RDC wants to get me a phone that takes pictures, which would enable even more pictures than the iSight, so there'd be a lot more of these. That might get excessive. Here we have me on the chair, Blake tucked on my chest, the edge of a book tucked between back and arm of chair, and the arm of the chair (I want to emphasize that that's not my arm).
When I woke up this morning I was really disoriented and almost dizzy from bizarre dreams twisting together "What Dreams May Come" and "Angels in America." I called CLH so she could talk me into the present. I slept late, which is one reason my dreams were strange (either I'm more awake at the end of a long sleep, so I remember them more, or--my preference--my mind is using up the dregs of its material), and between that and the long sister-chat, I ditched the idea of painting the landing ceiling. It will wait.
I did go for a walk in the Preserve for the first time in maybe two years. I had avoided it because I remembered, I guess wrongly, from the last time I went, signs announcing new houses in the middle of a hairpin loop that had housed raptors and coyotes and waterfowl and kingfishers in wetlands: the big They were going to fill in the ponds. But either I misremember or the signs were for two mansions that have gone up on the built-in side of the canal, and which are palatially gargantuan but not on wetlands.
In the horse field--the particular horse field with the Przewalski (is it possible for a civilian, even a wealthy one, to have a Przewalski? that's what it looks like) and the donkey and the regular horse--I saw a rough-legged hawk, and at the apex of the hairpin, I overshot my planned turn-around point because I saw I think a Swainson's hawk. Also I might have spotted a peregrine falcon.
There were, however, no dogs. I was walking along in shorts, tank top, an unbuttoned denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and hiking shoes over about four inches of well-trampled snow. But this is Denver: the sun was out and I drove with the window down and was perfectly warm. (Let us not speak of my subcutaneous fat.) The occasional people I passed wore fleece and sweaters and even hats and long pants and were clearly freaks who thought it was too cold to bring their dogs out.
I walked and listened to Underworld and missed Haitch.
Then I visited my favorite library branch. Its architecture is perfect, for one thing, with a separate children's room and lots of window seats and nonfiction on another floor so you can research in quiet, but in addition to its browsable stacks, its main draw is the reader's adviser, a smiling woman named JoAnne who reminds me of my publishing professor.
I picked up Michele Roberts's The Looking Glass, which CLH recommended; The Beans of Egypt, Maine, very popular when I worked at Phoebe; J.M. Coetzee's new Elizabeth Costello; and a couple of volumes of Jane Austen because I have, ahem, never read Lady Susan.
Then I was late for the baby shower. I zipped down to Babies Are Misspelled and Grammatically Incorrect Depot, selected a present by triangulating the factors of registry request, price range, and proximity of item to check-out counter (and it sells wrapping paper too!), and promptly got lost in the Land of AllTheSame. Climbing Tree deliver me from Highlands Ranch and its beige McMansions. I thought that by continuing south of BAMaGI Depot I would find the highway, but apparently I crossed it without noticing as I looked for the Depot--I am used to approaching it from the east and using a Krispy Kreme for a landmark (I have previously visited that hellish pod place in Haitch's company, hence the doughnut stop). In Highlands Ranch, University and Colorado Boulevards intersect instead of running parallel. I ended up approaching the house by following the directions backward, but I got there only 20' past the start time.
I got to meet three newlings: Clove's...Pynchon (too young to be other than iguana-y), Margaret's...Buckbeak (six months old and very sociable), and Begonia's Scarlett (with the little palm tree pigtail most little girls have). I was grateful for Spenser, who has never failed to delight and amuse me even as rarely as I see her, because during Jack and Diane's unwrapping we kvetched (quietly, in the back) about the paraphenalia. Of her blanket, she said, "Needs neither instruction nor assembly." She asked what my "Prince Lionheart Diaper Depot" was about, and I explained my triangulation. Then she looked askance at me when I knew what a Boppie is. But she spoke of Trundlebundlers so we were both suspect.
But my favorite conversation happened with a woman whom I had previously seen only through Haitch. She came to Haitch's graduation party at my house last summer, and recognized me immediately today, but nevertheless had me mixed up with someone else. She came in right after Dexy and Clove with Pynchon and first saw me greeting the baby so after saying hello sequed to, "And how is your little one?"
I paused. This was an ambiguous and probably misguided beginning. "He's fine, thank you...."
She now had a gender, so could ask, "How old is he now?"
I grinned--this was fun. "He was eight in August."
"Where is he today?"
"At home. In his cage."
She laughed, clearly thinking I was being sarcastic. Someone with more guile than I could have kept it going longer, and if I had met Dexy's eye I couldn't have strung it to this point.
"I'm sorry," I explained, "I am quite seriously literal. I do have a little boy whom I love and adore, but Blake is a parrot, not a human."
We laughed and it was fine.
Doing the post mortem with Haitch over the phone later, I told her about an interview of Mohammed Ali I saw. He likes to show a disappearing handkerchief trick to people, but he doesn't like to deceive anyone so always follows up by demonstrating the fake thumb that is the trick's secret. I felt a little like that, delighting in the person's courteous small-talky mistake but not wanting to take advantage of her.
Also Haitch misses our walk.
Yeah.