Our Zoo: The Animals of Rosings Park

For living just a few miles from the center of the city, we sure have a lot of animals around this place! In fact, tonight as I was putting together a video about our bunny, I realized I’ve made all sorts of short movies about the animals of Rosings Park. Let’s look at some of them, shall we? (And, at the end, you’ll get to see footage of Blackberry, which is what Kris has named the rabbit.)

Let’s start at the box factory, though. As you’ll recall, one day a feral chicken showed up in the yard. He lived with us for several months, coexisting alongside the shop cat, sharing its food. Here’s footage of my chicken.

Returning to Rosings Park, the first thing to document is the birds. Our yard is filled with birds, especially in the autumn and winter. Kris feeds them well, and they’re grateful for it. Sometimes there are too many birds. When that happens, there can only be one result: a peanut battle!

One summer, Kris decided to train the scrub jays that are so prevalent here. Using their favorite food — peanuts — she slowly conditioned them to come closer and closer to her. Eventually she could sit at the picnic table and feed them. The collective memory of the jays has no recollection of this now, which is too bad. Maybe we’ll start again from scratch sometime. Here’s a short video of me working to condition the friendly jays.

There are other, wilder animals that roam the neighborhood at times. For instance, there are often raccoons (or bands of them) that sweep the neighborhood, tearing up gardens and chowing down on other foodstuffs they can find. Last autumn, after we kicked Toto out of the house, they discovered her food dish and helped themselves. A younger Toto might have tried to fight them off; the old (and near death) Toto simply watched grouchily.

We have almost as many spiders around here as we do birds. Here are some baby spiders in February; by July, they were full-grown and all over the yard.

The most prominent animals in our lives are the cats, obviously. They run this place. We shouldn’t call it Rosings Park; we should call it the Whisker Den (or something less dorky but just as feline). Here’s a typical morning in which the cats are running the show. (For the record, this is my second-most watched video on YouTube.)

And that leads us to our latest addition: our volunteer rabbit. The bunny showed up last week. I love having it around. It’s hilarious. I like how it chases the cats, but not out of spite — out of playfulness. I came home yesterday to find it lolling in the road with Max. We’ve decided it can stick around, but it can’t come in the house, and we’re not going to actively foster it.

Here’s how cute the damn thing is:

Who knows what animal we’ll keep next? Ducks? A dog? Goats? A cow?

p.s. I forgot about the squirrels! I don’t actually have any good squirrel footage, but they’re a big part of our lives too. Sometimes they eat from Kris’ hand. They taunt the cats. They fight with the birds over food. Last week, we saw one industrious fellow trying to drag a whole corn cob up the walnut tree. I’ll make it a priority to get some squirrel video to add to my collection.

Bookstore of Babel

I had a surreal experience today. After my Spanish lesson, I stopped at Wallace Books in Sellwood. (Yes, yes — I know I’ve complained about them in the past, but the fact is they’re the only real ~~used~~ bookstore around, so I’ll take what I can get.) I wanted to pick up A Game of Thrones and some sort of Spanish-language reading.

Turns out Wallace has a handful of Spanish-language books, but they’re mixed together with all of the other languages. As usual, there’s no rhyme or reason to the way the books are filed. No worries. There were only two or three shelves of foreign-language books, so I just browsed them all.

But as I did, something strange happened. In my mind, all of the languages I know morphed into one. And one language — Portuguese — that I don’t know!

So, I’d come across a French book with a promising title, pull it down, and leaf through it only to realize that while the title made sense, I couldn’t read anything else really. Or I’d grab a Portuguese or an Italian book, glance through it, and only realize I wasn’t looking at Spanish after about thirty seconds. (No joke!)

This went on for about twenty minutes, and it was strange. It was as if all of the bits and pieces of the languages that I’ve learned had united to form some sort of super-language in my head, allowing me to parse any of the Romanic languages. (I didn’t really ever get the German stuff confused with the Italian/Spanish/Portuguese/French — it’s too different.)

Fun, but very confusing. When it came time to leave, I had to put back three books from my to-buy stack because they weren’t actually Spanish, but some other language. In the end, the only Spanish book I came home with was Como agua para chocolate, which is a bit above my reading level. (Though it’s nowhere near as tough as Cien años de soledad. “I can only understand the first sentence of that,” I told Aly today, “and that’s because I’ve already read the book in English.”)

Bonus trivia: Wallace has a big display of the new book from Colin Meloy of the Decemberists. I was admiring it, so the clerk and I talked a bit about the band and its members. “You know he used to work here, right?” she told me. “No way!” I said. “Yes,” she said. “And Jenny too.” Well, there you go. Maybe I’ll have to give Wallace more cred in the future.

Lost in Translation

All day long, I think about Spanish. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I think in Spanish (though this never lasts for long). When I’m not working on my Spanish, I wish I were. And sometimes, like last night, I’ll stay up long after Kris has gone to bed just so I can read more Spanish or do more flashcards.

My favorite activity is translation. I love taking a Spanish-language book or poem or song or comic and working out the English translation. It’s such lovely, imprecise work. (Aly and I have had some good conversations about how translation is never an exact thing because words in different languages never have direct analogs, and because of cultural nuances.)

Here’s a poem I’ve been working on today, a poem by Amado Nervo, a Mexican writer from a hundred years ago. This poem is called “En Paz“, or “At Peace”. It’s about a man nearing the end of his life.

En Paz por Amado Nervo

Muy cerca de mi ocaso, yo te bendigo, vida,
porque nunca me diste ni esperanza fallida,
ni trabajos injustos, ni pena inmerecida;

porque veo al final de mi rudo camino
que yo fui el arquitecto de mi propio destino;

que si extraje la miel o la hiel de las cosas,
fue porque en ellas puse hiel o mieles sabrosas:
cuando planté rosales, coseché siempre rosas.

…Cierto, a mis lozanías va a seguir el invierno:
¡mas tú no me dijiste que mayo fuese eterno!

Hallé sin duda largas noches de mis penas;
mas no me prometiste tú sólo noches buenas;
y en cambio tuve algunas santamente serenas…

Amé, fui amado, el sol acarició mi faz.
¡Vida, nada me debes! ¡Vida, estamos en paz!

And here is my very amateur translation, with an attempt to keep things poetic:

At Peace by Amado Nervo

As I approach my twilight, I bless you, Life,
because you never gave me false hope,
nor unjust labor, nor undeservéd pain;

because I see at the end of my long journey
that I was the maker of my own destiny;

that if I’ve taken sweetness or bitterness from things,
it was because I put sweetness or bitterness in them:
when I planted roses, I always harvested roses.

Indeed, my blossoms will continue into winter:
Although you never promised me an eternal spring!

It’s true that I’ve had long nights filled with pain and sorrow;
but you never promised that I’d only have good nights;
and in exchange, some nights were holy and serene.

I loved, was loved, and the sun caressed my face.
Life, you owe me nothing! Life, we are at peace!

I’ll freely admit that I may have messed up this translation in places. I’m not familiar with many Spanish idioms, and I suspect there are a few phrases here that I’ve translated literally but which ought to be taken in another way. (“Trabajos injustos“, for instance, and “pena inmerecida“.) But I’ve done my best to convert a beautiful Spanish poem into English.

Note: Here’s another example of translation difficulties — at least for me. There are several subtle different ways to translate the line “cuando planté rosales, coseché siempre rosas“. Rosales could be “roses” or it could be “rosebushes”. Rosas could be “roses” or it could be “pink” (or “pinks”). The latter may always imply the color — I’m not sure. So, how does one translate this? For me, to get the meaning that I think the author is going for and to remain poetic, I used the English word “rose” in both cases. But I could be wrong.

Back when our book group read the first volume of Proust, I remember that Pam complained that the translation was imprecise. She wanted it to be literal. The translation we read was the classic from C.K. Scott Moncrieff, who translated for mood and feeling and not exactly word for word. This bugged Pam. It didn’t bug me.

Note: For instance, the literal translation of the title to Proust’s huge novel is In Search of Lost Time, but Moncrieff translated it as Remembrance of Things Past, which was more poetic, a reference to Shakespeare, and attempted to capture the mood of the work. The modern, literal translation of the second volume’s title is “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower”, which is hideous. Do the literalists actually like this? Moncrieff translated it as “Within a Budding Grove”, which is poetic and hints at the sexual awakening without being so overtly clinical.

The more I learn about languages, the less I like word-for-word translations. They may capture the technical meanings, but they don’t convey the deeper dimensions, the wonder behind the words.

I still have a lot of Spanish to learn — I’ve barely begun my journey — but I look forward to lots and lots of future translating. It’s my favorite part of this process.

Our Bunny (or, An Unexpected Guest)

It looks as if — for now, anyway — we’re not just a five cat family; we’re also a one rabbit family.

On Tuesday, for no apparent reason whatsoever, a rabbit appeared in the yard. We were standing in the kitchen when Kris said, “Look. Meatball is chasing a rabbit.” Sure enough. The big dumb oaf was chasing a white and brown bunny across the grass and into the boxwood hedge.

We went outside and spent several minutes trying to catch the rabbit, but to no avail. It’s got some smooth moves.

Over the past few days, the cats have gone from the aggressors, however, to the pursued. The rabbit has warmed up to them — and to us. It won’t let us pet it, but it does like to hop close to us. And to the cats. In fact, when it sees a cat, it bounds after it, essentially chasing the poor feline. The cats don’t really care for this.

Well, except Silver, one of our new additions. Silver thinks the rabbit is kind of fun:

We’re not sure what to do with the rabbit. We’ve asked the neighbors, and nobody is missing a bunny. We asked on the neighborhood email list, and nobody knows anything about it. I guess our next step is to put up signs around our community.

I want to keep the rabbit of course (though outside — I don’t want an indoor rabbit). Kris, naturally, is opposed.

I think she’ll change her mind if we name it, but I’m at a loss as to what to call our little friend. Hazel? Bigwig? Briscoe? Conejo? Stew?

Tearing Down the Trailer

Alas, it is a sad, sad day in Rothland. But a joyous one as well. After forty years, the trailer house is no more.

As you’ll recall, I grew up in this lovely mobile home:

I wasn’t born here, but I have few memories of anywhere else. We moved here when I was two, so all of my childhood, all of my adolescence, and much of my adult was spent in this building. After serving as our family’s home, it eventually became the offices of Custom Box Service.

Many of you have visited this trailer house, which has been, well, dilapidated for some time. You’ve played games here. Spent the night here when we were kids. Worked here. And so on.

Well, after more than a decade of talking about building a new office, Nick and Jeff have finally taken action. Earlier this month, they brought in a temporary office:

And today…well, today this happened:

As I say, it’s a sad day, but a joyous one. There were a lot of memories tied to that building. But there’s no question it was an eyesore and a hazard and all of the other nasty things you can think of. We were embarrassed to bring customers out to the shop because the place was so rinky-dink.

I hope that in a few weeks, I’ll be able to post photos of a brand new office building!

Niall Doherty Practices Spanish

While editing a guest post for my personal finance blog, I found this seven-minute video from Niall Doherty. In this clip, Doherty, who has been learning Spanish for 3-1/2 months, carries on a casual conversation with two friends he’s made in Spain.

I like this exchange for several reasons. First, it’s subtitled. Second, this shows Doherty’s Spanish skills at 3-1/2 months, about six weeks ahead of where I am today. (I can see my skills being similar to Doherty’s in a few weeks.) Third, I like to see the effort he makes, the mistakes he makes, and how he’s able to converse anyhow. He’s unfazed. That’s awesome. It takes me a l-o-n-g time to compose sentences in Spanish, which makes conversations awkward. It takes Doherty a while too. I love watching him search for the right word. It’s not just me!

Tomorrow, Aly (my tutor) and I are going to break free of our coffee shop confines and go for a walk. I hope to converse entirely in Spanish. I think my strengths and shortcomings (especially with regards to vocabulary) will become clear very quickly. It’ll be fun!

Meanwhile, I’ve begun to rough out an itinerary for my October trip. I had intended to spend most of my time in Ecuador, with side trips to Peru (for Machu Picchu) and the Galapagos, but after doing some reading, I’m really, really drawn to the area around Cusco, Peru. I found a $35/night lodge that offers wi-fi. The price is good, the location great, and I could see myself holing up there for an entire month.

We’ll see.

For now, I’ll leave you with another video from Doherty: How to fit everything you own into a 42-liter backpack. (My pack is a 46-liter pack from REI.)

Mexican Radio

One of my favorite parts about learning Spanish so far has been discovering a world of new music. Thanks to José (one of the employees at the box factory), I’ve been exploring the various Mexican music stations in Portland. (I say Mexican because that’s the audience the stations cater to and the source of most of their music. But Shakira, of course, is not from Mexico.)

In fact, I love one of these stations: 93.5 “éxitos“. (Éxitos means “successes” or, in English, “hits”.) Even if I weren’t trying to learn Spanish, I might listen to this music.

But since I am trying to learn Spanish, this station is even better. I don’t understand everything — not even close — but my comprehension is improving. I could catch maybe 5% of the songs and chatter when I started in June, but now it’s up to 25% (and I certainly get the gist of nearly every song).

My favorite songs are often those in which the singers enunciate. The more I’m able to understand, the better I like the song. For instance, here’s “Te Amo” from Makano.

Some songs, though, are beautiful even when I can’t understand them. “Insensible a Tí” by Alicia Villareal was tough to parse at first (though I know the lyrics now because Aly and I went through them), but I was still moved by it.

I’ve been playing this song over and over and over (una y otra vez) since I first heard it last week.

You may be wondering how I know the names of these songs and artists if I can’t understand everything that’s said. That’s where Shazam comes in. Shazam is an iPhone app that, after listening to a few seconds of a song, can usually identify it for you. (Not always, though.) And after it does, it lets you see lyrics, buy it from iTunes, or add it to a Spotify playlist. In short, it’s like magic.

I look forward to discovering more new Spanish-language music in the future. (And to having Aly help me translate it during our classes. That’s half the fun!)

Bonus! I just discovered that Spotify allows users to share playlists, so here’s a short Spanish playlist. I have a more robust playlist in iTunes at home, but this is a good sampling of the stuff I’m listening to right now.

The Art of Omar Rayyan

Though I put my dreams of traveling to England on hold this summer in order to help take care of Mom, I did find some time to sneak away for a long weekend in Indianapolis recently. Indianapolis isn’t quite the same as London, but I still had fun. I met up with my friends Adam and Courtney, and we spent four entire days at GenCon, one of the world’s largest gatherings of nerds.

Note: For more about my trip to Indianapolis, check out the write-up of GenCon Indy 2011 at Far Away Places, my new travel blog. (My new travel blog that isn’t quite ready for prime time.)

While at GenCon, I browsed through artists’ row, a collection of a couple dozen fantasy artists. Most were okay, but nothing caught my fancy. Not until I stumbled on the work of Omar Rayyan, that is. I stopped at his table only briefly, but those moments were magical. To Rayyan, I was probably just another guy to whom he gave a business card. But to me, I found a new favorite artist.

Rayyan paints watercolors of fantasy subjects. Some are rather grotesque, but many of his works would be perfect illustrations for fairy tales. (In fact, some are illustrations for fair tales.) When I got home and had time to look through his portfolio, I found several prints I wanted to own.

Look at these gems:

The Birdbath by Omar Rayyan

The Cavalier by Omar Rayyan

The Starting Line by Omar Rayyan

The Tea Party by Omar Rayyan

Note: All artwork reprinted here by permission. You can buy prints of Rayyan’s work from his Etsy shop.

When I showed these images to my cousin Nick last week, he was impressed. “They look like they’re from the Brown Fairy Book,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked. He googled it for me. Then we looked more at Rayyan’s site. “Look!” I said. “Some of these are from the Brown Fairy Book.”

Finding Rayyan’s work was only one part of a long weekend that made me realize how much I love anthropomorphic animals. A lot. In fact, you’ll be hearing more about this in coming weeks. I’ll bet you can’t wait to read my review of Mouse Gaurd! (Short version: It’s awesome.)

How to Learn Spanish — Fast!

Last night, I finished reading the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. In Spanish. What makes this remarkable is that eight weeks ago, I could barely read a word of Spanish. In the past two months, I’ve gone from only knowing how to swear in the language to being able to read passably well, to hear enough to get the general feel of a conversation, and to speak at least well enough to be understood.

How did I do it? I threw time and money at the problem.

Expert advice
After the World Domination Summit ended in early June, I set a goal to travel. I spent a week poring over an almanac before deciding to start my solo adventures in Latin America. (I actually decided to start in England, but that trip had to be postponed so that I could take care of things on the home front.)

In order to make my adventures in Ecuador or Guatemala or Peru more enjoyable, I knew I wanted to learn Spanish. I’d taken a semester of Spanish nearly 25 years ago during my freshman year of college, but all that I remembered were common curses and jokes about cows. I didn’t know where to begin, so I contacted my new friend Benny Lewis, the Irish polyglot.

Note: Benny is a young man who has been traveling the world on the cheap for the past nine years. As he travels, he learns languages. He speaks eight languages fluently, and hopes to learn more. (He’s been learning Turkish since I met him in June. In Turkey, naturally.) Benny shares tips and tricks about language learning at his site, Fluent in 3 Months, and in his e-book, The Language Hacking Guide.

“The best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself,” Benny told me. “Travel to a country that speaks Spanish and spend all day with people who speak it. That’s how I learn.”

“What’s the second-best way to learn?” I asked.

“If you can afford it?” Benny said. “Hire a private tutor.” So I did.

I looked at the local Craigslist listings until I found a likely candidate. I e-mailed to set up an initial consultation. One morning in the middle of June, I met Aly at a local coffee shop.

Mi Profesora
Aly is a young-ish woman (she won’t allow me to ask her age) originally from Lima, Peru. When she was twelve, she began learning English from a private tutor. After graduate school, she headed to Minnesota. (Or maybe she came to Minnesota for graduate school — I can’t remember the sequence.) She didn’t like it in Minnesota, though, so she came west. She now lives in the Portland area and makes a full-time living by tutoring people like me.

Our first meeting went well. Aly liked that I seemed motivated, and I liked that she was both intelligent and funny. We agreed to work together. For the past two months, we’ve met three times a week for ninety minutes a session. Sometimes my progress seems slow — I’ve been stuck on the past tense(s) for weeks now! — but other times it seems brisk. All of the time, Aly adjusts the lessons to my needs.

Today, for instance, we spent half an hour discussing geopolitics in English. I borrowed a book from a friend — Las venas abiertas de América Latina — and when I showed it Aly, she talked at length about the history of Latin America. It was awesome. (Aly has promised to bring me mp3s of the abridged version of this book tomorrow. She says it’ll be good practice for me to listen to it.)

Note: One thing that’s different about learning a language now versus learning a language in school is that now I’m motivated. Back then, it was a requirement. Today, I want to learn so that I can communicate with my Spanish-speaking friends, and so that I can travel well. I’m much more willing to work than in the past.

Other sources
But it’s not just my tutor that’s helping me learn Spanish so quickly. I’m also devoting lots of time to independent study. I study as I walk to and from the gym each morning. I study whenever I drive. I study at the dinner table. I study whenever I can.

In addition to Aly, I:

Use flashcards on my iPhone and iPad. There are several flashcard apps, but I settled on Flashcards Deluxe, which allows me to dowload free “decks” of cards and work through them at my own pace. I like that the app allows for spaced repetition, and that it has an option for writing your answer with your finger. (This keeps me honest.)

Do practice problems in workbooks — just like when you were in school. These workbooks are cheap and effective when combined with other learning methods. My Spanish Verb Tenses book cost me twelve bucks, and it’s worth ten times as much. (It can be had for $6.44 from Amazon!)

Listen to Mexican radio. I told my friend Jose that I’d been listening to traditional Mexican oom-pah music (not sure which style that actually is — banda?), and he promptly made a list of about ten Portland-area radio stations that cater to the Mexican population. (I say Mexican because most of the latinos in the area are from Mexico, and the radio stations bill themselves as playing Mexican music.) My favorite is 93.5 “exitos“, which plays Spanish-language pop — especially dance music. The music on this station is very J.D.

Read children’s books. I’m reading Harry Potter, as I mentioned, but I have other books in the wings: Las telearañas de Carlota, La casa de la pradera, and El Hobbit. Most of these take a lot of work, so in the meantime I’ve been reading basic books, including those from Dr. Seuss. And Aly’s always bringing me new ones, like Pato para presidente (which is hilarious in Spanish or English).

Choose the Spanish option whenever possible. My iPhone and iPad are now set to Spanish. When I call automated telephone systems (as I’ve been doing when taking care of my mother’s finances), I choose the Spanish-language menu. If a magazine has a Spanish feature, I read it. If instructions are in Spanish, I use those instead of English.

Read BBC Mundo. This Spanish-language news site is written at a relatively low level, like all newspapers and magazines. In other words, it’s perfect for me. I can now read nearly every article. Watching the videos is much more difficult, but that’s okay.

Make use of Google Translate. This online tool is amazing. It’s a great way to check your own translations and to parse difficult phrases. (“Que podría tener algo que ver con” — what the hell does that mean? Actually, Google Translate doesn’t get it right either — it’s idiomatic, and Aly had to explain it to me.) The iPhone app is like magic: Speak into it with one language, and the app translates your speech to another. It’s like Star Trek‘s universal translator!

Practice with Rosetta Stone. This (expensive) software uses an immersion-like method to drill in basic language skills. It’s good as far as it goes, but I found that working independently I was able to quickly outpace the software. I’m constantly having to skip lessons to catch up with my current level. This might be a good choice if I weren’t using a tutor, but as it is, I wish I hadn’t spent money on Rosetta Stone.

Speak Spanish (if clumsily) with native speakers. This is by far the best way to learn. It’s also the most intimidating. It’s scary to try my Spanish with real people. I know it’s poor, and I don’t want to look like a fool. But you know what? Nobody has laughed at me so far. In fact, everyone’s been very supportive, especially my Spanish-speaking friends. (But even the gas station attendant, who smiled as he responded to my lousy Spanish!)

So although I’ve had to tap my travel fund to pay for my Spanish tutor, I’ve also been spending a lot of time with free (or low-cost) learning sources. Taken as a whole, these tools have helped me make great progress in the past eight weeks.

Obviously, I haven’t mastered Spanish yet — I’ve barely begun to learn! — but I’ve made great progress in the past two months, and I hope to make further strides in the six weeks before I leave for Latin America.

Five Cat Family

It cracks me up that I haven’t haven’t written much lately. As usual, that means there’s actually too much going on in my life, not too little.

For example: As many of you know, Mom is currently in the memory-care unit of an assisted living facility. I won’t go into details (yet), but she had another mental-illness crisis in June/July. The doctors ordered 24-hour supervision, and even if they hadn’t, we would have sought it.

What, then, to do with her two cats? There’s only one real answer: They’ve come to live with us.

Yes, that’s right. After the loss of Toto in February, we were down to three cats. Despite my insistent pleading, Kris refused to budge from that number. Now, however, we’re up to five cats. And man oh man, has that played havoc with the cat politics around this place.

To summarize, we have:

Simon, he of prize-winning photos. He loves to climb ladders and to sleep late.
Nemo, who is scared of everything except…
Max (or Meatball), who is a lovable lug (but frightened of Nemo).
Socks, who is a miniature version of Max. She is actually his blood sister.
Silver, who is Simon’s blood brother.

At first, I thought Silver was worthless. He hid under the bed. He hissed. He didn’t interact with anyone. Now, though, after two weeks at our house, he’s established himself as Boss. (In the world of Kris and J.D., “Boss” is bestowed to the top cat of a house or neighborhood. Simon used to be Boss of the house, though he quarreled with Oreo next door about Boss of the neighborhood.)

It’s been entertaining over the past week to watch as the cat politics are sorted out. Simon was pissed off about being dethroned as Boss, and he and Silver came to blows a couple of times. Now, though, he’s resigned to it. As long as Mom still scritches him.

Meanwhile, Nemo (who thought he was Boss) hasn’t come inside except briefly. He’s completely cowed by Silver. And Maxwell doesn’t know what to think.

The new cats are chowing through the cat food. Because they were 100% indoor cats, they haven’t learned to use the outdoors for bathroom duties. (Although Silver figured out how to do Outside in minutes. He loves it.) And now our house is even furrier than it was before. The stairs are covered with cat hair.

Five cats seems like a lot. Still, I’m hoping Kris will let me get a replacement for Toto.