construction is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs

the bad news is that they are still doing construction on the house next door. they are working and working, even through the hail of daily profanities hurled by the new jersey guy. i share the neighborhood's disgruntlement, but instead i bore you, dear readers, with stories of the house. i haven't been threatened with battery yet, so i think i'm on track.

the fear is that once the noise dies down, we won't be able to tell what they are doing. and given their distaste for the building code, i hate to think what toxic vapor they will be releasing into the air of our fine street. it's the fume you can't smell that is the true enemy! well, we are armed. we have our 50 year old wooden windows sealed up tight and we are all running around wearing bandanas on our faces, even while doing things like making oatmeal or folding laundry. oh, if only it were that easy. anyway, we are hoping that we make it through to ring in 2006.

a number of years ago, i lived next to a home that, once abandoned, had to be visited by the health department for a number of infractions. we had only a cinderblock wall between us and the legions of rodents, roaches, dead birds and other fauna. and said legions didn't seem to notice the cinderblock wall, so we had big trouble. the day after the exterminator came out, there were dead things lying around in various states of escape. it upset me terribly. i am hoping that this won't be the picture of us--in our house, on our sill, on the walkway--when the fumes make it in through our creaky windows.

if we live to see another day, it will be a glorious one. and then another and then christmas eve, when all good contractors shall fall asleep, in their own homes, clutching a pudding.

a holiday list

i was just thinking how i really dislike the word pitfall. pratfall is a totally different story. give me pratfall any day of the week. i also really don't like the kind of candies that have the clear gel and a cherry inside. worse even still is the kind that has the clear gel and doesn't even have the decency to have a cherry inside. it's like an insult. biting into one of those things, with or without the cherry makes me feel almost as bad as i feel when my favorite soccer team loses. or when i get home and realize that one of my bags of groceries is still sitting on the back of the check-out stand. or the way i felt when i was at a barbaric daycamp as a kid and they had a huge swing that swung out over a huge canyon and you had to climb up a hill to get to it. it turns out the rope was set too low, so if you didn't hear the counselor say to bend your knees and hold your feet up, you would swing out in a huge arc over the canyon and then swing back again. only, if you didn't have your feet tucked underneath, all that momentum would come to a slamming halt when your shins hit the side of the rocky cliff. but you would somehow remember, in your small reptilian brain, even though you were pretty sure you were crippled, not to let go of the rope. the best part was that the reason you didn't hear anyone tell you to tuck your legs under was because a girl that was too big for her age asked if she could try on a ring your dad gave you and then she didn't give it back, saying, "you gave it to me!"

well, i'm just about crying remembering that whole story, so i will tell you some things that i do like. just to cheer you up.

1. those glass dippy birds that were coated in that weird kind of spray-on felty stuff. (well, ours was covered with that stuff--in red. i realize there were many different varieties of dippy bird. yours may have been different) but anyway, they dipped their heads into a glass of water over and over again. i remember the instructions said to not do some such thing, "othrewise the bird will stop to drink." i've never forgotten it, typo and all.

2. i also like people who don't make a little huffy sound when you put down a grocery barrier stick between your groceries and theirs. it seems like for some people they are ok with you putting down the stick when they are in front of you. they want you to keep your groceries from theirs. but then, if you are in front of them, and you put it down, they are insulted, as though you don't want the checker to mistake any of their groceries for yours. this is sort of really a thing i don't like in the things i like list, but i'll make it up to you on the next one.

3. i like the smell of my dog's snout, right where the whiskers come out. it smells sometimes like popcorn and other times it smells exactly like grape candy. she eats poop, so i am not exactly sure why it smells that way right there, and i probably shouldn't be sticking my nose there, but she and i have an understanding.

4. i also like the smell of a wooden match when you blow it out.

5. and the smell of a new vinyl shower curtain. in the last two places, i've lived, i haven't had the need for a shower curtain, and that makes me kind of sad. don't worry, i have a shower, but it has a door. and there's also a bathtub that is a separate thing, in case you were wondering. sometimes i smell the shower curtains at bed bath and beyond. right before i moved away from the last house i had with a shower curtain, i had just purchased a really great one with drawings on it of old-fashioned showers. i mean, really old fashioned things--these were contraptions that people once used, like half a whisky barrel with a pipe sticking up and out of it--that kind of thing. anyway, these different pictures were all over it. it was so great that i kept it, since i never got to use it because i thought i would one day need it again. at one point, i was going to give it to my friend david, but he never got it, or he changed his mind or something, so now i drive around with it in a canvas bag in the back of my car. it's ok though, because i have a breadmaker back there that is keeping the shower curtain company. i also have a spare leash and the instruction manual for the breadmaker. i am supposed to bring it to the goodwill store, but i keep thinking that i will use it, or find someone who wants a mini-loaf 45-minute breadmaker, and then i'll say, "wait a minute! i've got one right here!" i'll also tell you that i'm not one of those people that drives around with fast-food containers and stuff piled up in the car and all over the dashboard. my car is quite tidy, i just have those things in the trunk. i don't want you to get the wrong idea, especially because i just told you that i smell vinyl shower curtains at bed bath and beyond every once in a while.

6. i like cute things, like the link my sister just sent me that showed, among other things, pictures of squirrels with nuts in their cheeks. or chipmunks, maybe. i'm sorry, but i don't know the difference. i am an equal-opportunity appreciator of rodentia and i try not to make distinctions lest somebody get upset.

7. i like finding pictures of dogs that look like my dog. i found a picture of a soldier in iraq petting a dog that looked just like my granule. i sent it to a lot of people and told them that she had gone to iraq. people like mon mari of all maori, who does things during the day that actually matter probably didn't have the time for the email, but i enjoyed sending it.

8. i like things that don't have to do with baby animals or my dog too. i happen to like the smell of briny ocean things. and as you might know, i have started eating oysters and they taste just like that smell, so they are on this list too. oysters are entry number 8a.

9. i like the sound of a soccer crowd just as you come out of the tunnel into the main seating area. there's a sort of muffled crowd sound as you're walking through from the outside, then: RAAAAAAAAHHHHH, it is such a big cheering sound you can feel it. it almost sounds like it's cold, it's that big of a sensory thing.

10. and to round out my list of ten things, i will say that i like the sound and the feeling of when you put an unglazed ceramic or bisque-type of lid on an unglazed ceramic or bisque-type of pot. you know that sort of brushy/scrapy/fine-gauge gritty sound and feeling? it is one of the greatest.

well, i hope you have enjoyed this list of things. i tried to make up for the engine's absence of late. enjoy your evening and i hope everyone gets pregnant.

dr. oyster, phd

you know one of the bad things about being human? well, besides dying, or watching the local news in the morning. it's getting sick. i mean, before i start getting a million letters delivered in old-fashioned mailbags, i'll tell you that i'm fine now and it was just a cold. now, before i get angry letters delivered in an old-fashioned mailbag, i'll tell you that i know there are people out there who are actually SICK. i know. believe me. i'm just talking about a cold. and yes, it still is a bad thing about being a human being. better than dying, certainly, but it's kind of bad, still.

well, i've been sort of under the weather. i didn't get to run my famous race this past weekend. i had entered a little-known race in a little-known corner of the world and my plan was to take third in my age group. that's because i did some recon and i know that traditionally, there are only 2 fast people who run this race every year. the other people i think run through the streets with christmas puddings tied to their ankles. or maybe they do it as a three-legged race, with the pudding. and i am not making fun of people who run slowly. you don't know this, but i am one of the slowest runners you've ever seen. once, in a short practice race, during my training for a very long race, i finished last in my age group. and i saw every one of those people who ran past me, because every one of those people ran past me. one participant was shaped like a grand piano and one looked like a shark had taken off part of her leg muscle pretty recently. people were asthmatic and people were old and people had never run a race before and people were balancing plates on sticks and wearing feety pajamas. everyone was passing me.

it turns out that what i didn't know at the time was that at that exact moment, i was pretty rundown and had all kinds of deficiencies, which later led to my giving up vegetarianism after 30 years. anyway, mon mari of all maris was there and he saw it happening. i was trying to impress him, as he was not my mari at that time--in fact we had only been courting for two months--but instead, i let the shark-bitten legions pass me and i got lost on the boardwalk amongst the tourists who didn't even know a race was going on, because, well, a race wasn't really going on anymore and nobody had come through there in such a long time. so, it was a lowpoint in my racing career. but monsieur mari, phd told me that it was one of the most heroic things he had ever seen, because i was obviously sick and not fit for racing. yes, i did marry him.

so anyway, i'm slow. even when i'm not anemic and when my fingernails don't bend over like paper, i still finish in the last 25% of the pack. though, i haven't done a race since i've been a poultry & fish eater, so who knows of what i am capable. and we didn't find out of what i am capable last weekend, as you know, because i had a cold and my head was fluffy and i was dizzy and generally not fit to compete.

well, this weekend i have a chance again, because there is always a race somewhere, and there is one nearby. the only thing is that my spouse of all spicey and his fast team will be racing too at this particular event, and so, even though i will probably not be the object of ridicule, because they are all nice people, and it is unlikely that anybody will say anything out loud about the slow time i will have, and they will probably instead start saying how it's really about your personal best, i really would rather run a different race, somewhere with slow people, but these are the breaks. i think i can run my personal best, and that is not just because i ate an oyster today at lunch. i think that all of the track workouts and the long runs will actually do the trick. my spicey is also my coach, so he has a lot riding on this too.

now what was i saying? oh yes, it's really inconvient to have a cold. and i don't think my senses are dulled, because i am not taking any medicine, but i had 2 peculiar driving incidents today. one was that there was a gross polluter on the road today and i was trying to get his license plate number because i am an environmental whistleblower, and yes, i have driven a gross polluting car and yes i do know that it is unkind to tattle and no, i would not have been happy if someone did that to me, but yes, i care about all the bad smokey stuff he was creating. there, i think i addressed all of your concerns. anyway, i took my eyes off the road just long enough to read his license number backwards in my side mirror. and then i got to test out what turn out to be really good brakes on my car. it turns out, i also got a pretty good look at the license plate of the car in front of me too. about 4 inches away, you can really appreciate the little reflective flecks in the metal. anyway, i avoided a collision and i never did call in the gross polluter. if you want the license number, i will give it to you. so that was pretty bad. then, later on, a lady with wild hair was driving a big range rovery type of thing and i think she was having a really good memory of having been on the autobahn, because she was smiling and going awfully fast and she didn't even see me on the road. she ended up noticing me at the last minute, swerving into the oncoming lane, where thankfully, nobody was oncoming, and then she went on her way.

so it was that kind of day. and i mean, i started the day crying in my car while listening to bookends theme by simon & garfunkel, so you'd think things would get better from there. but, did i mention i ate an oyster at lunch? that's my third lifetime oyster. it sounds like an award they bestow on the people who are really great at something. not running, surely. but something else, maybe. the coming-back-from-running-your-body-into-the-ground lifetime oyster award. i deserve that one, probably. in any event, i think that makes three oysters for me. two the first time and one today. they really taste like the ocean. not fishy. just the ocean. they taste like swimming in the ocean.