7 February 1999: Diverting Critters

I stopped at the mall after work Friday to get something for CLH. Gift certificates are tedious to give, but what she likes to get, so I went to Pottery Barn for the certificate and then Papyrus so I could give her something with substance that she can exchange in Boston if she hates my taste in stationery, damn it.

I had spent the day wrassling with a 200-page book layout and the only conversations I'd engaged in were pointless, frustrating exchanges, and I felt whupped. So my first stop was FAO Schwartz, where I set off all six Bouncing Tiggers on display. In fact I was so whupped I didn't bounce along with them, but when a sales associate sparkled "Hi, how are you?" at me, I was able to respond, "A lot better now thank you."

Fearing I would collapse from hunger and weariness before the next bus was due, I contemplated resting in the Tattered Cover's café for a while with cocoa and a pastry. But more, I wanted to get home. There's a Sbarro in the mall now--I thought was only an eastern chain? I know it only from rest stops along the Mass Pike. I got a slice of mushroom. I should have known better. I was violently ill the last time I entered a Sbarro, which wasn't its fault but which resulted in a Garcia effect by which the idea of a Sbarro now nauseates me. After eight years I thought I'd be fine, and indeed I was--until I got home.

So I stayed in, read A Thousand Acres, wrote to DEW, and read email. This made Blake very happy. While reading, I can pet his head; while I write on paper, he can gnaw its edges; while reading email, he spelunks in the under-desk cave.

Saturday mornings in the sun cannot be beat. I finished A Thousand Acres, and depending on how I like Greenlanders et al., Jane Smiley might be my new favorite author. Blake and I sat in the sun, read, ate toast, continued the letter to DEW, and watched the squirrels outside.

Then RDC and I started a quest for a couch. In one single vast furniture store, we found The Worst Upholstery Ever, which comprised madras plaid, florid flowers, and a solid blue. Perhaps this is for two people who each have hideous taste and can't go for one or the other. And another that I liked, a repeating floral pattern reminiscent of William Morris. But I can't see getting a whole piece of furniture in such an trendy fabric. It'd go out of style and I'd get tired of it (and I can't slip-cover) and what if the rest of the room clashed? I'd get a pillow in that fabric, maybe.

Also we saw two wagon-wheel benches that I cannot imagine anyone being mistaken enough to buy. Railroad ties between two wheels that formed both the arm and the leg at each end. They reminded me of "furniture" at my parents' house. Wire for utility poles comes on big wooden spools, not like spools of thread more like spools of ribbon with a large lip or brim to hold the cables on. One such spool, six feet in diameter and four feet high, had its foot removed and was planted to become a permanent outside table. Another, perhaps three or four feet in diameter and shorter, was varnished and became a coffee table. Whenever I doubt my blue-collar background, I should remember that table.

Anyway, we found a couch we'll probably get, and possibly a chair and an ottoman also, too cushy to be called a footstool. I conducted the initial comfort test, which was to throw myself bodily upon one and snuggle. Also the arms of couches should be sturdy, since if I sit on a couch I generally do so on the arm. We looked around for desks and bureaus and saw nothing we liked, but at another store we did. All I want is a large surface area to work on--to write or embark on a craft project or assemble a puzzle or whatever--but for that we'll wait until we've moved in and know what kind of space we have.

Grocery-shopping afterward, I smiled idly at the old man at the deli next to us. He began to exclaim to us about the selection: "Where else in the world is this available?" He asked us if we're registered to vote, and when we said yes, he said, "I salute you," and saluted us. He was born in Danzig and told us about Hitler coming to his town by train and asking them to vote whether to join with the rest of Germany. Danzig declined. So vote, was his moral. When he finished his story, before he went on his way, he reminded us to appreciate that we live in paradise, told me to stay beautiful and RDC to keep up the good work.

This last we discussed amongst ourselves. Good work of doing what? Keeping me beautiful? Supporting me with his job so I can be beautiful? Our cashier seemed to think so. At the check-out stand, I bagged, because I bag better than any bagger, and RDC had to listen to the cashier's patter. He asked, incongruously, if RDC had taken his sweetie to see "Shakespeare in Love" yet. Apparently this is because I cannot go out by myself without my burqua. He didn't ask me, the apparent sweetie, myself, because I'm not allowed to talk to strangers or something.

I struggle not to be impatient about old folks like the German man. He had a story to tell, a story soon to be extinct in living memory. He was kind and only wanted to ensure we deserve the bounty we live in. If telling his tale pleased him, were our few minutes listening wasted? I don't think so. Contrariwise, I felt my mouth draw into a sneer and my eyes narrow at the cashier's comment. He was too young to know my mercy.

One of RDC's recent purchases at the warehouse was a massive jar of peeled garlic cloves. The garlic, surprise surprise, won't last nearly as long as it would take even mondo Allium-sativum-phages like us to eat in our regular diet, so RDC is adding it to everything in greater quantities than ever. Fine by me.

We bought whole wheat sesame rolls, smoked cheddar, tomatoes, and a pound of ground bison. And French fries of course. I hadn't had red meat in months, so it would have been pretty yummy anyway, but then the burgers were simply packed with garlic, sage, garlic, red wine, and garlic, so they were blissful.

Yes, bison. I don't know how available this is elsewhere in the country, outside the Rockies and northern plains. I never saw it in Connecticut grocery stores. If you'll eat commercially raised beef, you shouldn't have a problem with commercially-raised bison. Bison, or buffalo if you must, roam free in maybe three spots in North America: Yellowstone National Park, I think somewhere in South Dakota, and elsewhere in Saskatchewan. What we bought was farmed bison, much healthier than beef. The meat itself is naturally leaner and then, healthier still, the animals tend not to be crammed with the hormones and chemicals beef (and dairy!) cattle are.

Those were some tasty burgers.

We rented "Love and Death on Long Island." I thought it fell into decline as soon as Jason Priestly came on screen. John Hurt was superb, anyway. Anyway, I want to read the book, of course, and also the Truman Capote (?) short story, "Love and Death in Manhattan" (?). Probably Capote.

Afterward I played Pajama Sam. He's kind of like Calvin's Stupendous Man.

In the sun this morning, with orange juice and toast, I continued with Addie Pray. I'm about a third of the way through but everything from "Paper Moon" has already happened, so the bulk of the novel might be new for me. It's okay, not great.

Then we went to Red Rocks to hike. Denver had a forecast high of 60 degrees, but I figured the foothills would be chillier. So I wore my fleece pants and didn't take shorts. Silly rabbit. We hiked among the formations; saw mule deer, scrub jays, magpies, dark-eyed juncos, and mountain chickadees, and maybe a golden eagle; and we sweated. I felt like I was sporting a stillsuit. The mule deer bucks sported antlers, which I didn't expect: don't they shed them in fall and regrow new ones in spring? or do they not shed them until just before they're ready to grow a new rack? They looked big. The winter can't have been hard on them, but they were so big at first I thought they were elk.

Of course, some people think deer do grow into elk. I kid you not: I've heard people at RMNP ask rangers how old the deer have to be, or how big they have to get, before they're elk. And elk grow into moose, you know, and thence to bison. And they all need to be fed Twinkies to metamorphosize properly.

People are funny, the way they don't take hints. Camping once at RMNP, we went to a campfire talk by a naturalist, who warmed up the crowd by asking what critters we'd seen so far. "A grizzly bear!" piped up one child.
"Well, we do have black bears here," began the naturalist gently, not to beat down the child.
"No," screeched its mother. "It was in Estes Park today. It wasn't black. It was a grizzly bear," she shrilly defended her offspring.
The ranger, hinting, replied, "Well, black bears actually do come in a variety of colors, and--"
She cut him off peremptorily: "It was too big to be anything but a grizzly bear."
"That would certainly be very interesting," the ranger with superhuman patience replied mildy, "since no grizzly bears have been seen in Colorado for the past hundred years."

Also today we saw a good sign:

DANGER
RATTLESNAKE NESTING AREA
KEEP OUT

Not being Crocodile Hunters, we did just that. We took a little detour before going home, though, driving up toward Kenosha Pass and the county of South Park. RDC said there's a restaurant on one of the many dirt roads we passed called The Elk Snort Lodge. He said he wasn't making it up. This I have to see.