Their greenness is a kind of grief

Alas and alack, I knew this day would come:

HORROR OF HORRORS

How am I going to blurb this "word"? Ah, but there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. Right?

In other news, various birds and dogs, it's Calendar Spring, and tiny crocuses are poking up through dry brown leaves and dirty snow. It seems as though the yellow ones were tastier, since I've only espied purple and white so far.

And now for some things I collected for you on the internets:

I suspect Japan is the best place on Earth.

Hamster content.

More hamster content (not ham).

Everyone needs a wee baking raccoon tattoo.

And a sausage dog named Nigel.

People also ask.

Rabbit rabbit

La mer, la mer, toujours recommencėe!

Where can we live but days?

Animals this week:

• two red-tailed hawks in Deering Oaks
• many of the little brown ones at my bird feeders
• ditto a few starlings
• a corgi named Gordon
• a beautiful black cat with a plume of white fur on its chest, sitting on my fence

I don't think I've mentioned my dental coronation here, during which my new beloved dentist filed a crumbly old tooth down to a nubbin and fitted a brand new fake tooth onto it like a Lego piece (plus magic glue). My tongue can't stop admiring the wonderful new tooth, it's so smooth.*

Also in medical miscellany, at my routine mammogram this week I saw a sign that said "Avoid handshakes — try an elbow bump instead," with that last part inexpertly covered with masking tape. Elbow bumps are so 2020.

This morning we encountered the usual mob of middle-schoolers, but with an extra Lord of the Flies vibe. One kid with huge headphones was scrawling graffiti in black marker on the bridge railing, another walked with a portable speaker at his chest blaring Kendrick Lamar, a pack of boys behind him. Several were headed in the wrong direction, away from the school. We realized next week is winter break.

We're giving The Last of Us a shot, despite all the...zombies. I spent most of the first two episodes moaning, "Oh no, I hate zombies." Also, not a fan of these particular fungi. But episode 3 has inspired me to continue, it was sweet and touching and sad.

Absolutely NOT 10 miles west of Boston.

*It should feel amazing, it cost as much as a brand new sofa or a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2

Accept the fluster of lost door keys

Things I found wrote in my phone notes this week:

“Much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness.” - Freud

Party invite idea — "Should we break some bread? Are y'interested?"

The way the Property Brothers karate chop the tops of throw pillows continues to haunt me.

A thing that actually haunts me:

When Isaac and Edna were here last month, the three of us were driving on the shortcut road behind Trader Joe's when we saw a man step off a curb, fall flat on his face, and just lie there for several long seconds. I pulled over, and we all jumped out of the car. He insisted he was fine and got up on all fours while fat, dark drops of blood dripped from his nose. Isaac and Edna kept handing him tissues from a box in the car, which he held to his nostrils until we noticed he had a jagged little cut between his eyebrows and told him to press the tissues there. 

We offered to take him somewhere, buy bandaids at the Walgreens, call someone. He said, "No, no, I just need to figure out how to stand up," and somehow I kind of hauled him up from the ground — or, he leaned all of his weight on me and hauled himself up? I encouraged him to: "I'm stronger than I look," I told this massive man. (I wondered if it was true as I said it, and I guess so, because he got to his feet with his hands on my shoulders as I pretended to be something wide and solid). He thanked us, but continued to say he was fine, that he lived nearby, and then he walked away. 

I think it haunts me because I'm constantly questioning the best way to help (I often defer to pretending not to see in an attempt to protect a person's dignity*) and second-guessing whether my help was actually helpful. Also, I wasn't clear what this man's situation was: he seemed sober, wore warmish clothes, Carhartt-ish, had a sturdy backpack. He was maybe in his sixties? Was he down on his luck, or a man who happened to be walking through a down-on-their-luck area of town? It doesn't really matter, except: did he have bandaids at home, or money to buy them...or a home? And why don't I have a first aid kit in my car?

*See: the time I pretended I didn't see a middle-aged man's pants fall down and expose his bare butt as he juggled to-go coffee cups and a bag of pastries. I am positive that guy didn't want my help.

Rabbit rabbit!

 

One must have a mind of winter

As smoke is in the world

It's Friday, or as I like to think of it, Gentleman's Saturday.* Specifically, it's Friday the 13th, always a lucky day for me, a person who missed being born on Friday the 13th by a mere ~19 hours. 

It's been a month of birds-of-prey sightings: just this morning I saw another Deering Oaks hawk, a smallish brown one drying its wings while perched in a tree, holding them wide and letting the wind blow through the feathers. 

Everything is eerily green for January. It's 50 degrees and raining. There are teeny buds on the lilac.

We started out the week eating Chinese food and playing? solving? a mystery-in-a-box with Adam and Jeannette's wonderful upstairs neighbor, Dani. We were successful, but we required many hints.

Sleuths, sleuthing

*To be perfectly honest, I think of Thursday as Gentleman's Friday. Today is actually just normal Friday.

Take omens from the flight of birds

Hello, it's 2023! 2022 wasn't my favorite! But it brought many sweet and beautiful things, as well as some crappy ones. What a lovely holiday celebration we had with the whole family in North Carolina, with (mostly) lucky travel and very lucky health and some of my most favorite humans (and dogs) all in one place together.

Items from the year so far:

• A game I play sometimes is Floater or Fruit Fly? (It's January, so it's usually a floater.)
• I met someone this week who...how to put this...if I learned they were a serial killer, it wouldn't totally surprise me? 
• I've been doing Adriene's 30 days of yoga every day this year*
• I'm ridiculously delighted with the etymology of inauguration!! 

Okay, on to the important stuff, the internets archaeology:

Why is no one talking about Libby's black jumpsuit?

Best bolster.

In other words, what to do with a whistlepig?

TIL

I can't stop thinking about Fishtopher.

#même

*hellloooo, it's January 5