Little Mousey FooFoo: Smack Down II

This morning around 5:00 I was awakened once again by suspicious-sounding kitteh activity...I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep but the "scritch-scritch-flop-scritch-stepstepstep-wallow-scritch-stepstep-scritch" sounds proved too much for my delicate mental state so I finally sat up and turned on the light.

Sure enough, there was Tricksy on the yoga mat (which was on the Persian carpet which is at the foot of our bed on the floor), looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Schnitty lurking nearby.  I looked around for the toy (the "scritch-scritch-flop-scritch-stepstepstep-wallow-scritch-stepstep-scritch" sound is indicative of such) but saw nothing. Tricksy heaved a great sigh and settled down; I thought maybe the games were over.  Off went the light - I was determined to go back to sleep. 

"Scritch-scritch-flop-scritch-toss-stepstepstep-wallow-scritch-stepstep-scritch."  [breathless pause] ... "Stepstep-scritch-step-toss." 

Only now it sounded like

"STOMPSTOMPSTOMP-SCRITCH-SCRITCH-FLOP-TOSS!!! [PANT PANT PANT] ... 

SCRITCH-SCRITCH-SCRITCH!!!"

I growled, sat back up, turned on the light and glared at Tricksy.  She was lying on her side, all innocence, still cheerful.  I looked again at the yoga mat, and saw that this time she had a little black and white toy on the mat next to her. Tricksy flopped over and grabbed the toy, tossing it up and down and around, Schnitty pacing up and down the edge of the rug like a demented NBA coach on the sidelines. 

"Scritch-scritch-flop-scritch-toss-stepstepstep-wallow-scritch-TOSS!" 

The toy landed on the rug right in front of me, and suddenly resolved from a "toy" into a very cute, very small, and (apparently) very dead mouse.

*Sigh.*

By this time it was nearing 6:00 so I felt somewhat justified in waking Raj up to tell him about Lil Mousey FooFoo II (now deceased);  after a surprisingly short time (driven by the need to pee as much as anything), Raj emerged from underneath the comforter and dispensed with the tiny corpse before stirring up the wood stove and making coffee for me and tea for himself.

Waking up to terrorized, eventually dead animals is a little stressful for us both; we are considering putting out humane traps for future FooFoos, where they get peanut butter crackers and released back into the wild, an acre or two away from the house rather than tortured for hours before finally succumbing to cardiac arrest or dying of fright.

Finally this morning, let me say that Raj really IS a hero...dealing with a dead animal, stirring up the kitchen fire in our "new" wood stove (more on that later), and making the best damn cuppa coffee ANY side of the Mississippi in the very early hours of a cold rainy Sunday morning all with extraordnary good humor and bad puns even before having his own morning cuppa...really! As Raj said this very morning, "We have an "enor-MOUSE problem..."

(hee hee...)

Parker on a Farm - 2nd Generation, Introduction

My father grew up on a small farm outside Maynard, Arkansas (population 381) which is near Pocahontas, Arkansas  (population 6,765) which is in the same state as Little Rock. :) My grandparents did not come by farming naturally; my grandfather, Bob Parker, was a student in Rolla, Missouri, at the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy (now Missouri University of Science and Technology); my grandmother, known as Osie Mae until she met Bob, worked/lived outside her family home from the ripe old age of 13, first as a nanny/au pair/maid then later as a waitress, all while finishing high school.

When Bob Parker and his brother Joe walked into the diner where Osie Mae, all of 17 years old, was waiting tables, it was love at first sight, though Protestant Osie Mae initially suspected Roman Catholic Bob of having cloven hooves.  This minor difference was soon smoothed over, and Bob rechristened Osie Mae "Susan," saying she was his "brown-eyed Susan," and far too pretty for a name like Osie Mae...

To be continued...

p.s. Any family members reading this should feel free to correct inaccuracies; I would LOVE to hear from you and will happily post corrections! :)

Life Among the Savages: The House

Excerpted from Shirley Jackson's very excellent "Life Among the Savages": 

"...all these things, the ones that had been in the house before, and other things which had been in similar old houses and knew their ways, fell naturally into good positions in the rooms as though snatching the best places before the city furniture could crowd in. No matter how much we wanted to set our overstuffed chairs on either side of the living room fireplace, an old wooden rocker...insisted upon pre-empting the center of the hearth rug and could not in human kindness be shifted. An old highboy, a contemporary of the rocker though it had come from a barn across town, took over the living room corner near the rocker and the two of them lived there in silent companionship.

After a few vain attempts at imposing our own angular order on things with a consequent out-of-jointness and shrieking disharmony that set our teeth on edge, we gave in to the old furniture and let things settle where they would.

An irritation persisted in one particular spot in the dining room, a spot which would hold neither table nor buffet and developed an alarming sag in the floor when I tried to put a radio there, until I found completely by accident that this place was used to a desk and would not be comfortable until I went out and found a spindly old writing table and set a brass inkwell on it..."
                                           - Shirley Jackson, Life Among the Savages, 1948

September 11

...has always been a significant date in our family, because it is my oldest brother Joe's birthday! Joe is an Associate Professor of International and Intercultural Studies at Pitzer College in/near Claremont, CA; in addition to being well-versed in critical cultural discourse, he is thoughtful, kind, generous, humble, and fully committed to being a person of honor and integrity.  He is an *amazing* dad to his son/my nephew Benjamin, a loving and gently concerned big brother to me, and a devoted partner to my "sister-in-love" Yvonne...

Because of my brother Joe's influence in my life, I (among other things):

• traveled to Japan before I learned to drive;
• spent countless hours court side at basketball games;
• developed a latent talent for locating missing contact lenses in suboptimal conditions (basketball court mid-game, muddy football field, city bus, etc.); 
• observed the "loneliness of the long-distance runner" up close;
• had an ally in the family when things were hard to understand - or just hard; 
• learned about "poiple boids*;" 
• saw progressive political philosophy translated into real ways of being in the world;
• discovered Gayatri Spivak; 

and finally, 

• I learned that a formidable intelligence does not require a formidable ego - indeed, that humility about one's own intellectual capacity and limitations are key to healthy exercise of that intellect in the world...to do as Spivak suggests, that is, to operate with "an acceptance of radical vulnerability..."

Thanks, Joe!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

(or, as you say...)

HIPPO BIRDIE 2 EWE!!!

* poiple boids: Thoity poiple boids were sitting on the coib, a'choimpin' and a'goimpin' and a'eatin' doity woims, when along came Boit and a squoit named Goit who woik in a shoit factory in Joisey. When Boit and the squoit named Goit saw da thoity poiple boids a'choimpin' and a'goimpin' and a'eatin' doity woims, boy, were they pertoibed!

The Nest - Burning Man 2009

Pics just in...

 

The Nest (with people in it).

The Nest up close.

Julie in Raptor Bird costume, inside The Nest.

Joel in Squirrel costume, on the Playa.

 The Nest/The Burn

Congratulations Julie & Joel Baron!!  Your nest is/was beautiful! 

Meet Julie in person!

xoxo

Visiting the Lowe Clan

My camera stopped working somewhere in Nevada so I've been using Raj's ever since...Below is an example of my learning curve - I was trying to take a still shot and took video without knowing - or noticing.  DOH!