Rabbit rabbit

Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name 

 

Look at the pictures and the cutlery

I woke so early this morning, to the sound of what I initially thought was workers dumping truckloads of rocks repeatedly onto the street outside, but was actually just the noise each car made as it flew through the intersection over the temporary plates covering the holes in the pavement. Flew through the intersection, I should add, because as of yesterday it's suddenly without a single traffic light (it went from six to zero). Most of the streets are closed off, but still it's very strange and dark out there.

A kind of symmetry: as I fell asleep last night, I was startled back awake by the shattering of glass (a glass shade on one of the bathroom lights, knocked gently-but-not-gently-enough by Isaac).

This morning I walked Clover in the neighborhood, while Mark recovered from a migraine, and we were invited to play in a dog friend's yard (by the dog's human companion, that is). Clover spent much of the playdate sitting at my side looking sad, and later I realized she'd been stung by a bee (I think) on her face. Now one side is swollen, so she looks like two types of dog, depending on which way she's facing. She allowed me to hold an ice pack on her face for a very long time (best girl).

I have spent too many internetminutes googling "immigrating to Canada" lately. By the way.

Okay, Tuesday, what else have you got in store for me?

What we love flutters in us

Best: That woman who runs past our house and pauses to pick and eat a rose petal did it again this morning! Also, the poignancy of the road workers we like* out in front of our house, all sitting in a row on a pipe eating their lunches today.

Worst: Did I mention the lady in the gauze mask printed with THIS IS TYRANNY at Whole Foods? Also, Zoë was here and now she's back in Chicago.

Fun fact: Elon Musk mispronounces Tesla.

*who would've thought the water guys would be so objectionable, while the gas guys are perfectly delightful?

Inquisitive music

I am so delighted by what happens when you take an elderly news article in the form of a PDF and you open it in Google Docs. You get...a ransom note.

What else is delighting me, you ask? Well, I'll tell you: the way Netflix captions describe music:

More from my internet investigations:

No thank you, I don't think I will watch. 

LinkedIn inspo. 

Not to be confused. 

You thought you knew all you needed to know about safety pins.

When you were a young and callow fellow

Running on the beach the other morning with Mark and Zoë, who outpaced me, and Clover, who ran back and forth between the three of us, I wished I had my phonecamera. There was thick fog, and it was lovely seeing them gradually vanish into it in the distance. Plus, plovers everywhere, the water, the dunes. But it's awkward to fit a phone in the pocket of my running pants* (pockets are full of empty poop bags and dog treats anyway), and freeing to be free of it for a while.

We ran and walked and ran and so did Clover, stopping to sniff other dogs occasionally and run in circles with them. We stretched afterward on the sand and breathed in the fog and the sound of the waves and gulls, lucky lucky lucky.

Today, my favorite thing was the poodle with the mohawk. And my least favorite thing was the guy on Congress Street with the sign that said

MEDIA

WHORES

LIARS

COVID

HOAX

*Mostly I walk in them.

Rabbit rabbit.

 

This one has a little star

A fish misadventure* happened here yesterday. Isaac had great plans to grill two whole fishes stuffed with lemon and garlic. The fishes, in their plastic bag from the fish market, felt so very very heavy. And that was because they were full of their internal organs.** As I made a big salad and tried to pay very little attention, Isaac read to me from the "how to clean a fish" website: "First, subdue the fish. Knock it out, and make sure it's dead." Later, after the operation had moved to the back yard, he came in for a large spoon: "I have to scoop out its liver," he said sadly. Mark helped. The yard is still littered with scales that look like shiny sequins. Neither of them wanted to eat fish after they had 65% finished with one of them. We felt the terrible waste of two fishy lives, but said a prayer and double wrapped their bodies and lay them to rest in the garbage.

Then we ordered pizza. 

*This reminds me of something I wasn't involved in but that still haunts me, the story of an unwanted gift of live lobsters and what happens when you put live lobsters in the wrong sort of water.

**Isaac has bought and cooked whole fish from this same market several times before, and they had been cleaned and gutted.