if, the snows come I can just crack open the carriage door and drag that wretched, growling, exhaust belching machine out into the winter calm. I like to stand for a moment in the quiet hiss of a million flakes landing and wallow in the low skies and monochromatic peace of the snows before I crank up the 2-stoke. After that it’s all shock and awe and far flung snow masses and the crunchy rip of dog toys grinding through the blades and fwoop, out the chute into the neighbor’s yard. There’s no serenity …

Home Renovation Made Possible by the 1970s.

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If Looking Glass had never recorded Brandy (my life, my love, and my lady is the seaaaaa), would I have been able rebuild and repair every half fixed house I’ve lived in for the past 15 years? If the Commodores didn’t make Brick House (She’s a brick-house. Mighty, mighty, just letting it all hang out), could I have boogied my way through edging uncountable ceilings on the top of a high ladder, among the fumes and echoes? How long could I have endured the paint striper chemical gloves without Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain (I bet you thought this color was pret-ty, pret-ty, you’re so tacky…)? The WideEyedSpouse hears the ocean rumbling and smells suntan lotion when we stream Big Joe Henry’s 1970s heavy show on New Jersey 101.5 or the itunes Best of the 1970s. The Spouse grew up in Ocean City, roasting in the summer sun, listening to pop music on transistor radios. Me? I hear sanders and smell sawdust because I grew up in old houses. I failed to learn from my youth …