Sssssssssssssnake!

I just got back from a walk with Jason. On the way, I picked a snake up from the road. It seemed stunned when I found it, as if it had just been run over (an SUV had drive past a couple minutes earlier). I haven’t examined it closely, but it seems to have a broken spine a couple inches up from the base of its tail.

It’s a small snake, maybe a foot long, and actually rather pretty: dark brownish with two thin yellowish stripes down the side of its body. I’m glad I was wearing my gloves, though, because it stinks vaguely of cat shit.

Jason said that Maren is obsessed with snakes and death and things of that sort. “She’s a four-year-old goth,” I told him. “I’m going to patch up this snake and give it to her.”

I don’t know if this snake can be patched up, though. It rested in my hands for most of the walk, but toward the end it became active, trying to slither away. I suppose I ought to let it free for nature to do as nature will, but I sort of miss having a snake. (We had Sanderling, Kris’ childhood snake, for a decade before it died about five years ago.) Snakes are rather unresponsive pets, but they’re fun. They’re exotic. Kids love them.

Toto loved Sanderling. We kept him in a glass aquarium with a wire screen for a lid. Toto would perch on the wire screen for hours, staring down at the snake, watching him crawl around. Sometimes she would try to grab the snake through the glass. She never succeeded. I’ll bet Nemo would love to see a snake.

I’ve placed my new snake in a bucket on the back porch and covered it with grass. If it has not escaped by the time I leave for home, I’ll try to transport it in the car. I wonder if we still have that old pink plastic animal carrier at home. The snake has to have someplace to live.

And what would one feed a snake this small? Sanderling was large enough to consume small rodents, which was always a gruesome sight, but I suppose this sort of snake eats crickets and the like.

Autumn at Rosings Park

You’d think that autumn would see a decrease in wildlife activity in our yard, but sometimes it seems the opposite is true.

Filbert, the world’s fattest squirrel, is convinced that he should be able to snatch seeds from the feeder on the dogwoods. Filbert leaps onto the screen and scrambles around, looking for a hole that might be slightly larger than the others. Then he r-e-a-c-h-e-s inside with his little squirrely arm, trying to grab the goodies.

Filbert the Squirrel is certain that these seeds would be mighty tasty.

He is not successful.

The jays scold Filbert. “We can’t even get to that food,” they seem to say. “It’s for the little birds.” The little birds are none to happy with their rodent friend, either. While he’s dangling from the feeder, they’re unable to eat.

Meanwhile, there’s trouble at one of the birdbaths. The male flicker has been fluffing and flopping for several minutes, and a certain robin thinks that it’s about time she got a turn. “Get out. Get out,” she calls, and she makes several attempts to share the basin with him.

Though it’s difficult to make out in this photo, the robin is flying up to share the bath with the male flicker.
The female flicker is waiting patiently on the ground.

Unbeknownst to the robins and flickers and squirrels, there’s another wild creature about. Oreo, the cat from next door, is lurking under the hydrangea. While the robin and flicker are arguing over rights to the birdbath, Oreo makes a charge at them. He doesn’t even come close.

Poor Simon would love to be outside, too — he longs to taste the blood of a squirrel again — but his parents are just too mean. He can do nothing but sit on the kitchen counter and stare at the action.

Alright, I admit it -- this is a year-old photo taken from a different location, but come on: it suits my needs.

Simon thinks that we are unfair to cats.

Don’t worry, Simon: spring will be here soon.

Natural Sleep, and First Frost

“I’m trying something new,” I told Kris last night as we were getting ready for bed. “I’m taking Sabino’s approach to sleep.”

“What’s that?” she asked, frowning.

“Well, Kim and Sabino don’t use an alarm clock. They rise when they wake up naturally.” She furrowed her brow, full of doubt. “It works! Sabino’s never late to the office. I didn’t set my alarm last night. I just got up when I woke at 5:15.”

Kris did not reply, but turned over to fall asleep.

As I do every night, I checked the time before I closed my eyes: 10:45. As I do every night, I computed my expected wakeup time based on my typical sleep cycle: 4:45 or 6:15. “Hm,” I thought. “Maybe I should stay up another half hour so that I wake at 5:15.” My normal wake-up time is 5:30, but I’m okay getting up fifteen minutes earlier or later.

I dreamed of cats from outer space, cats with unspeakable powers. I slept well.

I woke at 4:48 and thought, “Maybe I’d better get up now. If I go back to sleep, Kris’ alarm will wake me in the middle of my sleep cycle, and then I’ll be tired the rest of the day.”

I didn’t get up. I fell back asleep. I dreamed of a church service at which Pam and I were arguing together against Joel and Kris regarding an esoteric point of Catholic dogma. Pam and I won the debate, of course, and celebrated with an asparagus pie.

I woke again to discover Toto sitting in front of the clock. “Move,” I said, pushing the whiny blob of black fur aside. “Uh-oh,” I said, elbowing Kris. “I guess maybe Sabino’s sleep method isn’t the best for us. It’s 6:17.”

6:17! While this was exactly the time I had expected to wake, it was also three minutes before I needed to leave in order to be on time for work. “I guess you forgot to set your alarm,” I said. Kris muttered something under her breath and stumbled downstairs for her shower.

On Monday night at our football gathering, some of the older kids played outside on Ron and Kara’s deck. “It’s icy,” they said when they came in for dessert.

“No it’s not,” the adults told them. We knew that we’d just had a rainstorm a couple hours ago, and that a heavy layer of cloud cover meant that temperatures wouldn’t drop significantly. Besides, there were no freezing temperatures in the forecast.

“Yes it is,” said Harrison, but we ignored him.

After dessert, I went outside to play a little with the boys. They were taking turns sliding across the icy deck. “Well I’ll be darned,” I thought. “It is icy.” I took a turn skooching my shoes across the slick spots. Before I went back inside, I looked around the yard for other signs of freezing. There were none. Somehow an isolated patch of ice had formed on Ron and Kara’s deck. There were no signs of frost on the drive home, either, though the sky was completely clear.

On Tuesday morning, however, it had frozen. The grass wasn’t too crunchy, but the car windows were frosted. Here at the shop, the thermometer read -2.8 degrees centigrade. I didn’t expect frost this morning, either, and I didn’t find any until I started the car. Though the other windows were fine, the front windshield had a thin layer of the stuff.

The first frost to me means winter is approaching, and so it is. The rains have come. Nights are cold. Darkness reigns supreme.

Voluntary Addiction

I’ve begun playing World of Warcraft again.

My return to the game has led me to wonder: do most people struggle with low-level addictions, or is there actually a type of addictive personality? I don’t just mean addictions to drugs or tobacco or alcohol, but addictions to little things: coffee, chocolate, ice cream, and computer games. How common are these small compulsions? Or are there simply People Like Me who are more susceptible to addictions than normal folk?

My life has been filled with addictions since boyhood. What are collections if not manifestations of addiction? My web-surfing? That’s a sort of a addiction. My collection of comics? That’s also an addiction. My library of books? That’s a rather large addiction!

Does it take a special personality to succumb to addiction, or does everyone suffer from these compulsions, if only to a small extent? I’m curious.

You may recall that I became addicted to World of Warcraft earlier this year, spending fully ten percent of my life playing it between last November 23rd and April 15th. At the height of my addiction, I spent twenty percent of my life in game: four or five hours every day.

As may be expected, I’m wary about playing again. Addiction may rear its ugly head once more. The World of Warcraft experience is so fun, so immersive, that even six months after having quit the game cold turkey, I found myself dreaming of its virtual environments. I longed to roam the savannah and the jungle and the mountains defeating gnolls and the like. So I’m giving it a chance.

I have been back in-game for ten days now, and have been pleased with my restraint. I have placed limits on myself. I have a kitchen timer by my side, and it serves as a constant reminder not to become swept up in the game. I stop playing after designated periods of time. I spend days between each play session. I don’t do “just one more thing” before logging off for the night.

I am exercising moderation.

My goal is to limit play to between seven and ten hours a week. This may seem like a lot, but an ancillary goal is to take time from other wasteful activities rather than from those things that are important. So long as I trade web-surfing time or comic-book-reading time for World of Warcraft-time, things are fine.

It’s been great fun to start a new character on a role-playing server, adventuring with both Joel and Scott, as their time allows. I do not regret this decision.

Yet.

Now that I’ve managed to stabilize my weblog, I’m gradually bringing others back on-line. My brother Jeff returned last week, and the Mirons made a new post over the weekend. Welcome back!

(And stay tuned for the debut of Amy Jo’s weblog…)

Messenger

It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m driving home from work. I’m a little blue: I’m tired from lack of sleep, I’m sick, I feel fat. My mental energy is sapped. I am a mass of melancholia. As I enter the last straight stretch before Oregon City, I glance to my left at the open water of the Willamette.

There, in the center of the riverway, is a bird (a duck? a goose?), flying parallel to the road and at exactly my velocity. The bird is skimming the river. Its flight is an arrow. From time-to-time a wingbeat grazes the surface of the water, scattering flecks of white. We travel in tandem at fifty-three miles per hour, the bird slightly ahead of my car. We race past the trailer park, the motel, the marina. For more than a minute, we seem to be joined by a fixed but invisible cable.

It is a thing of wonder. A thing of beauty.

It is exhilarating.

When I go over the hill and enter Canemah, I am no longer blue.

I Heart My C-PAP Machine

Since July 27th, I’ve been using a C-PAP machine to cope with sleep apnea. I’ve used it every night, but have been disappointed because my quality of sleep hasn’t improved as markedly as I’d hoped. “What would happen if I stopped using the C-PAP machine?” I’ve wondered. Last night I got the answer.

I’m still sick, but now the illness has spread beyond my throat. My sinuses are stuffy. Since the C-PAP machine requires the user to breathe through the nose, it’s impossible to use when one has a cold. I slept without it last night for the first time in three months. This morning, I’m exhausted.

Here’s how a typical night works when I use the C-PAP machine:

I take between one and three mg of melatonin a half an hour before bed.
When I’m ready to fall asleep, I strap on the breathing mask. I fall asleep within a couple of minutes.
I sleep soundly for most of the night. Occasionally I wake because the mask has slipped and is leaking air. Else, I wake maybe once each night.
About once every couple weeks I have to get out of bed to go to the bathroom.
When I wake in the morning, I’m not exactly refreshed, but I feel okay. I certainly don’t need naps during the day.

Here’s how I slept last night:

I took three mg of melatonin at bedtime.
It took a while to fall asleep, but I was out by 10:15.
I woke at 11:45.
I woke at 1:15 and had to go to the bathroom.
I woke at 2:45.
I woke at 3:45.
I woke at 4:15 and had to go to the bathroom.
I woke at 4:45.
I woke at 5:15.
When I got out of bed at 5:30, I was exhausted. I’m still exhausted.

Last night is typical of my sleep pattern before I got the C-PAP machine. It seems that the time and expense have been worth it after all. I’m generally not as wholly rested in the morning as I ought to be (this could be improved by getting an extra half hour of sleep, I think), but at least I don’t have to take naps during the day. There’s no question that I’m going to have to catch an hour of sleep at some point today. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open. I need to drive to Salem and back shortly; that’s going to be a challenge.

Friends and Neighbors

The Chinese man who owns the dry cleaners helped me carry my clothes to the car today. He scolded me for laying the garments on the back seat. (I make one large dry cleaning trip per year, which means transporting a score of shirts, a dozen pairs of pants, and various sundries. I typically stack this mound on the back seat.) “Hang like this,” he said, demonstrating the proper method.

“This your first time here?” he asked, looking at me as if I were a novice at the whole clothes-cleaning thing.

“Second,” I told him.

He nodded and stroked one of my shirts. “Good quality clothes,” he told me, which left me wondering: what does this mean? Despite my wife’s opinion, is my taste in clothing impeccable? Or — and I fear this to be the truth — do I have the same fashion sense as an elderly Chinese man? Does the dry cleaner guy also buy his clothes at Costco?

On the drive home, I decided it might be fun to be a dry cleaner, but an immoral dry cleaner. Imagine! I would never have to shop for clothes again. I would have an entire store filled with garments from which to draw my wardrobe. A nice dinner out? This shirt looks perfect, and it’s not due to be picked up until next Tuesday! Some people fantasize of stealing cars or robbing banks; I dream of borrowing other people’s clothes. (Especially woolen clothes!) My evil-o-meter just doesn’t go very high, I guess.

At home, I stopped to speak with the neighbor across the street. He was wearing a t-shirt which proclaimed in large type: GET IN THE BOAT. John is a retired teacher. He spends his autumns in Oak Grove, but he winters in New Zealand, and then spends the bulk of the year on his boat in Alaska. Today he told me all about his boat generator and how he wants a new one. (“There’s a new Honda model that produces a regular sine wave,” he said. “You can even plug a computer into it!”)

John turned the conversation to my car, and as usual I bemoaned the sorry lot of my Ford Focus. It’s just not the right car for me, and yet I’m not likely to get a new car any time soon. I’m a “drive it til it’s dead” kind of guy.

“Keep the oil changed, and it’ll last forever,” he said.

“Oh, I keep it changed,” I said. “I change it every five thousand miles.”

John shook his head. “That’s not often enough,” he said. “You need to change it every three thousand miles.” He frowned, then turned and walked away. I wanted to protest: for twenty years, I’ve changed my vehicles’ oil every five thousand miles. I’ve never had any trouble! I take care of my cars! I felt I’d failed some crucial test of manhood, as if I’d fallen in his sight.

As I walked to the mailbox (carrying three bundles of dry cleaning), John stopped at his front door: he turned to smile at me and wave.

I spent my evening skimming the library books I’ve had checked out since July: Cooking By Hand, Slow Food, The Elements of Taste, The User’s Guide to the Brain, The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. I soaked in a hot tub and browsed. Then I sat in bed and browsed. I still feel sick, so I went to sleep early, my C-PAP mask and my eyecover dutifully in place.

Kris woke me from a light doze. “You have to listen to this,” she said, handing me the telephone. Jenn had left voice mail earlier in the evening that went something like this (the following is a reconstruction, not a transcriptioin — Jenn is the narrator):

Harrison came up to me tonight and asked for a bath. “You don’t need a bath,” I told him. “You’re already clean. You had a bath last night.” Harrison whined. “Please. You don’t have to wash me. I just want to soak in the tub. It’s so relaxing.” “Alright, J.D.” I said. Harrison laughed and said, “Good one, Kris!”

Maybe this is only funny for the Gingeriches and the Roth-Gates. It’s pretty funny, though. Now I need to go back to sleep.

Wet!

After yesterday’s mild wind storm, today we’re suffering a deluge. I have no way to know how much rain has fallen in the past twelve hours, but I suspect the scientific answer is a lot. Today’s rain is heavy and wet and constant, which is unusual. Typical Oregon rain is light and misty and fleeting.

I have fond recollections of bus rides home from school spent staring out at the seasonal marshes and swamps that formed in the pastures and fields around Canby. It’s a bit early for them, but they’re still a welcome sight. They make me feel at home.

The gutters here at the shop have flooded, and Jeff is outside trying to clear them. Puddles are everywhere. I was soaked simply walking from my car to the grocery store earlier this morning. I’m curious to see Tiffany’s reaction to a wet Oregon winter. She’s spent most of her life in southern California, and this weather may prove a burden for her.

In general, I am disdainful of people who use umbrellas in Portland. Not today. Today you have may use an umbrella with my blessing.

I drove to Hillsboro yesterday to deliver some samples. On Farmington road leaving Beaverton, I was stuck behind a black VW Jetta that was all over the road. The driver drifted into a tree-filled concrete median. He drifted into the neighboring lane. He drifted into oncoming traffic.

“This guy is lucky,” I thought. “If there’d been any traffic, he’d have caused an accident.”

I increased my following distance and kept an eye on the car. I jotted down the license plate. “The idiot is probably jabbering on a cell phone,” I thought, “Or drunk. And it’s only eleven o’clock.”

I followed the Jetta for a couple of miles. I frowned at the driver and stared daggers into the back of his head. Then, at a stoplight, I was startled to see two kittens jump into the back window, chasing each other around the car. A third kitten followed close behind.

At the next stop light, I looked more carefully inside the Jetta. There was a kitten on the driver’s shoulders, and one on his lap, standing at the steering wheel. Another kitten was leaping around from seat-to-seat. My anger faded. Suddenly the erratic driving made sense. I, too, would drive like an idiot if my car were full of kittens. In fact, at that moment, I felt an urge to roll down my window and ask the other driver if I could have one of his. The urge passed quickly when I remembered my poor track record with cats in cars. (Most journeys have involved urine.)