Knitnut.net. Watch my life unravel...
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Posted by zoom! on April 12, 2008, at 8:35 am |
I picked grapefruits right out of the trees! Every morning Merle made each of us a bowl of fresh fruit: grapefruit, oranges, grapes, strawberries, bananas, apples…it was yummy.
We went to a giant flea market, and I saw Flea Market Elvis. I also saw Fiber Optic Jesus.
I saw a lot of unusual birds, like this turkey-duck guy. (Edit: I just googled him: he’s a Muscovy Duck and his favourite food is mosquitos.)
I saw woodpeckers too.
I hung out with Lola, aka Lola Granola, Loly Guacamole Girl, and Pooper.
I lay in the sun and read books by the pool. I saw a woman with legs that looked like she stole them from an elephant. They were big and grey and deeply wrinkled. The rest of her looked normal though. I didn’t take a picture.
Deb saw a woman wearing support hose over top of her bathing suit. She didn’t take a picture.
People-watching by the pool made me realize some things. Mostly everybody was old, and a lot of those old bodies tell cautionary tales about posture, weight and ageing. I should work out more.
I went to the beach. It was spring break so mostly everybody was young. I should work out more.
We did some shopping too, but I didn’t take pictures of us shopping. I don’t normally like shopping because everything costs more than it’s worth. But I have to admit shopping is a lot more fun when things are reasonably priced. Among other things, I stocked up on running clothes. I got singlets for $7 that would have cost $40 here.
I meant to take a picture of Deb’s shoes. She packed six pairs of shoes for a seven day vacation! (“I cut back,” she said, “because last time I brought too many shoes with me.”)
Mostly I just relaxed and enjoyed the good company, good food, good weather and the change of scenery, all of which was exactly what I needed.
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Posted by zoom! on April 11, 2008, at 3:25 pm |
I’m not scared of flying like I’m scared of public speaking. The prospect of public speaking fills me with mortal dread which intensifies right up to the appointed time. (But I usually find a way to weasel out of it before the appointed time.)
Flying doesn’t fill me with dread. It’s not until I’m going through Security that I start feeling insecure. I study my fellow travelers and decide who I would search more carefully if I were in charge. (Before 911, I used to decide which one I would eat first if the plane went down in the Andes. I still do that, but it’s not the first thing I do.)
This time I had something new to worry about. I woke up with a funny twinge in my right leg. It didn’t hurt, it was just an unfamiliar twinge. I began to wonder if it was an arterial bubble and the pressure in the airplane was going to force it up through my artery to my lungs where it would become a pulmonary embolism and kill me.
I scanned my fellow travelers to see if any of them looked like doctors. It was important to know which one was the doctor so I wouldn’t inadvertently eat him if the plane went down in the Andes.
X-Ray Man looked perturbed by something in my carry-on. He motioned someone else over, and they both looked perturbed. He summoned a third guy and they all looked perturbed.
Do you ever get that panicky feeling that you did something wrong but were completely oblivious to it? Like maybe I packed a gun in my carry-on, but have no recollection of doing it? I’ve never even touched a gun, but all it takes is three Security guys looking suspicously at my carry-on, and I wonder if I’ve done something unthinkable.
It was probably the knitting needles that concerned them; after a minute they nodded me through. I wiped the beads of sweat off my brow, put my shoes back on, gathered up my bags and waited for someone I could follow, because I had no idea where to go next.
Everybody else seems so competent and it makes me feel like I just fell off the turnip truck. How come they all instinctively know where to go and what to do? (If the plane ever goes down in the Andes though, they’ll probably wonder how I instinctively knew who to eat.)
Eventually I ended up on the plane. I took a good look around; it was just like the #14, except there were enough seats. Nobody looked good enough to eat, and nobody looked like a doctor.
The pilot sounded like he was about 17 years old and high. His mouth couldn’t keep up with his brain so he had to start over a few times. I told myself that flying a plane probably isn’t as hard as it looks. Anybody with a little training could fly a plane high. He got us to Detroit, safe and sound. Nice work Dude.
 The Detroit airport was trippy. It’s got this tunnel with moving sidewalks and the whole tunnel is a light show with techno-popcorn music. I bet it was super futuristic back in the 70s. Now it probably doesn’t impress anyone except the very young, the very old, and those of us who don’t get out much.
During pre-boarding for the flight out of Detroit, the airline rep came on the microphone and said “Wheelchair passengers please remain seated.” She didn’t even blink an eye.
The trip home was uneventful except three-year-old Cameron was sitting next to me and he talked more than anybody I’ve ever met. It was like he had two mouths.
This is Ottawa on April 9th from the air. The snow was discouraging, but I’d have cheerfully disembarked on an ice floe if it meant escaping from Cameron.
By the way, did you know that when they say to turn off all electronic devices, they mean cameras too? Anything with batteries. I could have killed us all by taking this picture.
Posted by zoom! on April 10, 2008, at 2:32 pm |
I was planning to blog about my vacation first thing this morning, but Duncan insisted on monopolizing my hands all morning. He just now decided he could handle a few minutes alone in his basket while I blog.
I got home last night and headed over to Elgin Street to collect Duncan. I knocked on the Dwarf’s door several times, but there was no answer.
The Dwarf had said he might be at a nearby restaurant, so I went over there but found it closed (brightly lit neon OPEN sign notwithstanding).
So I went back to the Dwarf’s house and knocked again. Still no answer. I knocked louder. Nothing. I hammered on the door with both fists. Silence.
Several possibilities occurred to me.
1) The Dwarf was unexpectedly called away on urgent dwarf business.
2) The Dwarf was home but couldn’t hear me beating down his door because he had been struck by some dwarf-deafening disease.
3) The Dwarf was home but pretending to be out because he could not bear to part with Duncan.
I pondered my options.
1) Wait.
2) Find a pay phone and two quarters.
3) Break in.
While I stood there pondering my options, I noticed two tiny magnetic poetry words on the Dwarf’s door.
Come
In
Was he talking to me? Were those words there all the time, or only when he wanted people to come in? I tentatively tried the door handle, and the door swung open. A light sculpture blinked warmly in the entryway, but other than that, the Dwarf cave was dark.
I called softly, “Hello? Is anybody home?”
Silence.
I stepped inside.
“Hello?” I called, louder.
Nothing.
“Duncan?” I called.
Nothing.
This went on for awhile, with me escalating the calls into the darkness until this point:
“DUNCAN!!!!!” I roared at the top of my lungs.
And then I heard it: the unmistakable THUMP THUMP THUMP of Duncan running down the stairs. (Duncan has a certain elephantine quality to his stair-descending.)
He had to run down a couple of flights of stairs. Our eyes met when he was halfway down the last flight. He meowed, I dropped to my knees, he leapt upon me, and we had a heartwarming reunion which included much hugging and face-rubbing and floor-rolling and purring and toe-kissing.
After we put our clothes back on, I prowled around the Dwarf Cave for a few minutes, locating and gathering Duncan’s essentials. Kitty litter box, fresh litter, food…I figured the grooming supplies could wait. I left a thank you bag for the Dwarf on his stairs.
I popped Duncan into his Humane Society carrying case, slid the litter box into a green garbage bag, and used the Dwarf’s phone to call a cab (“one that takes cats,” I specified to the dispatcher. “How many cats?” he asked.).
Then I took everything, including Duncan, outside, and sat on the steps to wait for the cab.
Several minutes later the front door opened, and there was the Dwarf! He’d been in the house all along, watching TV upstairs while I roamed around downstairs like a common catnapper. When he went downstairs to get a ginger beer he noticed the bag on the stairs, and realized someone had come in and made off with his cat. Ha!
(I am glad he didn’t trip on the bag on the stairs – I had placed it right in the middle of a step, thinking he couldn’t miss it when he was about to go UP the stairs.)
Anyway. I got Duncan home and we went to bed. He seemed a bit unsettled at first, and left the bed a few times during the night to do other things. Maybe he was sending email to the Dwarf, I don’t know.
But this morning we stayed in bed an extra couple of hours and cuddled and filled each other in about our vacations. I told him about beaches and birds and bowls of fruit and Lola the Pug and food trees and shopping and unshopping and Dibbly Dips. He told me about exchanging recipes with a coyote, partying with an orange nymph, and being charmed by Aggie. He also told me that the Dwarf had given him a hot stone massage every evening, and suggested I might want to do the same.
I love his manicure – it feels like soft pussycat paws when he kneads me, instead of razor-sharp lion claws. And while we were cuddling in bed this morning, I discovered that the Dwarf had managed to untangle the tangly bits under his chin. He was definitely a better-groomed pussycat after his vacation at the Dwarf’s Spa than before.
The Dwarf could go into business operating a combination kitty kennel/spa/blogging enterprise. It’s lovely being able to check in every day while you’re away and see pictures of your cat looking happy.
I’ll post some vacation pix later. Right now Duncan says we have to go back to bed for awhile.
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Posted by zoom! on April 8, 2008, at 8:04 am |
I was planning to take the whole week off blogging while I was gone, but I’m with three regular blog readers and they need a fix. Me too.
I was a little stumped about what to blog about though. I didn’t bring the camera’s USB cable, so I can’t get my photos out of my camera and onto the computer, and most of the things I thought about blogging about would be better with photos.
But I guess I don’t need any photos to blog about Merle’s imaginary birds.
I like birds, and there are a lot of birds here that we don’t get in Ottawa, like pelicans, egrets and turkey ducks. ‘Here’, by the way, is “The Top of the World,” which is a gated community with a ’round-the-world’ theme. All the streets are named after countries, and all the buildings, oddly enough, are named after decorating styles. We are staying in Ecuador, in the Swedish Traditionalist building.
Yesterday morning I went for a walk around the world. Merle caught up with me in Australia.
“I found the flamingos!” she exclaimed, “If we hurry they might still be there!”
We rushed over to Haiti, which is where she had spotted the flamingos, but alas, there were no flamingos. We were both so disappointed. We headed back to Ecuador, stopping along the way to pick some grapefruits in Canada.
Last night she suggested that we take Lola, the pug, for a walk to the Great Wall of Finland, where hundreds of raucous lime green wild parrots hang out. That sounded intriguing, so off we went. We searched all over Finland, but couldn’t find a single raucous, lime green wild parrot. Merle seemed genuinely perplexed, and by this time I was starting to wonder about her.
Anyway, gotta run, we’re off to Aruba to see the penguins now.
By the way, I have been loving the All-Duncan-All-the-Time virtually live updates provided by the Fourth Dwarf. I have not spent any time worrying that Duncan is sad and missing me, since there is compelling evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, I’ve spent a bit of time worrying that Duncan is not missing me. What if he refuses to come home tomorrow? How can I lure him back to Chez Zoom?
Posted by Zoom! on April 2, 2008, at 7:21 am |
Check regularly for Duncan updates here: The Elgin Street Irregulars
Posted by zoom! on April 1, 2008, at 5:59 pm |
Pack:
swimsuit
summer running gear
tiny knitting project
sunscreen
shorts
stuff to read
passport
Arrange:
flight
house-sitter
famous blogging cat-sitter
Check check check check check – I guess I’m about ready to fly off in a summerly direction tomorrow!
By the way, here are my leftover winter pictures. When I get back I’d like to see all the snow gone.
Love the headline on that newspaper: Big Dig Could Take Days
Here’s a seasonally ambiguous pumpkin:
Putting on the Ice at the Ritz:
I tower over the trash cans at Dundonald Park:
Hanging the Icicles Out to Dry:
I did my part during Earth Hour (although I confess to turning the computer back on after 47 minutes because my ambivalence about the whole Earth Hour concept meant I couldn’t fully commit to it).
I’m declaring this Saturday at 8:00 p.m. “Unearth the Earth hour”; everybody go outside with your hair dryers and melt snow for an hour. Thank you.
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Posted by zoom! on March 31, 2008, at 9:42 pm |
It’s always interesting to check my stats and see which keyword searches are bringing people to my blog. As usual, Knitnut.net has attracted dozens of people who are concerned that their ears squeak when they blow their noses, and hundreds of people searching for pictures of penises of varying lengths. Lately Knitnut.net also seems to be a key repository of suppository searches.
Here are some of my recent favourites:
if i write my ex boyfriends name in red ink and put it in the freezer will i get over him?
do squirrels have orgasms?
photographs of nuns having sex
barefoot nun photos
how to tell if your cat is mentally challenged
how to tell if your cat likes you
how to tell if your cat loves you
top names for female gerbil triplets
cinnamon suppository
Is my 21-inch penis normal?
squash canine diarrhea
poop shooting day
scent free home squatter government of ontario
my cat is not pooping after revolution
Kinda makes you wonder how we managed before Google, doesn’t it?
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Posted by zoom! on March 30, 2008, at 8:56 am |
I saw this girl feeding pigeons outside the L’Esplanade the other day and it instantly transported me back to an experience I had in Athens back in the mid-90s.
I was in Greece for a few weeks with my friends Kathryn and Fiona. We were on the island of Ios most of the time, but we did spend a few days in hot, dirty, crowded Athens.
At one point we were wandering the streets and we found ourselves outside some famous building. I forget which one. It might have been the equivalent of our Parliament Buildings. There was an old man selling birdseed to the tourists, to feed to the pigeons.
I bought some birdseed, and he poured it into my cupped hands. Within seconds, hundreds of pigeons swarmed and landed on me. They coated me, layers of them, with many more frenetically beating the air around me. I was covered in hungry pigeons with their pecking beaks and madly flapping wings. It was freaky.
Meanwhile, the Pigeon Man, in what I thought was intended as a helpful gesture, started arranging my body to provide more landing surface for the pigeons. At the same time, he kept pouring more birdseed into my hands. The pigeons were screaming with joy and I caught a glimpse of my friends, doubled over with laughter. They were laughing so hard they couldn’t even operate the camera.
What they didn’t know was that the Pigeon Man, under cover of multiple layers of pigeons, and under the guise of being helpful, was actually copping a feel. There I was, covered in a feeding frenzy of pigeons, frozen like a statue with arms outstretched, while a dirty old pigeon man fondled my breasts. And it was all transpiring in broad daylight, in a very public place, several feet away from my laughing friends.
The whole situation was so ridiculous I couldn’t even muster up the feminist outrage that seemed at some level appropriate for the occasion. All I could do was laugh. The dirty old pigeon man laughed too. My friends laughed. Even the pigeons laughed. We were all joined together in this crazy little flurry of absurdity under the dirty Athens sun, laughing ourselves silly.
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Posted by zoom! on March 29, 2008, at 9:43 am |
It was a year ago today that Sam took his last walk, and his last breath. Time has done that weird elastic thing time sometimes does, and that year feels like a lifetime and a heartbeat at the same time.
For awhile there, he remained imprinted on my senses all the time. His almost-thereness echoed in the empty space where he wasn’t. He was an invisible, empty, pulsing shape. He was my phantom limb.
Now, I don’t even miss him anymore.
But I remember him. My screensaver at work is a slideshow of photos of various people I know, and one of them is a close-up of Sam staring straight into the camera. He’s stoned from a sedative to control his demented anxiety. It’s the Diane Arbus of dog photos. Sometimes when I come back to my desk and that picture is displaying, I am overwhelmed by profound fondness and I want to just cup his snout in both hands and kiss his soft wet nose and tell him it’s going to be okay.
But the rest of the time? I don’t even miss him anymore
Except this winter, when there was all that snow. He would have loved this winter. He loved to roll in snow and to plunge his whole head into deep soft snow and then pull it out and look at me intently with his head cocked slightly to one side. His whole being would radiate pure energized joy. For a moment I would know in my heart that the meaning of life is to plunge your head in deep soft snow. I wish he could have lasted for one last winter.
I remember how much I agonized over the timing of the decision to have him put down. It is a terrible responsibility to have to decide whether someone else’s life is still worth living. The trajectory of his decline was not straightforward – he had good days and bad days, sometimes even good weeks. Two steps forward, one step back, one step sideways. A slight improvement in one symptom would often be accompanied by a marked decline in another. His arthritis and mobility would improve, but his dementia might intensify. His anxiety might diminish a bit, but his tumour would become infected again.
In retrospect, I realize it was the forest and the trees. You get used to each deterioration, each step of decline. “Normal” keeps changing, and you keep adapting to it. Towards the end I was wiping blood off the walls and cleaning excrement off the floors on a daily basis, while still searching for signs that “it was time.”
 But even now, as I look back at the pictures taken one year ago today, I hear the little voice of doubt. He looked okay. He walked to the vet’s office. He wasn’t on death’s doorstep until I delivered him there. “Are you sure it wasn’t premature?” The little voice is not a kind one. But it’s okay: the little voice is wrong.
I worried about inflicting lifelong guilt on myself by making the wrong decision (or, more accurately, the right decision too soon). But I am confident I made the right decision, and in retrospect, I think there is no exactly right time: there are large brackets of time, and I was well within the brackets.
 I kept a few things to remember Sam by. His collar and leash. Two ziplock baggies of fur. An avocado tree that I planted from seed the day he died. Some memories.
In the end it’s enough, because it’s all there is.
Posted by Zoom! on March 28, 2008, at 8:27 am |
 Dave, from Dave Edwards’ Much Neglected Weblog, has asked for my help in getting the word out about Derek Sean Quinlan’s art show. The show – called Up the Street, Down the Road – runs till April 16th at Artguise Gallery, 590 Bank Street in the Glebe. The vernissage is tonight from 7:30 to 10:30.
Does the setting of this painting look familiar? I think it’s just up the street from where I am at this very moment.
Suffering from Seasonal Malaise? Thankfully, there are people out there who have moved beyond complaining and are actually doing something about it.
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