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May 26, 1999 |
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March 26, 1999
Today's Starting Pitcher: Mark Portugal vs. El Duque - I think the Yankees might pull this one out (they did) Reading: Murder, She Meowed by Rita Mae Brown, The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
Copyright © 1999, Janet I. Egan |
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Jazzpurr is, of course, hassling everybody. He just loves to jump on other cats. You never know when he is going to pounce. He hides behind things: stacks of dirty litter boxes, wastebaskets, the cat gym, anything he can find. Then when he's good and ready, he bolts from his hiding place at warp speed and leaps. The other cats never see him coming. He made the mistake of picking on Joey, which resulted in much hissing and a little biting. Of course, any altercation between any cats anywhere in a twelve mile radius gets Joey going - he doesn't have to be the victim to want to retaliate. The feline goings-on seemed to be enough to keep Giggle Girl amused so she wasn't constantly asking me to tell her new jokes. She was distressed that I didn't wear the bleach shirt today, it was in the wash (I know, I know, why on earth would I wash it?). I fantasized this morning about doing an NPR commentary on litterboxes, sort of like Dishwasher Dave whose goal is to wash dishes in all 50 states. Somehow, I don't think "litterboxes in all 50 states" has the same appeal. So, I'm in a new lunch rut. I got a sandwich from Teaberries and ate it at the boat ramp again - with coffee from Fowle's. There were no birds other than pigeons and starlings at the boat ramp. Could I pass up drive-by birding at the refuge? Nope. I could hear more birds than I could see. Everything was singing up a storm. I'm still practicing with the tapes but don't have the warbler songs memorized yet. I saw two bobolinks singing and carrying on, carefully noted them as the first bobolinks of the year, and then proceeded to either see the same two bobolinks following me for the next 5 miles, or a heck of a lot more bobolinks. Every time I slowed down to see what that silhouette on the next tree was, it turned out to be a bobolink. Across the street from the bobolinks, two Baltimore orioles were skirmishing in the general vicinity of a nest. It was a hanging type nest, so could have belonged to one of the combatants. Both orioles and a bobolink took off after a northern harrier, harassing it mercilessly. I've seen redwing blackbirds mob harriers, and I've seen an oriole attack a red-tailed hawk, but never have I seen bobolinks join in the fray. The harrier vanished over a dune with orioles and bobolink in hot pursuit. Further south, I had to stop the car to let a brown thrasher cross the road. It took it's sweet time so there could be no mistake about the identification. Even after it reached the other side it hung around in the brush next to the side of the road for a long time. It just didn't seem really wary. For that matter, a lot of creatures weren't acting wary today. Robins hopped along in the middle of the road. Redwing blackbirds perched on the fence by the Pines Trail. A white-tailed deer stood in the road munching away on branches of various shrubs until I finally decided I was going to run out of gas if it didn't get out of my way. After the deer finally bounded into the dunes, a raccoon walked slowly - very slowly - oh so slowly - across the road. All of this took place in what could ostensibly be called broad daylight. It was early afternoon but overcast and gray. Maybe they thought it was twilight? Much as I wanted to stick around and see how many bobolinks there really were, I headed home to change clothes and drive to Harvard Square to hear Vikram Seth read at the Brattle Theater as part of the Wordsworth author series. I'm among the legions of people who never quite finished A Suitable Boy and loved The Golden Gate. I brought my copy of The Golden Gate and also Beastly Tales - a collection of poems - for him to sign. He read generously from An Equal Music, his latest novel, and answered questions from the audience - which by the way was huge. There were maybe 10 empty seats in the Brattle. Three writers discussing the rigors of their book tours sat in the row in front of them. I couldn't tell who they were or what they'd written, but one of them suddenly got invited backstage to talk with Vikram Seth before the reading. When he came back out to his seat, the two women he was with were still deep in conversation about their book tours. I started to have this feeling of "gee whiz, everybody here is a writer, where are the readers?" Then I felt this urge to tell them my one and only highly amusing, at least to me, book tour story. About 10 years ago or so, I was in Omaha signing Writing a UNIX Device Driver and this totally nerdy guy complete with plastic pocket protector told me that meeting me was a thrill second only to meeting Dennis Ritchie. I laughed. I think I hurt the guy's feelings. Writing about UNIX is not in the same league as developing UNIX. Anyway, I hadn't thought of that encounter for quite some time and I kind of laughed quietly to myself in the theater and suppressed the urge to tell the three writers in front of me that they were missing something if they'd never been compared to Dennis Ritchie. Anyway, hearing Vikram Seth gave me that feeling of "how can I call myself a writer when I am not in anywhere near the same class as he is?" He does things with words that amaze me. After I got him to sign Golden Gate and Beastly Tales, I sat in Tea Luxe sipping hot tea and rereading all my favorite passages and feeling the urban literate life of Cambridge swirl around me until I was finally sated with words, tea, and memories of bobolinks. |
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All
the cats are very active today. It must be spring in the
air, the phase of the moon, and who knows what all else.
Jaguar is friendly and active, even visiting the sink
instead of staying curled up in his red cat bed on top of
the corner cage. Dawna left this picture of Jaguar in an
envelope taped to the door for me. He's such a handsome cat.
Elder statesman of the shelter, that's our Jaguar.