The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Evolution of Sigmund in Pictures
I’ve been posting pics of Sigmund on Facebook recently and my friends at the Refuge all marvel at how great he looks. I thought it was worth going back to take a look:
When he first came to my house as a foster – May 2010.
April of 2011, two months before we adopted Gibbs as a 10-week old puppy (and attempted to foster him with another Refuge volunteer who did absolutely nothing wrong while taking care of him). He spent the rest of last summer chewing off his feathers in protest (at least he wasn’t plucking them). I couldn’t being myself to take pictures.
February of 2012. This is around the time that I formally adopted him.
A week or so ago, when he wanted to come outside.
This evening, with the first corn-on-the-cob of the season.
If being fully feathered is the evidence of a happy Sigmund, I think we are getting there.
The Robber Bride, by Margaret Atwood
Book 25
Three old college dorm-mates take turns befriending then being betrayed by the same mysterious schoolmate, Zenia. One day, she turns up dead. They are not sad. Several years later, she turns up alive. And she is screwing with them.
The story felt to me like the old mini-series, Lace. Or the old film A Letter to Three Wives. Stories are told in both real-time and flashback, from multiple points of view. Except for that of the villainess.
I had some trouble with the idea that all three women were duped so terribly badly. And they were each partnered with different men that could also be duped so terribly easily. But the theme seemed to be that even the good people are so arrogant and so self-absorbed as to think that they know better than everyone else. They can be the rescuers and redeemers.
So the build up was awesome and as the story headed to conclusion, I was all jazzed, waiting for the proverbial other shoes to drop. As they happened, I was disappointed at the lack of “hows” and “whys” for all of the evil-doings. But I guess that is the reality – sometimes we never really know.
This was a lot of fun.
New Routine
I spent a whole lot of time in my backyard last summer. Housetraining a puppy. Seriously, I have never spent so much time in the backyard before. I kinda liked it.
So when the weather warmed up, I started heading out back with the dogs after work. (It also helps to get the birds some Out Time while Fiona is otherwise occupied.) They do their business and Fiona goes to work patrolling the yard and Gibbs and I play frisbee.
These..leafy bushes..are his favorite. Last summer, he would tear around the yard and then dive into those bushes and shred them all up. We said that was where his imaginary friend lived.
Fiona occasionally comes back to check on me.
Eventually, one or the other dog will decide that it is dinner time, so we go inside. That’s the new summer routine.
Blankets 32 & 33
Three Project Linus events in one week:
Saturday’s Bi-Monthly Blanket Day – 490 blankets bagged, tagged and ready to deliver
Tuesday’s Fundraiser at Culver’s – $455 raised on the raffles alone and a pile of quilt squares from Kids Helping Kids
Wednesday’s Monthy Starbucks’s Sit n Stitch, where I brought my last two fleece blankets from last months:
The purple fleece used Sensations brand “Rainbow Classic” yarn while the red has one of the Red Heart variegated.
We were all productive. And stuff.
With the Blood
The other night, I went downstairs to let the dogs out and put the birds to bed. This is what I found in Kiwi’s cage:
I’ve been through this enough times at the Refuge to have a clue. First, look at the bird: is there an obvious wound?
There was not. Second, look at the paper. Is the blood fresh or dried?
Dried. Breathe now. I picked her up…feet were fine..carried her to the bathroom and set her down on the counter. Then I saw it:
Dried blood on her beak. Damn.
Left her in the bathroom, ushered the dogs upstairs, went back to the cage to investigate:
and there was blood all over her food dish. Then I saw the tip of her beak, broken, on the bottom of the cage. I went back to Kiwi. I cleaned her up, which she did not appreciate, made sure there was no more blood, and put her to bed. My friend Karen, former vet tech, took a look the next morning. She said the beak is still tender, but she will be fine.
I am sure Kiwi was in need of a beak trim, and she swings from all sorts of things in her cage. She’ll be seing the vet soon.
I don’t have kids..I have pets. And I gotta tellya, this one was a bit scary.
Writers’ Theatre: A Little Night Music
I am not sure I’d ever even heard of A Little Night Music before. And if you ask me tomorrow, what’s playing at Writers’ Theatre, I will probably say, “that one with Send in the Clowns“. But damn, it was good.
Writers’ doesn’t have a company of actors, but a cast of usual suspects. William Brown directed Shannon Cochran, his co-star from Private Lives, in the lead role. (Note: Private Lives may have been the show that made me a subscriber – they were that good. That was an awfully long time ago.) She is bloody fabulous, as always. The actor with the toughest job, I think, was the guy that played the Count. The character is so ridiculous as to be nearly a cartoon. Think Gaston in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. But he did well. There was also a fine young actress – a student at Barrington High School – playing the daughter. She found this perfect balance between innocent and worldly.
There is a relatively large cast, with several actors doing double duty in minor roles. They make it work. I’m not sure why so many had to spend quite so much time in their underwear, though. Intimate space and all. Which reminds me that I when I renewed my subscription for next year, I actually asked for new seats. Musicals makes actors spit, and I am currently in the line of fire. Also, I am constantly worried about where I put my feet and my bag, so as not to trip up an actor. I was also whipped by the flying skirts of the dancing actresses. So. No more front row for me.
If you’d like to see the trailer, you can find it here. Runs through July 8.
Waiting for Superman: How We Can Save America’s Failing Public Schools, edited by Karl Weber
Book 24
When I picked up this book at the Library’s Used Book Store, I thought I could read it in place of watching the documentary. But the film follows people, particularly children, trying to break out of the failing system. The book is a series of essays, some by people featured in the film, on the subject.
Two struck me in particular: Michelle Rhee is running the DC public schools and turning the old paradigm on its head. She is not making a lot of friends in her administration, but she is starting to see results. One big thing that fell like a ton of bricks – an offer she made to the Teachers’ Union: take the contract with its modest increases, or go off contract for an opportunity to double (that isn’t the exact math, but close) your salary over the next couple of years. The Union never even brought it to a vote. I guess that is to be expected, but I am glad to see someone fighting from inside the system.
The other Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers. She strongly opposed the depiction of unions in the film, and she was given the opportunity to dispute it. She had a couple of interesting points: one was that we should spend less time trying to fire below-standard teachers and spend more time trying to make them better. And that the charter schools that are successful are not simply 9-3 institutions without unions, but include serious full-service stuff like before school care, after school care, parent outreach and making sure kids are fed.
I just saw a headline that said only 22% of 8th graders in California are passing the standardized test in science. Dismal. But it seems that Bill and Melinda are on that now.
Blankets 25 – 31, 2012
My chapter of Project Linus is holding its bi-monthly Blanket Day tomorrow, which means that today was a different kind of Laundry and Packing Day:
The large, yellow one used a variegated yarn. I forget the name but am pretty sure it involved the word “denim”. The one on the far left (a fleece print I am sure that I have used before) was Caron White. The fleece with the peace symbols was Red Heart’s Light Raspberry and the print on the far right – a small piece most certainly intended for Mended Little Hearts used Loops & Threads Impeccable in Bronze.
This is the only fully crocheted blanket I have done since January. Caron Simply Soft yarn in Autumn Red and Bone.
The dark one on the left is a very thin navy blue fleece. I used Sensations – the house brand yarn from Joann Fabrics – in Rainbow Classic. The one with the butterflies used what I think was the house brand yarn from Hobby Lobby – it was in Penny’s stash. The color is Peacock.
I have two more pieces of fleece to finish, but technically the clock doesn’t run out until Wednesday – the next Starbucks night – when we do the fleece exchange.
I’ll make it.
Wrightsville Beach
I spent a few days in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina for a conference. The nearest airport is Wilmington, but cost + schedules = had-to-rent-a-car-anyway led me to fly into Raleigh and drive the two hours to the coast.
The hotel was a Holiday Inn Resort, and a very nice one at that. The rate was perfectly reasonable. I was told by a regular that we had our meeting just in time – a few more weeks and it would be IN SEASON, which is crowded and expensive. This was the view from my room:
We had a nice group dinner at the Bluewater Grill that would have been even better if we had been able to order off the menu.
I didn’t have time for a whole lot of tourist stuff, but I did visit the USS North Carolina. WWII battleship docked in historic Wilmington. The bad news is that (at least in the off-season), the water taxis don’t run over there, so the rest of my group didn’t have the opportunity to see it. However, I was able to honestly report that it was hot, crowded and claustrophobic below deck – such that a non-zero number of people didn’t feel terrible about missing it.
On deck, however, was great:
Overall, it was a good trip. Productive in the meeting room and pleasant outside of it. And now I am totally exhausted.
Pet Treats
My two Congo African Greys think Baked Birdie Munchies are the best thing ever. They eat every crumb an woe unto the dog that tries to snatch the crumbs. However, even on sale at Drs. Foster & Smith, they cost $10 for 12 ounces of treats.
I was over at Wags on Willow looking at treats for my dogs. The bags seem to say the same thing: “natural” “human grade” and I wondered if some of these dogs treats would be ok for the birds. For example:
Today I bought Mother Nature Carrot Cakes Dog Treats the ingredients list reads:
Whole Ground Wheat, Carrots, Molasses, Milk, Butter (Preserved with mixed tocopherols, a source of Vitamin E), Egg, Honey, Vanilla, Cinnamon, Salt
So I know that we want to minimize the salt. And in this case, milk and butter aren’t the best things for birds to eat on a regular basis. But for a once a day treat, is it acceptable?
Another favorite of my dogs is K9 Granola Factory Pumpkin Crunchers. The ingredients list reads:
Pumpkin, Oatmeal, Barley Flour, Oat Flour, Apples, Cranberries, Potato Flour, Vegetable Oil, Molasses, Cinnamon, Vanilla
Could the birds eat that for a treat? I’m going to ask Dr. Sakas.
The Next Dark Age 