wideeyedfunk

Tag: Buffalo

  • Who cleans up the ick?

    Maybe it is because I am from New Jersey. Maybe it’s because I read too many books of questionable topics.  But when I was standing in the sandwich shop on Niagara Falls Boulevard and saw the Eraser (www.erase-it.org) business card, I thought, Oh yeah, I need to put that card in my wallet. Because you just never really know. Discreet and professional biohazard remediation is EXACTLY what a person wants to have on speed dial. When you need it, you need it.. As I stood at the long counter of the sandwich shop waiting for my Philly cheesesteak (Buffalo interpretation) hoagy (Buffalo spelling. Inexplicable.), I thought of many reasons to call the Eraser:

    Vampire extermination. Ash and anciently rotting bio-ooze are left behind every time. Disgusting.

    Borg attack. Watch StarTrek Voyager on Netflix for a while. They just look smelly. Really, really smelly.

    Ghoul nesting. Ghouls drool. They prefer carrion. Even if you don’t mind them around, someone’s got to clean up sometimes. They’ll rot a house out otherwise.

    October 22nd Incidents. Ask the WideEyedDad what happens when you feed an old dog curry on October 21st.  He could have called the Eraser instead of using a pointy nail to clean the cracks in the hardwood flooring.

    Mob hit. Obvious. And, according to many, many novels, movies, and shows, most of us will have to deal with this eventually.

    Zombie attack. We all know they are gooey and splashy when they go.

    Ultimately I left the business card and simply programmed the number into my phone. The Eraser’s card was the most useful of the hundreds of banal real estate, lawn care, handy man, hair salon, whatever crap pinned to the board – who am I to deprive the rest of North Buffalo of the Eraser? Anyway, now you all know who to call too…tell him WideEyedFunk sent you.

  • Peanuts, Beer, and Minor League Baseball on a Spring Evening

    The Buffalo Bisons beat the Columbus Clippers in a dramatic bottom of the 10th inning run from third as the Clipper’s catcher scrambled for a mis-pitched ball. The 1000 or so Buffalonians in the stadium hooted and whooped as they filed out of Coca-Cola Field into the gloaming twilight.

    We were at the game last night because the Spouse won the department lottery for the company’s baseball tickets. We fed the poochies, locked down the household, and set off to the Metro station. We walked past permanent Santa who watched us from above, and we descended level after level into the bowels of the creepily uncrowded Metro tunnel. I emptied my pockets for the $8 round trip ride for the both of us. Parking downtown was $5. But then, where’s the adventure in parking a car?  I do that every day one place or another.

    The Buffalo Bisons mascot Buster and his son Chip wandered the stands – the Spouse high fived Chip. The Boy Robin tromped up and down the stadium stairs yelling “Snow Cones! Three dollars!” with relentless cheer and hope. I think he was selling the same couple of snow cones the whole evening. Like Batman’s true sidekick he remained stalwart in adversity, and his cape fluttered heroically in the wind, his eyes were sharp and clear behind his mask.

    “Cold Bud, Bud Light, Peanuts!” Alrighty. I got some peanuts and the Spouse got a can of Bud from the Conehead – “With this can the Conehead guarantee, if it’s warm, this beer’s on me…” The Spouse sipped – it wasn’t warm. And the peanuts were great, fresh, salty, flakey. When I was done with the bag the Spouse was covered with the red peanut skins caught by the evening breeze.

    We watched the fast game. We looked over at the General Mills Big G on their heritage cereal plant. Trucks heading to and coming from Canada roared past on the 190. The Spouse and I were featured on the big screen not once, but TWO times – the Delta Sonic Super Kiss Cam and the other time during a lull in the game. I know, right – how many times do you get to be on the screen in a professional league arena? TWO times in one game when you go to minor league. I think we are celebrities now. I could tell people on the train home wanted my autograph. Actually, the Spouse and I speculated that since the audience was sparse we ALL got a turn up there.

    A crazy old guy dressed in full Bisons regalia, including batting cap, which maybe was for his protection, shrieked incomprehensibles at the Clippers – he’d point at one coming to bat, run his finger across his throat, punch one fist into another, point at his belly button and then back the batter on deck. You know it was weird. But, it was unnerving the Clippers, we could all tell. So, we cheered our unconventional psychological weapon as the innings of no runs, no hits, all strike outs and walks marched on.

    The tension of the 10th inning was eased by a tiny blonde girl in the front of the stands. “Let’s go Bisons!” her little voice piped – we clap, clap…clap, clap, clapped in response. She called it again. We clapped. She looked transcendent with joy and it was on – she chanted, we clapped, over and over until her little voice rasped and she collapsed, exhausted, next to her dad. I think we transformed her life last night, and taught her the intoxicating power of controlling a crowd through performance. I hope she’s ok.

    Massive mosquitoes like small fighter planes arrived and menaced in the lights above us. They weren’t quite hungry enough to come down for dinner, but everyone was scared and looked up at the swarm pretty regularly. A new player for the Bisons stepped up  – his stats at all zeros. The crowd cheered him on, welcoming him to their club. He struck out I think, but I was busy watching the mosquito swarm.

    The Spouse and I have been to ball games in a lot of states. Big stadiums in PA, WI, and MN, little Wrigley where we saw a home run go through someone’s window across the street – and more. Last night’s game in the more empty than full stadium, with little contests, races, and swag give-aways between most innings, with young guys in ill-fitting uniforms trying real hard– was the best, fastest, and most cheerful game I’ve ever seen.  We’ll be back Bisons – because your baseball is fun baseball.

  • Street level synchronicity

    The spouse was driving us to Gramma Mora’s for carnitas and margaritas because sometimes life is just right. Ok, almost just right, because we were aiming for Suzy Q’s BBQ Shack but she decided not to open on Tuesday. Anyway, we hit a red light. I guess even on good days that can happen.

    The walking man on the traffic light post at Hertel and North Park tick, tick, ticked away the seconds of waiting. The spouse reached over and turned on the radio and music came on that had the same beat as the walking man. (Go on out to youtube in another browser window and start Basement Jaxx, Raindrops and it’ll be like you were there too, maybe in the back seat thinking your own thoughts…)

    I tapped my foot on the floor mat and watched an out of shape new mom dressed in yoga wear jiggle her way across the crosswalk – the smiling baby’s head visible in the carriage bobbed to the beat along with her mom’s footsteps. Weird, I thought, three or four things following the same rhythm.

    To the left, on the cross street, two fit youngish men walked a long-haired dachshund who was smiling as much as the baby. His tiny feet pattered in double time to the main beat and his owners swung their arms in synch. The dachshund stopped to sniff a lamp post and I looked to my right.

    A teen aged girl with a bouncy walk and bouncy blond pony tail strode past an old woman who was tapping one long, arthritis gnarled finger against the glass of the Stock Exchange vintage stuff shop. The tap, the bounce, they were in time with the rest of us at the intersection. The girl disappeared into a beauty shop. The old woman turned away and walked on.

    The light changed to green, the walking man flash, flash, flashed in the other direction, and the Spouse accelerated away from the moment.

  • Thinning seedlings: I think they scream as I tear them out…

    A row of baby little marvel shell peas. All unsuspecting.

    I think the baby plants scream when I ruthlessly pluck them out of the ground. I know it has to be done. It is my job as a gardener to be a creative, even divine force. The choices I make about which of the little seedlings get to swell into tastiness, into full fruit and seed producing maturity, are irrevocable. My choices shape the future of plants in my garden through pollination and seed harvesting. The lucky ones spaced properly apart for effective growing survive. The particularly lovely, big, and cheery looking guys make it. A lot of not-yet, never-will-be plants will die though, and their unique random genetic mutations die with them. It pains me every time I tug on their little bodies and feel their tiny roots rending.

    A pea sprout gets it.

    I have already this spring killed baby radishes, peas, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, eggplants….and it isn’t just the vegetables who get it either. Zinnias, poppies, nasturtiums, wild bergamot, calendula: no one is safe. My seedling book says that I am doing no one any favors by letting them live too crowded. The book says unthinned seedlings will be stunted and weak. But thinning. It has such a Malthusian feeling.

    The radishes. Screaming as they lay shriveling in the mulch.

    Yesterday I thinned the peas. The tiny roots of the rejected seedlings clung desperately to the soil. I thinned the radishes. And I must admit that in an act of god-like absorption, I ate those tiny baby plants (and again, Malthusian!). I hovered over the beets, but they are too small for thinning. I can’t yet determine which are weak, which are unsightly, which are destined for the compost. The whole row of beet sprouts sighed and shivered in relief as I stood and walked away.

    Hamish is concerned by all the screaming, and carefully monitors the garden as I work.

    I told the spouse about my worries. That I think the little baby plants shriek and fight to live. The spouse patted the dog and looked at me over the garden fence. He reached over and snatched a tiny radish plant from its tidy row. His teeth crunched a little on the tender leaves. “They’re just plants,” he told me, and wandered off with the weed trimmer. I looked at the empty spot where that radish used to be and now was never going to be again. I really thought I heard it scream.

  • You say that like beer would somehow impair my ability to be awesome.

    Actually, I didn’t say it like that at all. It was a simple query about the wisdom of the action being taken.

    Probably it’s completely safe.

    We were having a rainy and cold Saturday evening. The husband was fussing with the 1920s ceiling light we found at Buffalo Reuse last weekend. It was tucked up in a back room of that cavernous, dark, and very, very grungy retail outlet for parts yanked out of “green” demolition projects. Stacks of tiles torn from bathroom walls (the husband is still fighting an infected cut from one of those), old toilets (I mean used toilets, really really used toilets), doors, windows, tin ceiling chunks, and other house bits are piled next to only slightly worn tanks of corrosive fluid.

    Anyway, the husband had just discovered that with careful use of Bon Ami he could remove the filth crust of nearly 100 years to make the molded milky glass of the light gleam like new. All that remained was to replace the dangerously inept 1970s era rewiring with new, legal, and safe wiring and we (meaning “he”) could hang it in the upstairs foyer. The wiring he took out of that poor light fixture was thick and patinated, melted copper wire forcibly shoved through the historic porcelain sockets. I can’t believe the whole thing hadn’t caught the house it lived in on fire – although maybe it had. It was at Buffalo Reuse because its old house had been torn down as too useless for even the crack and meth demons.

    So on this cold Saturday evening the husband wandered from the dining room, where the lamp was laid out in bits, into the kitchen, where the beer is kept. I heard the fridge door open and shut. A few steps and the bottle opener drawer squealed open. Fzzt. The bottle cap clanked onto the counter. He wandered back into the dining room and drank some beer while looking down at the lamp bits. Deciding something, he plonked his beer down in the mess of lamp parts. He picked up one of the bulb sockets and inspected it. With his other hand he gave himself some beer. Plonked the bottle back down. This went on for a little while. I wasn’t exactly watching events, but it wasn’t a real exciting night around the homestead so I was, well let’s say I was aware. There may have been more than the one beer. It is at least possible that there were a few beers. That can happen on a Saturday.

    1920s ceiling light, during beery rewiring.

    The husband settled himself at the table and picked up the coil of new wiring. He sort of held it up to one of the sockets. Measuring like. I thought about that for a moment. I flashed it through in my head, seeing him wiring the lamp, putting it back together, hanging it upstairs, admiring it, and then I imagined the cascade of sparks showering from it because maybe, just perhaps, something went a little wrong, a little beery in the rewiring. The husband is sort of like a savant with this kind of stuff, but I kept thinking about the beer.

     I couldn’t help myself. I asked, “Do you think it’s smart to do that when you’re drinking beer?”

     You know what he said.

     And now you can wonder about that lamp, the house, his ability to be awesome. And you might be examining the image for the kind of beer. Because obviously, some beers lend themselves to rewiring antique ceiling fixtures and awesomeness better than others.

  • Why Muscle Cars Will Never Die

    Last Monday I was stepping smart through the Deep with my new long-handled shovel gripped in my left hand. The tempered steel blade shaft was clanking, not incidentally, against my wedding ring. I was fretting about the strength of the theoretical argument I just finished writing and my feet may have been moving but my mind wasn’t there. A cap wearing, middle aged, rangy man with about three days of whiskers caught my eye. He gave my shovel a significant look and said “Hey now, as soon as you’re done burying your old man, you give me a call.” He used all of his teeth in a smile.

    I stumbled, yanked out of my thoughts. What? Heh? I replayed the last minute in my head. My eyes got wide as I figured it out and I started hooting and laughing, because I am that cool.

    “Oh, you know I will,” I told him. It was an easy promise as I hadn’t really ever planned to dig my husband’s grave.

    I paid for the shovel and headed out to the car. A pale blue Roush Mustang was parked out front – illegally – and I paused to snap a shot of it, because really, who doesn’t love a great muscle car?

    The Mustang’s engine revved and it rumbled toward me as I took the picture. It turned the corner and the passenger window whirred down. “Remember, you get that burying done, you call me!” The engine roared and the car disappeared in a cloud of late season pulverized rock salt.

     I thought about it as I tossed the shovel into the back of the MCS. I eyed the sharp gleaming metal blade. I considered that pretty blue muscle car. Well, maybe…

  • 6 Days in the Bathroom with Dental Probes and a Razor Blade

    I promise you, it is safe to read on. This isn’t about mental health. It isn’t about a hostage situation. It has nothing, whatsoever, to do with home veterinary surgery. It is about antique tiles and latex paint, achieving their disunion, and bothering with old things.

    Once upon a time, Buffalo was the center of the universe and Olmsted’s parks were filled with flowering vines, nannies and prams, horses and bicycles. In this 1912 world of hope and money, Mr. and Mrs. Butler built my house. Its rooms were airy, the windows numerous. The bathroom gleamed with state of the art, antiseptic white subway tiles and tiny hexagonal floor tiles. Let’s imagine it was a joy to clean – for the woman who lived in the attic room, whose own toilet was in the basement.

    Mr. Butler died fairly young in 1920. He spent only 10 years shaving in front of the shiny, new bathroom mirror. Catherine, his widow, sold the house within two years. As I picked latex paint from grout lines among the tiles next to the toilet with my sickle dental probe, I thought about her getting up the morning after her husband’s death, and facing the future in that same mirror. The Kaeselaus bought the house and stayed, one generation after another, for 40 years.

    I imagined Mr. Kaesalau rinsing the cold sweat of disaster from his face on October 24, 1929 as I razored the paint from tiles near where the old sink was. As I stretched behind the radiator I wondered if Mrs. Kaesalau and her daughter dried their flimsy World War II stockings on it – Mr. Kaeselau was gone by then, and their sons may have been at war. What happened that Gladys, the daughter, inherited the house in 1955 instead of one of the sons? Why did she sell it to Mrs. Moni in 1962?

    I do know that Mrs. Moni redecorated the house during her 30 years, using wood and melamine paneling. But she left the bathroom tiles alone – although maybe she is the origin of the vibrant turquoise paint I picked and scraped from the top rail tile…maybe she is responsible for the deep smoke patina in the tiles and on the house’s woodwork. I squeezed under the clawfoot tub to get to the paint back there, and envisioned a 1970s, fading glory, over middle aged woman lounging in a pink bubble bath. Chain smoking. With a martini. Didn’t everyone smoke and drink martinis in the 70s?

    Mrs. Moni died, although hopefully not in the tub, and a series of folks moved in and out. Someone fixed the kitchen. Someone took out the paneling. Some couples divorced, others lost the house in foreclosure. I figure a lot this drama was acted out in the bathroom. The tiles I freed from their latex coat along the side wall probably saw their share of weeping and wailing, screaming and hairbrush throwing. But they survived it.

     Approximately 98 years into their life on the wall, the tiles were covered with a slick coat of white latex paint. Age marks, patina, old holes from old toothbrush holders, missing grout gaps, mysterious stains – all were covered in a clean wash of white. It’s awful. It’s sad. And after several days of quiet picking and scraping, the old tiles are again witness to life and history.

    Are they unlovely? Sure, in some places. Do they look old? You bet. Would a sledge hammer have been quicker? Absolutely. Would I do it all over again – spend days picking and razoring paint? Yeah, I would. In fact, removing the glue and goo of new tiles from the hexagons on the floor is next.

    I’ve seen bathroom tiles that are 2000 years old. Ok, maybe the bathroom around them is gone, but they are still there. I’ve used the bathroom next to tiles that are 200 years old. Yes, they were a little sketchy. No, I didn’t mind. Old isn’t bad. Old lets us think about the passage of time. 100 year old bathroom tiles? Entirely worth six days with some probes and razor blades.

  • The Pugrador Retreagle: A New Boutique Breed

    Pugrador Retreagle at 10 months.

    Miss Tibbit came from the Buffalo Animal Shelter last summer, joining a Pembroke Welsh Corgi and a surly cat in her new home.

    Miss Tibbit is a Pugrador Retreagle of the Toy Sporting Hound group. If you’ve not heard of this new boutique breed (mutt), these dogs result from a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Pug crossed with a Beagle (the Puggle). Let me take you through some of the interesting show-dog career ending traits Miss Tibbit exhibits. She will assume the role of the breed standard.

    The Pugrador Retreagle is a toothy, ungainly, opinionated dog of uncommonly sweet nature. The breed is stoutly, solidly built in the torso with a deep chest balanced forward on outward angled spindly front legs. The hindquarters are narrow with lean haunches and skinny rear limbs. The tailed is thick, arched, and prehensile with a bendy joint halfway along and white tufts on the feathering. The Pugrador Retreagle’s gait alternates between a sidewinding, crabwalking trot and toe prancing. 

    3 mos.

    The coat is short, dense, and soft, with a tendency to stink and shed dandruff during periods of anxiety. It is black along the back, grading into deep bronze at the legs on the head, with white tufts on the belly.  The head is well shaped with a balanced snout and velvety ears that flop to the jawline. The mouth is toothy, with possibly too many bright, white teeth and an overly large tongue that is accidently bitten during frequent baying-barking fits. Deep brown eyes clearly reflect the mood: calm and loving, trouble seeking, or interested but not yet committed to action.

    The Pugrador Retreagle is highly energetic, requiring a minimum of two walks and four yard romps per day, in addition to near-constant play sessions with other household animals and toys or household goods. The Pugrador Retreagle is however a fine napping companion when the energies finally fade. At 45 pounds and 20 inches at the shoulder, the Pugrador Retreagle is small enough to fit comfortably on the sofa, and to be picked up when its opinions are in opposition to human commands.

    3 mos., romping

    Pugrador Retreagles retrieve sticks compulsively, carrying them through the neighborhood until interesting aromas attract the sensitive nose, at which point the dog begins to aggressively track. They are smart and trainable if the tasks are interesting or the rewards sufficiently high. They cuddle close, and like contact with humans if nothing more exciting is happening. In all, Pugrador Retreagles exhibit few of the show qualities of the parent breeds, and many of the sweet, loyal aspects of the Pugs, Labradors, and Beagles. They are highly recommended as family pets for their sweetness of nature, and inexpensive, rescue-dog cost.

  • Santa Lives in Buffalo, Strapped to a Railing

    Last March Santa looked forlorn strapped to the fifth floor balcony of an apartment building near the Canisius College Metro station. His cherry red suit was faded to a soft tea rose pink. His pink cheeks had bleached to vampire whiteness. Traffic soot embedded into his beard, hair, and the rim of fluffy white on his hat gave them an ultra-real dimensionality that shouldn’t be possible on his round plastic body.  Now a year later, Santa still rigidly dangles that hundred or more feet off  the ground. But between last March and today he had his weeks of glory, and the true brilliance of the apartment owner shined into the December nights.

     We assumed that Balcony Santa was collateral damage in someone’s busy life. You know what I mean – wreaths that were perky in December but flap forlornly in February’s gusts, the spindly Christmas tree carcass that appears on the curb in April, and one of my favorites – Rudolph standing in an unkempt front garden with late summer purple coneflowers bobbing around him. We figured Santa was just like those forgotten remnants of Christmas spirit. But this winter, on a fine December evening we were hurtling down the Scajaquada Expressway and there he was shining far above the road. Santa was lit and glowing: his red suit agleam, his dark eyes like holes in his dreadfully cheery winter-white face. He hovered, one arm in the air raised to spread a message of Christmas cheer: “Farewell to all, and to all a good night…” He lit up the Christmas season. He glowed through New Year’s Eve. And then he was shut off.

     You have to figure that Santa is tied onto that balcony railing pretty firmly. Even permanently. He hasn’t sagged. He doesn’t move in the 50 or 60 mile an hour winds that howl through the city. And when I think about the annual effort of untangling lights, hanging lights, prying lights down, stowing lights – I wonder if Santa’s owner isn’t much smarter than me. Sure, a person would have to have selective vision, to be able to look past Santa on say, the Fourth of July, but I bet that is easier than going hypothermic for the Christmas spirit every year. Balcony Santa isn’t forgotten. He is simply waiting in his aerie. And maybe, he is keeping an eye out – checking off the naughty and the nice.