Sunday, April 27, 2008

Making Molehills out of Mountains

On Wednesday my cat Piper attacked me. I've been writing about this in my head for days, and the story has gone from funny to dramatic to this final version, which is just short: It was a beautiful evening, the windows were wide open, and when Piper began to fight with a large white cat that appeared on the other side of the screen, I got in the middle of it. Piper turned her impulse to fight on me, and I came out of it with a bite on my left hand, a bite on my right forearm, and a few scratches on both wrists. When Eric got home from work, we went to an urgent care clinic, where they gave me a tetanus shot and a prescription for antibiotics that make me nauseous.

There are people out there whose next errand would have been to the vet for a little euthanasia, but we are confident that in that moment, Piper was concerned only with defending herself. She was blinded by instinct and adrenaline, and I was in her path. That's all. So far, this theory has been pretty much borne out. She was easily spooked for a couple of days, especially by noises and movement at the living room window, and by me. At this point, though, she seems to have lost even most of her residual memories of our fight, and the cuddling this morning has been pretty much like old times.

But my brain is bigger than hers, and I remember it all clearly. No matter how often I remind myself that she had always been capable of doing what she did, and the only difference now is that I know about it, I still can't quite trust her. I've never been afraid of any animal before, and I don't like it. So I'm trying to forget. My wounds were impressive, but there have not been, and will not be, any pictures of them. Beyond this post, I will not write about what happened. The only part of this I want to remember is that getting anywhere near an angry cat is a bad idea, no matter how many times you've picked that cat up and made her dance the mambo.

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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Amateur Gardening, Lesson 1: Perennials

In the little wildflower garden outside our living room window, standing amidst the hyacinths, is a single plant that I'm pretty sure is marijuana.

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Monday, April 21, 2008

Happy

Eric is home today. I just made cookies. Now he's making a loaf of beer bread. The weather is beautiful. On our walk to the liquor store early this afternoon, we passed a row of lilac bushes just beginning to turn green. Our windows are wide open, forcing everyone who enters the building to smell our baking and wish they had cookies and fresh baked bread, too. I'm in the middle of a good book, and I have cats to cuddle with while I read. So here I go.

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Thursday, April 10, 2008

And I'm Only Drinking Sparkling Water

My least favorite part of writing is all of the time spent watching the cursor blink and trying to figure out what the substance inside my head is. Doesn't feel like brains. Maybe beer foam?

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Tuesday, April 08, 2008

An Evening With Eels

That's what it said on the marquee, and on the tickets our friend Nils was good enough to get for us. If you don't know this band, try a little listen. They aren't for everyone, but if you think you might like introverted, quirky, substantial rock music, Eels are your guys.

Actually, it's mostly one guy: Mark Oliver Everett. His dad was Hugh Everett, the quantum physicist who devised the theory of parallel universes. Tonight's "opening act" was a documentary film about the son traveling the country to learn more about the father and his theory. See? I told you: quirky but substantial.

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Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Look!


I took this picture this morning while standing in flip-flops just a few feet from a gradually receding line of snow in the yard. Because that's what it means to be from Minnesota.

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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

No Need to Advertise

WF

seeks outdoorsy M

to enjoy the finer things in life,
(like the second tiny hotel from the left)

good food and drink,
(Try the Apricot Wheat, it's delicious)

beautiful cities,

and long walks on the beach.

*****
Eric and I returned home yesterday from a really excellent, mostly lazy, weekend in Duluth. We learned from the last time, and got ourselves a luxurious hotel room at awesome off-season rates. There was a pool on the roof and free Starbucks coffee in the lobby. And a big-screen LCD TV in our room. With cable. We usually scoff at the people who spend most of their vacation lounging in the hotel, but this time, except for the couple of hours we spent on Sunday walking along Lake Superior and climbing on stuff, we were unashamedly those people. And it was pretty great.

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