2 February 1998: Not so banal after all

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I am not an animal

I dislike being treated like a criminal in a store but am not disciplined about not funding stores where that happens. I just bought a new pair of headphones today from Media Play. Electronically locked cables secured all the headphones; no clerk presented itself in the vicinity; and I sought one out on the lower floor. This clerk said she couldn't leave her area and disappeared, either to evade courtesy or to page another clerk whom the store allowed to assist customers, I thought. Then I spotted her climbing the stairs and caught her up. She found another clerk and disappeared again; the second clerk entered a code to disable to alarm to unscrew the cable to remove the headphones...not to give them to me, but to deliver them to the sales desk--after following an odd trajectory, because I got there ahead of him. Then apparently I bored the cashier silly, because she checked her watch twice in the 90 seconds of her time I occupied. Since it's a chain, I'd never buy books, music, movies, or software thence, but clearly I shouldn't buy anything from there.

Actually, besides that denigrating incident, and feeling grumpy if productive all day, nothing happened. Even the bus, whence I can usually glean one meaningless anecdote, provided nothing.

So I came home. RDC and I went for a walk. We came home. I read my email and starting writing. Blake's on the chandelier. Pretty standard.

Blake and others explore the hovel

Actually it's not a chandelier but an ugly hanging lamp thing with five untinted globes at the end of five spokes--globes that point up, toward the ceiling, instead of down, toward the floor, where someone might need light. Actually when we moved in it hung at a more logical height--for a dining area. But this is our study. We tied up the chain so we could walk under the lamp or just stand near the desk without bodily harm. Anyway. I think Blake likes his reflection in the hub. I usually let him step--big steps, like the Tin Man when Dorothy and the Scarecrow first oiled him--around the full circle then take him down. It doesn't do to leave him overhead.

And speaking of our hovel, it's going to burst at the seams round about July. DEDBG and SPG are visiting, hooray! with three friends, a couple and their six-year-old son. I warned her that though all were welcome, we have one (1) queen-sized bed and one (1) full-width futon and after those accommodations fill up, it's carpet tenting for all. But at least we have a carpet. I also asked her to explain to everyone about Banana Head. Weird as he is for mere supper guests, he's worse to live with. And when we have guests, he spends a lot more time in his cage, which means he's discontented and thus louder, which means appreciating his sweetness and light can be rather a struggle.

Hey, I'm wrong. I did have a treat today. ABW wrote me an actual letter to thank me for NKW's Christmas present (Goodnight Gorilla) and enclosed two photographs: of herself and NKW, the latter all wrapped up in a towel and held in a close embrace; and of KRW and NKW. Looks like they just went for a row.

She asked me if I noticed in Goodnight Gorilla that the elephant has a Babar stuffed animal. Of course I did. But the armadillo has Ernie, not an armadillo, and she wonders why. Well I know that. It's because the stuffed armadillo is busy in A Prayer for Owen Meany, which NKW probably wouldn't yet appreciate.

She told me another Crazy Mother story. I have a club, so very loosely organized that I am the founding and only member who knows all the others, called the My Mother is Crazier Than Yours Club. Venting and hilarity for all.

The new photographs mean that in my five most recent photograph album pages I have pictures of six different babies, plus RDC the younger, but he's not a baby anymore. They are all wonderful, but ZBD still reigns as the loveliest of all. And HEBD just wrote that she had just mailed me more photographic evidence that this is the most beautiful child ever. Bliss.

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Last modified 2 February 1998

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