It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

“What in the world are you doing?” Kris said, stopping in the middle of the road. She pointed at my bare feet.

“It’s just a whim,” I said. “I want to see if I can do this.”

“It’s over a mile to Paul and Amy Jo’s house,” she said. “The asphalt is hot.”

“My feet feel fine,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go.”

We walked up the hill, past the smokey bar, and then down the hill to Laurie Avenue. We chatted about her job, about how Mom is doing, about the garden.

“Hold up a second,” I said. “I think there’s a rock stuck to my foot.” Kris gave me a knowing look. I rubbed the bottom of my foot, but there was nothing there. That seemed a little strange, but I kept walking.

My feet began to hurt a little. For large stretches along Laurie, there are wide expanses of asphalt that are basically smooth tar. Walking on these was a blessed relief. I sighed inwardly at the cool, smooth surface.

At the end of Laurie, I stopped again to pull pebbles from my feet. There was nothing there. “That’s strange,” I thought. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I began to realize this might not have been a good idea.

The last few hundred yards to Paul and Amy Jo’s house were sheer torture, but I tried not to show it. My feet were on fire.

“Look at me,” Kris said, turning into the driveway. “I’m walking on gravel.” I ignored her and walked up the lawn. I relished the cool, green surface where the grass had recently been watered.

Amy Jo opened the door. “I’m not even going to ask,” she said.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said.

“I tried to make him go back and put on shoes,” Kris said. “But he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“How do they feel?” asked Paul.

“They hurt,” I said. And they did. In fact, I was in pain. I slumped in a chair on the back patio. “Ouch,” I said. I looked at my feet. Each one sported two huge blisters.

“You know what that is, don’t you?” Kris said.

“No. What?” I said.

“That’s psychological,” she said. “Right now you need to be an adult. Your mom’s situation requires you to be at your best. This is you rebelling. You’re being a kid.” I gave her a look. Like she knows anything about psychology!

Paul brought me a pair of socks. “These should help,” he said. I put them on, and while they did help some, my feet still felt like they were on fire. We ate dinner. We talked about life and about work and about the weather. We talked about our gardens. We ate berries and burgers and ice cream.

When we’d finished, Paul said, “Are you going to walk home? Or would you like me to drive?”

Everyone was silent. I didn’t want to speak. At last I said, “I guess you’d better drive us.” My companions laughed.

“And what did you learn from this?” Kris asked.

I was reluctant to admit it, but I knew the correct response. It’s the same response to every conflict we have. And so I said, “Kris Gates is always right.“

She Rules a Crowded Nation

It’s one o’clock when we reach the house. Neither Mom nor I have eaten all day. She took her meds sometime before I picked her up at nine; I ate half a bag of peanut M&Ms on the drive to Salem. When we walk into the kitchen, she sets her purse down and says, “I’m hungry.”

“What would you like to eat?” I ask.

“Peanut butter,” she says.

“Just peanut butter?” I ask.

“And bread,” she says.

“A peanut butter sandwich?” I ask.

She thinks about it. “Yes,” she says. She shuffles her feet and looks down.

“Would you like me to make the sandwich?” I ask, pulling the bread and peanut butter from the fridge.

“No,” she says. “I can make it.” I watch as she slathers the bread with thick gobs of peanut butter. “And milk,” she says. I pour her a glass of milk.

While she works, I prepare a place for her at the kitchen table. “Why don’t you sit down,” I say.

“I’m fine,” she says. She stands at the counter and devours the sandwich in great gulps. She chases it with the milk.

When she’s finished, I show Mom the computer at the kitchen table. She sits down and types in a URL. She clicks the button. She clicks the button. She clicks the button. “It’s not working,” she says. I look. She’s not actually clicking the button.

“You’re pressing the space bar,” I say. “You need to click the button.” She presses the space bar again. And again. She looks at me, and I know that I’m making her uncomfortable, so I leave.

Moments later, she’s up again. I can see her pacing. She’s pacing, as if she can’t make up her mind where to go or what to do. I hear her walk into the next room and begin rummaging on the bookshelf. She comes in to my room. “You said I could borrow books,” she says.

“Yes,” I say. “What would you like to read?”

“How long will I be gone?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “A few days.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Anything.”

I giver her My Antonia by Willa Cather, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, and a couple of others. She sits down at the kitchen table again, in front of the computer. She opens her e-mail program. I go back to my chair.

Moments later, she’s up again, pacing. “I don’t like it here,” she says. “Can’t we just go someplace and drive around?”

“Yes,” I say. “I have to go upstairs for a minute first.”

“Is the car unlocked?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say. I go up upstairs to send e-mail so the family knows where we are. When I get in the car, Mom is sitting at attention in the passenger seat. She has everything with her: her purse, the pile of books. I start driving.

Tony and Kamie pass us going the other way. They turn their truck around to follow. Tony calls me on my cell phone. “We’re behind you,” he says.

“I’m scared,” Mom says. Her hands are fidgeting uncontrollably. She’s sweating.

“Yes,” I say. “I am too. But it will be okay. It will be fine.” We drive in silence for a few minutes. Mom fidgets.

“Can we go to the hospital now?” she asks at last.

“Yes,” I say. “We’re almost there.”

Stevie Nicks Day

All afternoon, I’ve been listening to the same song: “Stand Back” by Stevie Nicks. This was a modest hit when I was a freshman in high school. I had the LP and loved it. Some genius (and I mean this in literally) recently thought to remix the song into a nearly-twelve minute version called the “Tracy Takes You Home Mix”. I have no idea where I got it (iTunes?), but it’s awesome. I’ve been listening to it all day, over and over and over again.

“Stand back, stand back, in the middle of my room, I did not hear from you…”

The Wild Heart is a great album, by the way. Several of the songs are just awesome: “Stand Back”, “If Anyone Falls”, “Wild Heart”, “I Will Run to You”, and “Beauty and the Beast” — the latter of which is the perfect love song for geeky young men and women from the mid-eighties.

The Cat Who Was Raised by a Crow

Last fall at Animal Intelligence, I shared a two-minute video of a cat who was raised by a crow. A reader recently pointed me to a longer video with a more complete story on this unlikely friendship:

There is nothing I like more than stories of interspecies friendship. I love the idea that different kinds of animals can communicate and empathize with one another. Now if only our cats would be nice to the blue jays…

From Bread to Cherries

Ah, friends, so many things to tell you in order to relate a simple story. I should write at this blog more often. I’ll do my best to be succinct.

In March, I wrote a post at my fitness blog asking which whole wheat bread is best? I picked up one of every loaf from Safeway, compared ingredients and price, and then asked six people to taste test each loaf. I concluded that Milton’s Whole Grain Plus offered the best bang for the buck.

After some advice from readers, I tried a couple loaves from Trader Joe’s, and ultimately decided that I liked Rainier Organic Sasquatch Grain & Seed Bread. Eating a slice of that stuff is like eating a field of wheat.

But during that discussion, Brad suggested I should try making my own bread. “That’s crazy,” I thought. “Making your own bread is too much work.” But Brad pointed me to a Mark Bittman recipe for No-Knead Bread. Soon after, Kris and I discovered some refinements from Cook’s Illustrated. Over the past few months, she and I have been regularly baking an easy and cheap home-made bread that is far better than any store-bought stuff.

When I wrote about our breadmaking experience at Get Rich Slowly, several readers told us we could make the process even cheaper by purchasing our ingredients at Costco. On Friday, we headed over to pick up two pounds of yeast and fifty pounds of bread flour. (We also met Rhonda for lunch, where we talked about clothes and clubs, but that’s a story for later.)

While Kris was looking for breadmaking stuff, I nosed through the books. I found a title called Back to Basics: A Guide to Traditional Skills, which I fell in love with immediately. It’s an illustrated how-to manual for people interested in homesteading and self-sufficiency. It features lots of advice on growing your own food, both vegetable and animal.

This afternoon, Kris went across the street to chat with our neighbor, Patrice. I eventually went over to join the chat. Patrice was offering to let us pick more from her cherry tree, an enormous old thing that may never have been pruned. While we chatted, we started talking about the property she rents from John.

“This used to be a farm,” she told us. “In fact, John still calls it The Farm. The barn was actually a chicken coop. That’s where the vegetable garden used to be. And he had cows and horses. He was pretty self-sufficient.”

This is unsurprising. In addition to the old cherry tree, he has several large apples, rows of raspberries, and the best grapes in the neighborhood (which grow wild along the fence and up into the trees). When we moved in, John was the one who gave me wood and advice to set up our own grape and berry arbors. He’s happy to see us growing our own food.

This evening, Kris and I went back over to pick cherries. We’ve already picked all the low-hanging fruit (which led me to understand finally what that phrase actually means), so we carried a ladder over. Kris climbed into the tree first, but she chickened out. “You’re a girl,” I said. “I’m a boy. Let me at it. This is boy’s work.”

I loved climbing trees when I was a boy, monkeying around from branch to branch. I did something similar this afternoon — in a 39-year-old man sort of way — snagging all the gorgeous cherries. (While I was in the tree, I thought I was doing a very Joel-like thing. “My new motto should be WWJD — what would Joel do?” I thought.

As we were finishing, the new neighbors came down to pick cherries, too. While Kris went inside to make some cherry preserves, I stayed outside to meet them. I let them use my ladder to climb into the tree to pick fruit of their own. We chatted a little to get to know each other.

“This is a strange neighborhood,” said one of the new neighbors. “It feels so old-fashioned. We’re so close to Portland, but it feels like we’re in the country. I mean, here we are all getting together to pick cherries.”

Exactly. That’s why we love it here. In a way, it feels like getting back to basics.

Movie Meme

It’s been a while since I did one of those silly internet games, yes? Well, Frykitty recently posted a movie meme, and I’m going to join in. This list is apparently based on Entertainment Weekly‘s 100 classic movies of the past 25 years. I’m going to break from the ongoing list method (“bold everything you’ve seen”? uh, no…) and use the following format:

If I haven’t seen it, the film is listed in red.
If I saw it but would never watch it again, the film is ~~listed in strikethru~~.
If I saw it and loved it, the film is listed in bold. (I own many of these on DVD.)
If I saw it but have no strong reaction, the film is listed in normal type.

And here’s the list:

~~1. Pulp Fiction (1994)~~ — I have never understood the lovefest for Quentin Tarantino

2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03) — we all know my love-hate relationship with these films

3. Titanic (1997)

~~4. Blue Velvet (1986)~~

5. Toy Story (1995) — though I haven’t seen it, I’ve heard it twice, and think it’s very loud

6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

9. Die Hard (1988)

10. Moulin Rouge (2001) — the first half hour of this is amazing

11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984) — Kris and I love this film

12. The Matrix (1999)

13. GoodFellas (1990)

14. Crumb (1995) — almost a cross-off; interesting, but not redeeming

15. Edward Scissorhands (1990)

16. Boogie Nights (1997)

17. Jerry Maguire (1996)

18. Do the Right Thing (1989)

19. Casino Royale (2006) — my favorite Bond film; can’t wait for this fall…

20. The Lion King (1994)

21. Schindler’s List (1993)

22. Rushmore (1998) — I love this movie so much I paid like $80 for the Criterion version…

23. Memento (2001)

24. A Room With a View (1986)

25. Shrek (2001)

26. Hoop Dreams (1994)

27. Aliens (1986) — I know everyone loves Aliens, but the first film is one of my favorite movies of all time

28. Wings of Desire (1987)

29. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

30. When Harry Met Sally… (1989) — hilarious; havne’t watched it in a while

31. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

32. Fight Club (1999)

33. The Breakfast Club (1985)

34. Fargo (1996)

35. The Incredibles (2004)

36. Spider-Man 2 (2004) — one of my favorite superhero movies

37. Pretty Woman (1990)

38. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) — meh

39. The Sixth Sense (1999) — I was surprised by this movie TWICE! (I couldn’t remember the ending the second time around)

~~40. Speed (1994)~~

41. Dazed and Confused (1993)

42. Clueless (1995)

~~43. Gladiator (2000)~~ — t-e-d-i-o-u-s

44. The Player (1992)

45. Rain Man (1988)

46. Children of Men (2006) — an underrated film; loved it

47. Men in Black (1997)

48. Scarface (1983)

49. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) — one of my favorite movies

~~50. The Piano (1993)~~ — ugh, I hated this movie

51. There Will Be Blood (2007) — sitting on our DVD player, though (and has been since April)

~~52. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)~~

53. The Truman Show (1998)

54. Fatal Attraction (1987)

55. Risky Business (1983)

56. The Lives of Others (2006)

57. There’s Something About Mary (1998)

58. Ghostbusters (1984)

59. L.A. Confidential (1997) — at one time, I loved this film; haven’t seen it in a while

60. Scream (1996)

61. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

62. sex, lies and videotape (1989)

63. Big (1988)

64. No Country For Old Men (2007)

65. Dirty Dancing (1987)

66. Natural Born Killers (1994)

67. Donnie Brasco (1997)

68. Witness (1985)

69. All About My Mother (1999)

70. Broadcast News (1987)

71. Unforgiven (1992) — a great film

72. Thelma & Louise (1991)

73. Office Space (1999)

74. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

75. Out of Africa (1985)

~~76. The Departed (2006)~~ — how this won Best Picture (even in a weak field) is baffling

77. Sid and Nancy (1986) — no desire to see it

78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

79. Waiting for Guffman (1996)

80. Michael Clayton (2007)

81. Moonstruck (1987) — saw this on a “date” with Kristin, if I remember right!

82. Lost in Translation (2003)

83. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)

84. Sideways (2004)

85. The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)

86. Y Tu Mama Tambien (2002)

87. Swingers (1996)

~~88. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)~~

89. Breaking the Waves (1996)

90. Napoleon Dynamite (2004) — “do the chickens have large talons?”

91. Back to the Future (1985)

92. Menace II Society (1993)

~~93. Ed Wood (1994)~~ — this movie was awful

94. Full Metal Jacket (1987)

95. In the Mood for Love (2001) — a gorgeous film

~~96. Far From Heaven (2002)~~ — a typical example of type of film (like “The Piano”) I hate

97. Glory (1989)

98. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

100. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

I used to watch a lot of movies, but my pace has really slowed over the past eighteen months. (And we all know why, right?) I’m sure I’ll watch many more in the future, however. (Kris told me to remind you all about her list of classic films. After seeing that list and knowing how much work she put into it, I’m going to find a way to port it to Get Rich Slowly…)

Watchmen Trailer

I’ve been sorely disappointed by a lot of comic book movies. That’s a tough thing for a life-long comics geek like me. There’s a bare handful of comic films I like: Spiderman 2, Iron Man, Batman Begins. (And I hear The Dark Knight, the new Batman film, is pretty good.)

When I first heard that Watchmen was being adapted into a film, I was nonplused. How could anyone possibly do it justice. This is one of the best comic book series of all time (from one of the greatest comic book writers). Early production stills didn’t do anything to bolster my enthusiasm.

But this? This is the trailer. And by god, they might actually pull it off:

At the very least, this trailer has ruined my plans for the afternoon. Forget writing. I’m sitting down to read the graphic novel.

Note: I’ve replaced the pulled version with a new one. It works!

Five Eight (and a Half)

On my recent visit to the doctor’s office, a nurse weighed me and measured my height.

“How tall am I?” I asked. “I can’t ever get a good measurement.”

“You’re five-eight,” she said.

“Ah,” I said. “I thought I was five-nine.”

She laughed. “You’re like every other guy — always trying to say you’re taller than you really are.”

If I were a cartoon character, a little black cloud would have formed above my head. I don’t give a rat’s ass how tall I am. I’m not trying to be macho by claiming to be five nine. I weigh more than 190 pounds, for goodness sake! If I’m going to lie about something, it’s going to be my weight. I say I’m five-nine because that’s how tall I think I am.

Today I finally went to the sidebar at Get Fit Slowly to change my vital stats. Heaven forbid people believe I’m five-nine when I’m only five-eight!

As I was changing my data, I took a look at the vital stats from the doctor’s visit. I noted that the nurse had indicated my height was 174 centimeters. “That’s strange,” I thought. “Wasn’t I 175 centimeters before?” I checked.

Sure enough, when I measured my own height, I had come up with 175 centimeters. The nurse came up with 174 centimeters. But you know what? Here’s how those numbers convert to Imperial units:

174 centimeters == 5 feet, 8.50393704 inches
175 centimeters == 5 feet, 8.89763135 inches

So, not only was the nurse quibbling over about one-half of once percent of measurement, but she was also truncating instead of rounding. That is, she was lopping the fraction instead of rounding up to the nearest whole inch. I really am five-nine.

But just so you don’t think I have some sort of macho need to overstate my height, let’s all agree that I’m five-eight-and-a-half.

Yoga Race

Kris is sad.

Our Nintendo Wii died recently, so we’ve had to ship it back for repair ($82.50). She’d become addicted to Wii Fit, particularly the yoga, but for the past week or so, she’s had to improvise.

Meanwhile, my doctor pronounced me “as flexible as a two-by-four”. “You might want to try some yoga,” he told me. Yes, I might. But not on the Wii.

Wii Fit is okay, but its yoga isn’t really yoga. I took a yoga class in college and loved it. Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, I spread out my brightly colored beach towel to salute the sun and lie like a corpse. You can’t really do that with the Wii.

I considered taking a class at a local gym, but they’re all rather expensive. Instead, I looked online and discovered the perfect DVD: Yoga for Inflexible People ($7.99). For Kris, I ordered Yoga for Beginners ($9.99). Since our DVD player is connected to the television upstairs and not to the Wii TV in the den, I ordered a cheap-ass DVD player ($34.99).

My hope is that Kris and I can each benefit from these yoga videos, continuing to improve our fitness. $52 seems like an acceptable price to pay for this.

But all of the above is just set-up. What this post is really about is how much fun I’m having while tracking the packages. I shipped the Wii back last Wednesday. It’s now in Vernon, California, on its way to who-knows-where? (I didn’t keep the shipping info — only the tracking number.) Once it reaches Nintendo, I’ll apparently be able to track it through the repair process.

Meanwhile, I’m also tracking the shipments from Amazon. The DVDs will arrive on Wednesday, but the DVD player itself is being shipped by a third party in Tempe, Arizona. It’s not scheduled to arrive until Thursday.

Now it’s like yoga contest. Which will reach our doorstep first: the Nintendo Wii or the DVD player? Once or twice a day, I reload the shipping pages just to see if there’s progress.

My money’s on the DVD player. The Wii isn’t even to the repair center yet! Then it’s got to be fixed and re-shipped. The DVD player just has to make its way safely up I-5.

If everything goes as planned, Kris will be able to follow a yoga program on Friday.

A Lovely Secluded Spot

Last summer on our drive across England, we stopped at Jane Austen’s house. The inside was okay, but mostly I found it a little boring. A house is not a house when there’s nobody living there. It’s an empty shell of a thing — a museum.

But I found I loved the gardens.

In the U.K., what we call a yard is called a garden, and it comprises not just shrubs and flowers, but the lawn as well. In the case of Jane Austen’s house, the garden included a large carefully-maintained lawn, a variety of old trees, and lovely secluded spots. I was entranced by these lovely secluded spots.

“You know,” I said to Kris. “I think we could create a spot like that at Rosings Park.”

“Where?” she said.

“In the front border bed,” I said. She was skeptical.

When we returned in early August, I fought my way through the laurel and azalea to see if I could indeed create a lovely secluded spot. To my surprise, there was a relatively large opening in the midst of the front border bed. Or there could be. When I first looked at it, it was covered with English ivy, and crowded in by laurel, lilac, and holly. The ivy itself was covered with a couple decades of twigs and branches.

Last autumn, I made a half-hearted effort to clear the space. Mostly, I just pruned the big holly by the sidewalk. Then I let the idea lie dormant.

After gestating for nine months, the idea has finally, well…that’s a metaphor that’s been stretched too far. Let’s just say that over the weekend, Kris and I did a lot of yardwork. One of our top tasks was to weed the front border bed, and to do that, I had to climb back into my secluded spot. This time, the possibilities were much clearer.

This afternoon I grabbed a rake and a hoe and my pruners. I spent an hour raking twigs, pulling up ivy, and clearing debris. When I’d finished, my secluded spot had begun to take shape.

The space is roughly circular, maybe fifteen feet in diameter. It is completely enclosed by shrubs and trees. Dappled sunlight filters through the leaves overhead, and all around is a wall of trunks and limbs. At two locations one can see clearly outside The Grove (as I have come to call it):

We pulled down a laurel limb, granting a view of the house.
Because I pruned the holly tree last fall, there’s a screened view of the street. (It seemed like a good idea at the time, but how I now regret having pruned those branches!)

I’ve been sitting in The Grove for the past half an hour. It’s wonderful. People pass by on the street, and they do not notice I’m here. Though it’s a warm day, it’s cool beneath the trees. It’s peaceful. The only drawback so far are the goddamn mosquitoes.

Now I have to decide what I want to do with this lovely secluded spot. My first idea was to put down a layer of pea gravel and then install some wrought iron furniture. That seems like the proper English thing to do. But after further thought, I wonder if there might not be other possibilities.

Should I install a fire pit? Should I find some sort of soft surface? (I can imagine how awesome it would be to do daily yoga in The Grove.) Should we opt for a picnic table? Is it best to level the space? (There’s a slight slope.) How can I screen the road from view?

There are many possibilities. I’m not sure where to even begin looking. All I know is that this idea, which seemed a little crazy at first, will come to fruition, and soon. Of all my pipe dreams — Mini Cooper, Stickley furniture — this is the one that will be most satisfying to achieve, and the cheapest to do.

I can’t wait to have a lovely secluded spot to call my own.

Bonus! As I was editing this post, Sammy (or friendly blue jay) fluttered into The Grove and came hopping up beside me. I could have reached out and touched him! He was apparently after a peanut I had unearthed while clearing the space.