A story for Ben

Adventurous Man and His Brave Pet Chicken Are Sailing Around the World Together

(Click the photo for the whole story.)

Haars and Gullywashers

Thank you, friends, for all your sweet words of commiseration and encouragement re: homeowner's insurance. I had utterly forgotten that my parents went through a similar fiasco years and years ago, so I should've had that tucked away in the back of my mind and not been quite so shocked. The update is that it looks like we'll be covered by a friendly insurance company (friendly until a TREE FALLS ON OUR HOUSE, that is), but we do need to get a home inspection first. Blerg.

I learned a new word today, haar. Which is what you call a fog that sweeps in off the North Sea in Scotland. I think, no I know that we have those here too. As I write this, the sun has emerged, but we've had days of haars and gullywashers* around here lately.**

My girl is fine. Better than fine! We did a long three day stretch with no news (the Internets are spotty where she is). Even her sweetheart was getting a little nervous.

We went out for Indian food the other night and Mark made friends with the woman there (we've known her for years, but never asked her story), who ended up inviting us to stay in her "big house" in Punjab. She also said Zoë should stay there and speak Hindi with the woman's mother, any time!

I am a little hooked on goat milk. I need to start buying the low fat kind. Or a goat. This morning when I was filling the bird feeder, I had a sad little fantasy that I was out there feeding my imaginary chickens.

Way back in October, David gave me a subscription to Quarterly, and I've been receiving goodies in the mail periodically ever since. Yesterday I got a set of Buckyballs (can I just tell you how excited Isaac was when he saw them?) and this patch:

just exactly, precisely, when I needed it.



*my spell checker doesn't recognize either haar or gullywasher.

**and just as I get ready to publish this, what should I see outside my window, but another gullywasher!

the old things go, not one lasts

and there's something i should say about troy davis's execution last night in georgia, but what is there, really, to say? every once in a while, i come face-to-face with the fact that i live in a country where we kill human beings who might not be guilty.*


however, in more cheerful news, have i mentioned the chicken haikus? no, i don't think so, and today is the day to do it. my bruddy** adam and his family have a tradition of texting each other haikus about the chickens they sometimes see and sometimes don't see on their way to and from the sweeties' school. these are san francisco chickens, to be clear. sometimes the rest of the family gets involved, also via text. the poems that have resulted are absolutely amazingly wonderful. here, for your enjoyment, is yesterday's chicken-related exchange:***

adam:

count the humans: three
chicken watch chickens: zero
humans win again!

me:

near the white mountains,
chickens scattered through a yard.
"wild chickens?" asked mark.

adam:

oh, wild, wild chickens
migrating from place to place
can wild chickens fly?

david:

no chickens at work.
maybe these are ag students
studying poultry?

mom:

chickens are scarce here
in cambridge, but yesterday
i saw a turkey.




*"but what then is capital punishment if not the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated, can be compared?" --albert camus

**"bruddy" = six year-old oona-speak for "brother"

***and yes, i am aware that i have the best family ever.

yellow bonnets garland all the lawn

you know what i always wanted? one of those dogs who just sit there loyally beside you on the porch, or lie in the grass while you pull weeds in the garden (see above, all my dreams have come true).

this is the song for this sunshiny month.

it is the summer solstice, a lovely long day, and it is also exactly one week until my girl comes home.

i think my dad has taken to sending me a book as a father's day gift every year -- a book about chickens, to be specific.* this year, i received alice walker's the chicken chronicles in the mail, and i am so excited about reading it!!

our nest is practice-empty this week, as our boy designs and bikes and swims on vinalhaven.

*last year, i believe it was raising chickens for dummies. i've got to get going on this chicken keeping project!

so much depends upon*

home! after a wonderful week in north carolina with the sweeties. here's one sweetie, david and ellen's long-suffering oldest child, miles. i like this picture because he looks so happy and silly. and look at his racoon-ish paws.

the newest sweetie, little ben. i want to call him "small baby," or "this baby," the way zoë's hindi teacher, rita, referred to her own baby. as in, "here, you take this baby."

my stella, who only paused briefly in front of the butterfly house sign before running to the dinosaur exhibit when we visited the fabulous museum of life and science. check out her jazz hands!

i always love to go to caffe driade when i'm in chapel hill -- they have such good coffee (they know exactly how to make an iced americano, for example, with perfect espresso shots), and this time we got to interact with the scary CHAI GUY, who yells at you if you order chai, to make sure you know that they don't serve the kind that comes from a box, and that if that's the kind you want, you're stupid. i identified him because of this interaction:

david: i'd like a latte, please, but not in a bowl.
chai guy: oh, you don't want it in a bowl. well, what do you want it in, then?
david: oh, whatever -- a glass, or a to-go cup.
chai guy: well, i'm not very good at making decisions. so...
david: a glass, i guess.
chai guy: okay. you want a latte. in a glass.

so then, after you've recovered from something like that, you get to sit outside on their beautiful woodsy patio, surrounded by twittering birds, by which i mean actual birds, making bird sounds. all the birds in north carolina are loud and bright.

one night, david and ellen's friend joyce had a party at her house in durham. she has a vast backyard full of perennials and vegetables and chickens. below, joyce and baby oliver. below that, gratuitous photos of various chickens.

you know what i like about where david and ellen live? there are so many places to sit outside while you eat or drink coffee. we did that many times last week, including parker and otis in durham. here are ellen and ben sitting on the porch.

many more photos here. and here's my advice, re: train travel. if you have the extra time, DO IT. just bring good snacks and your dad's ipad. sometimes i had a seat mate, but at other times i had the whole thing to myself. talk about leg room.

so, back to wearing sweaters for a while, but i apparently missed an entire week of rain, so things are green and kind of glowing here, through the fog. and on friday, my baby boy turns fifteen.

*red wheelbarrow, white chickens, et al.

ouch

i'm sure you've been eagerly awaiting a closer look at boo's arm bone! yesterday, he got a stylish blue cast, which he will wear for a couple of weeks, and then it will be replaced by a "removable" cast. i'm picturing a plastic thing that snaps open and closed, but i actually have no idea.

on a completely different note, this craigslist ad*, sent to me by enoch, made me laugh.


*aw, it's been removed. it basically said, "my son found this rooster in a tree. i don't know anything about it. please take it away." and there was a photograph of the offending bird.

limbs unfurled for action

m, bean, and i had a wonderful whirlwind weekend in new york (ooh, alliteration!), where we were lucky enough to stay in a comfortable and charming brooklyn apartment courtesy of our friend erin, who was out of town and generously mailed us her apartment keys as well as maps and metro cards and museum passes.
























her apartment is completely adorable.
























i love the fact that there are rolls of streamers on her bookshelves. and the color of this blue cabinet.
























and the fact that there are pretty little things all over the place, like this little dish with spools of thread, adjacent to some tiny chickens.
























so, when in new york, we travel on our stomachs. as they say. we ate delicious, cheap food all weekend, including hummus and fava platters with falafel at hummus place and pastries at the hungarian pastry shop near columbia. i think my favorite was vegetarian dim sum in chinatown:
























chinatown wasn't as stinky as it has sometimes been in my experience. i thought these silvery (dead) fishies were kind of lovely:
























also, we had pickles from this famous lower east side pickle place. m told us a horrifying story from his childhood involving sweet pickle juice.

















and coffee! at least as important as the snacks we ate was the delicious coffee we drank, first at the tompkins square park ninth street espresso (not on ninth street, by the way).
























perfect lattes.
























happy, caffeinated people.
























oh yeah, we also went to the moma on friday night, which was packed with mostly french speaking people and americans taking goofy pictures of themselves and each other in front of the art. often striking silly poses, modeled after the figures in the art. we saw the tim burton exhibit, but it was so crowded it was difficult to really see it (all i remember now is a black light room, where i noted all the stains on my scarf that are normally invisible). here is my favorite piece of art of the evening, by jenny holzer:

















erin's neighborhood was great, just a couple of blocks from prospect park, and very neighborhoody. we even mastered the art of "no train! no train! the f train is not running, go out to greenwood and get the shuttle bus."
























and really the reason we were in new york at all was that miss gliss's sister alison was getting married. it was a fun wedding, with lots of laughter and a beautiful bride and happy family members and delicious food (including wedding cake baked by the bride herself, which may have been the most scrumptious wedding cake i've ever tasted). but most of all, bean's reunion with her miss gliss, who has been living in france for the last seven months. they had a few hours to hug and catch up, and even dance the hora, before they had to say goodbye again (miss gliss flew back to france last night).
























just before we caught our megabus back to boston, we popped into the ace hotel for some stumptown coffee. that place is excruciatingly hip, and somehow extremely friendly too. i recommend lounging in the lobby admiring the hipsters and the taxidermy and the vivienne westwood-style chairs and black lacquer while sipping a pretty nearly perfect latte, if you're ever in the neighborhood. and if you go down to use the bathroom (which you should), you'll see this on your way up:
























and for today's grammar tip, ahem, "alright" is not a real word. but i like these stairs anyway.

chicken house?

i know you're like, "shut up about the chickens already!" but wouldn't our playhouse make an adorable chicken coop? i think it could be retrofitted fairly easily.

we bought the playhouse when we first moved here in 1999, and the house numbers on the side represent the ages of boo and bean at the time (3 and 6, if you can believe that), and also happened to be our street address in baltimore, where we lived before moving to portland. this thing cost just about one thousand dollars, which was the exact amount of cash we were left over with after we sold our baltimore house and bought our portland house. ever practical, we spent it on this playhouse, which has seen some action over the last ten years, although not as much as we imagined at the time. i think it needs some chickens.

when a girl loves a chicken

i think i forgot to report to you out-of-towners that the chicken ordinance did pass -- chickens are now legal in portland! i don't know if that means i'll ever have my own flock or not. it's so tempting, although this article put me off a little bit. just a little bit, though. when we can afford to fix our backyard fence, and if i can find a reliable chicken sitter... i'll keep you posted.

when a man loves a chicken

i think someone should play this song during that aforementioned city council meeting re: chickens.

chickens

the portland city council is voting on the chicken ordinance next week, and i for one will be calling and emailing the councilors to make sure they do the right thing. i haven't decided yet if i would seriously consider keeping chickens in my yard, but i'd kind of love to have to option. wouldn't it be fun to have them clucking around back there? wouldn't it be nice to have cruelty-free eggs to eat most days? i've been reading books about chickens (this one and this one too, both christmas gifts). what i'm wondering is, who would chickensit for me when we wanted to be somewhere other than home? maybe the animal lover would do it? or the animal kisser, perhaps?

BIG NEWS!

(image copyright mypetchicken.com)




the city council is going to vote on allowing chickens in portland!!! i am so excited...

this holiday season,

remember what's important:

See more Natalie Portman videos at Funny or Die

chickens.

the chicken whisperer

the dog whisperer + a chicken = perfection.

farewell, my subaru

today, i'm really in the mood to be this guy:



maybe i'm coveting his smiling goats...

chickens are pretty chill

okay, so chickens are a current obsession of mine. i love this video, which is about a "controversial urban chicken ordinance" before the city council of missoula, montana. it's kind of a quietly brilliant piece of filmmaking, actually. and it's funny. i like the guy who talks about how chickens are noisy and have an "aroma," and also, "people usually move to town to get away from farm animals." also, the kid who says, "my neighbor has some chickens, and they're pretty chill."

i want a pet chicken.

doesn't it seem weird that you can keep chickens in los angeles and chicago and new york and miami but not in portland, maine?