wideeyedfunk

Tag: Buffalo NY

  • Three’s Company, Two’s Just Awkward

    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.

    Tibbit (2)The office situation was even odd. I sat at the desk, clacketing away as normal. Miss Tibbit sauntered in and sat, sort of sideways, and looked at me from the corners of her eyes. She seemed to have something to say but wasn’t comfortable enough to break the silence. We made accidental eye contact over and over again. It was awkward.

    Evidently Miss Tibbit and I just aren’t all that close. Hamish the Corgi is my best friend. He is Miss Tibbit’s best friend. But Tibbit and I seem to inhabit an acquaintance kind of friendscape. We realized yesterday that while we do spend a lot of time together, we are spending that time with Hamish not with each other.

    I tried to make it better, like you do when you are in an uncomfortable social setting, “uh, good girl,” I told her and patted her on the head. She went along with my attempt to form a connection, but she yawned with a squeak at the end. Grasping at any distraction, I suggested we go downstairs for lunch.  I figured if we were doing something it would be less noticeable that we didn’t have anything to talk about. Well, that lasted about 30 seconds. Once her lunch was gone, we were at the same impasse. A lot of time and no real interest in each other. We stood in the kitchen, whistling to ourselves and faking absorption with the fridge magnets and the nutrition information on food wrapper labels.

    “Well,” I said, fed up with the whole thing, “now we know.” Miss Tibbit tried to look agreeably insightful. It wasn’t easy, she was stretched up on her hind legs trying to lick the butter dish on the counter at the time. We went back up to the office. I typed and clicked the mouse. Miss Tibbit napped in the chair. We ignored the space on the floor between us where Hamish usually lays and waited for our uncomfortable day to end.

  • The eerily prescient fortune cookie.

    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 they are, sometimes they aren’t. It’s chilly enough in the front parlor that the uninvited aren’t inclined to de-coat. Perfect, really, for moving folks right along: “Yes, yes, nice to see you too, stop by again sometime…”

    I digress.

    The package. It had a fortune cookie in it, taped to the packing list, right at the top of the box. Since there was only the one cookie, the choice had already been made, this cookie came to Me. I cracked it open.

    “There will be snorkeling in your future.”Fortune

    The boys and I crunched through the cookie and I sat back in Hamish the Corgi’s rockstar chair.

    IMG_1687I was stunned. How did this cookie know I was heading out to snorkel in the coming days? How could this cookie know? I chewed the last of the cookie, because of course that’s part of the deal with a fortune cookie. Ok. Better accept it, I thought to myself. I leaned over to unpack the rest of the box.

    FeetandDogsTen minutes later I flopped my flippered feet over to the mirror above the hearth to see what I looked like in a low volume, water-injected silicone skirted mask and red ultra-dry snorkel. Heh. I looked funny. But geez, that fortune cookie really had it right. Weird.

  • The House Brew

    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.

    BigFlatMyDeskMy 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 crisp, fresh flavor with a clean finish, suggesting perhaps a bare hint of mouth puckering and only mild after taste. Big Flats the name is meant to prompt nostalgic memories of early settler times when supplies came via river boat on the mighty tributaries of New York State (BigFlats1901.com). It troubles me only a little that the same rivers today commonly are festering cesspools of agricultural runoff and sewage, not anything you might want to imagine in your house beer, but nevermind, this is nostalgia not harsh reality.

    Big Flats 1901 Premium Beer is the house brew of Walgreens Drugstore. And at $3.33 per six pack, Big Flats is by no means the cheapest beer in the house. I know, who knew Walgreens would make such a significant investment in the general well-being of their customers? Laden with our half price Christmas wrapping paper and clearance rack razors, the WideEyedSpouse and I stood awed and indecisive next to the towering stack of Big Flats case packs. The decision was up to the Spouse, he is our resident beer drinker and the responsibility for tasting Big Flats would lie in his belly.

    DeskBeer“I’m having it,” he said, and added a six pack to his armload of drugstore swag. Now the catalyzed personality of a hard-used Buffalo Walgreens and all who patronize that established join our WideEyedHousehold. I don’t think it’s doing us any harm. Ask the Spouse tomorrow.

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

    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.

    The WideEyedParents with Younger brother, not too many years after I came along.
    The WideEyedParents with Younger Brother, not too many years after I came along.

    And so, my arrival to this world and the WideEyedFamily was associated with complexities of joy, irritation, and darkling feelings. The trend continues. This year I celebrated the final day of my 40xth year with death, dismemberment, and mild destruction. Followed by a lovely dinner, thoughtful gifts, and simple joie de vivre.

    In the earlier hours of my birthday, I found myself kneeling in carnage, dressed in full rain gear, under the deck. Sprays and splashes of brilliantly oxygenated blood soaked into the limestone block and pooled on cement footings. The WideEyedRat (boy was he ever) had snapped two traps and flailed himself free of both before expiring next to his rat hole. Rain beaded on his dense fur, his tailed stretched entirely out with a tiny curl at the end. He was stiff. Well into rigor mortis. Didn’t fit in the bag. Well the body did but I crawled out from under the deck with a heavy bag that looked like it held a single strange stick.

    Octopus1At lunchtime I arranged myself with pliers and my new dog leash hook. It was an octopus cast of poor alloy and its tentacles were too close together for my liking. Now it is a septopus with a stump. I figured the septopus was still authentic and not just a broken hook. Accidents happen even in the deep, maybe especially in the deep. My catastrophically injured Septie was going on the wall, ideally on a stud. I plugged in the drill.

    I never did find that stud, but I did confirm that the plaster and lathe exists in a near continuous plane under the layers of paint on the back stair wall. Septie dangles from the single drywall anchor that survived insertion.

    Exhausted, I had just turned 40something remember, I retired to the sofa with a glass of decent red wine, Buffy the Vampire slayer reruns, and my long-term (perpetually unfinished) knitting project. The WideEyedSpouse rattled in the kitchen, concocting my birthday dinner. I wondered, is this what life was like for 1970s husbands? Relax with a drink and TV while someone else prepares to feed me? I would have fought harder to keep that if I were them. Miss Tibbit the Useless Little Black Dog sighed and snuggled closer to me and Hamish the Corgi watched me from his chair across the room. I felt loved. Content. And warm against the foul winter rainstorm happening outside.

    Hamish

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

    “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 knees. Around the support posts, past the stack of old landscaping bricks, to the house foundation wall. “Ok,” I called over to the WideEyedSpouse. He handed a rat trap from the hatchway on the side of the deck, peanut butter waggling on the bait bar.

    “Long lay the world in sin and error pining, ‘til he appeared and the soul felt its worth,” I sang as I eased the trap bar back on its scary spring and carefully propped the lock lever into the bait bar notch. “Careful,” the Spouse murmured from his position in the hatch door, as though we were setting sensitive explosives. I slowly moved my hands away. Set.

    I scooted a few feet to the right, singing again, “A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!” Again, easy, easy, now, I pushed back the bar, set the lever and backed away.

    “Fall on your knees,” I sang loud and strong, unafraid of missing the notes because who was to hear me but the rat trying to dig into my foundation. I sort of was hoping I was the last thing he heard. I back crawled out from under the deck, singing more quietly to myself because I had to concentrate on missing the insect carcasses twirling in the little winds under the deck. “Oh hear the angel voices, Oh night divine, Oh night when Christ was born.”

    The Spouse helped me stand up when I hit the hatchway door – whistling oh holy night. We locked up the hatch door to keep the poochies out and stomped through the snow back to our Christmas tree.

    This morning we saw little rat tracks leading away from the house. I guess I really missed those high notes.

  • Lemme me see the other side.

    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 moment.) If I leave the dogs alone I have mud on the sofa, salt foot prints all over the house, maybe a sick dog because I guess they aren’t supposed to lick that rock salt.

    So. Every day, several times a day, we do the lemme see the other side routine.  The dogs know and when it is gross outside they climb the first set of steps and wait for me in the hall landing. I unglove, unshoe, unhat, uncoat, unscarf, grab the dog towel, and crouch down. Hamish stands stiffly in front of me and presents his near foot – usually port side, held high in the air. I wipe it, rub his chest under there. Let go. He steps forward and balances his weight on the starboard side. I wipe the back foot, wipe the belly, let go. Miss Tibbit, who is anxious that this isn’t going fast enough, pushes past. “Lemme see the other side,” I tell Hamish.

    He steps forward a bit, performs a Corgi K-turn, hoves into reach and presents his starboard foot. Wipe. Forward. Wipe. “Next,” I say. Miss Tibbit appears in my face, one front foot in the air. Wipe. She steps forward. Back foot wipe. “Other side,” I say, like a train conductor announcing the stop. Tibbit steps away and carefully negotiates a turn, presenting the other front foot. Wipe. Forward. Wipe.

    The dogs assemble conveniently near the dog treat storage area while I drape the dog towel on the heater. It’s irritating, the dogs get rubbed with a warm towel after the Buffalo winter walks. What am I running here, a dog spa?

    Anyway, I rattle the lid of the treat jar and toss snacks into waiting maws. “Alright,” I tell them, “I’ve got work to do,” and we head back up to the desk. Oh boy, only a couple of hours until the next Buffalo winter dog walk.

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

    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 wait again at the intersection, but the intersection of space, time, and event, just as I witnessed it, will never again be.

    If it was a vision, a set of signs, maybe it means I can’t move forward against the scary large-scale forces pitted against me. That I have to bend with them, submit to them, just hold against them or surely I will die.

    Or, it was a moment of calm at the end of two weeks of deadlines and stress. The first time I had a thought that was just for me. Let’s go with that one just so the WideEyedSpouse doesn’t begin to worry about my wits –

  • Walking dogs in the fall has a certain frisson.

    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 returning home from a long day at work? What an excellent opportunity for a drive-side event. I stand and wait, blue bag on my hand, in a public demonstration of my intention to clean up. As Hamish finishes, he eyes me and smiles, steps forward and kicks with his ears up and his mouth wide in a doggie grin. His tiny back legs do a little stiff legged dance – left, right, left, right – pause – and one more time. I’m sure I’ve described it before.

    The practical effect of his charming act during these serene fall walks? He covers his deposit in layers of leaves, which are shaded just the same as his…well I don’t want to be overly vulgar. I think you know what I am implying. I am left with a car full of homeowners observing us and a yard full of brown, gold, orange leaves with something unpleasant to extract.

    I sigh, wrap the leashes tight around my free hand, and start pawing through the leaves. “Miss Tibbit,” I call, “Come help me find this.” She ignores me. Hamish is 15 feet down the sidewalk, already planning his next event. Hamish deposits , kicks, and moves on – job done. He sees no need to linger in the area. The longer I crouch in someone’s front yard, pushing leaves around, the less likely I am to find the prize. I can feel the family of observers losing confidence that I will provide a satisfactory conclusion to our so far benign neighborly transaction.

    I won’t tell you how adept I have become at “finding” what Hamish has left behind. I’m not proud of it. But sometimes a person has to make morally ambiguous compromises. The fall dog walkies are beautiful, but they are filled with peril.

  • The snow shovel crept to the front of the garage.

    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.

    SnowthrowerToday 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 in these moments of driveway clearing. Of course there’s no pain either and that’s the whole point of a snow thrower isn’t it?

    One hundred feet of driveway. Fifteen minutes of roar, putt, putt, putt, roar. Ten minutes of detail work with the vile snow shovel and I’m back inside for coffee. The WideEyedSpouse always looks so fresh and clean and relaxed when I drag my snowy, motor oil stinking self back inside. He leaves for work early. I leave for work by climbing the stairs from the kitchen. An unfortunate side effect of my work-from-home life includes responsibility for the snow thrower.

    I guess I better get some 2-stroke oil and a gallon of gas. The clouds are rolling in, the temperatures are dropping.

  • Home Renovation Made Possible by the 1970s.

    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 and I still live in them. And for whatever reason, nothing I can articulate, Saturdays, and the 70s music are for home renovation.

    The roller rolls better to Poppa Was a Rolling Stone. The Midnight Train to Georgia makes me edge cleaner. The BeeGees make me sand harder, Fleetwood Mac sends me screaming from the room for a coffee break. And always, without fail, as soon as my hands are too junked up to touch the tech, the interminable ten hour (ok, minute) American Pie song comes on. “Long long time ago…” Bathroom break.

    Painting to the 80s doesn’t work. Sanding to the 90s, no good. Millennial music? Great in the car but it just doesn’t have that steady 70s underthrum that keeps a person working, when she’d really rather be lounging around eating snacks and reading novels.

    paintingThe WideEyedSpouse and I finished a painting project last weekend. A urine-y yellow upstairs foyers is now a glowing Rock Candy (Sherwin Williams #6231) grey. We edged three layers of paint around nine doors and one ceiling. We rolled the tiny flat spaces between walls. We boogied through it with help of the 70s and my magic painter’s pants. And maybe some beer.