Tales from the Shark Tank

I guess we aren’t in central Indiana any more. The time changed, and we actually had to reset our clocks instead of just noting that our friends were either now an hour later than we (the Kentucky and Indianapolis contingents), or finally on the same time zone (the Illinois contingent). Whether the entire state shifts to Central time, as has been discussed, remains to be seen. Up in our little corner of the state, we follow Chicago. Given the number of people who live here and work there, that only makes sense.

We didn’t remember that this was the weekend of the bi-annual ritual Resetting of the Clocks last night, so this morning we thought our son had wakend us at 7:00, which for him constitutes sleeping very late indeed. I figured it out in the course of my morning web-surf and told my husband, leading to the comment “I guess he managed to get us up at 6:00 after all.” What can I say? That’s our boy!

Weekends having been their usual ridiculously busy selves lately, I chose to spend this one closer to home despite an annual retreat in Southern Indiana that I really would have liked to attend. But since I was home, it was possible to attend another event. It wasn’t technically a Halloween party, but costumes were encouraged. Ok, fine. For assorted reasons, it behooved me to look reasonably dignified, so I pulled out a black eyelet SCA chemise, belted it with silver cording, put on a classic black pointy hat with silver spider-webs all over it, and betook myself to the gathering.

One of the women saw me come up to the buffet line and commented that my anticipated eye of newt and wool of bat were absent, to which I replied that when dining with muggles, one learned to appreciate fried chicken. Then her little boy, no more than four or five, asked me where my broom was. I told him that the best witches ride dragons, and that mine was napping out in the parking lot with the cars. His eyes got absolutely huge, and as I turned back to the table I heard him whisper “Mommy, did you hear that? She has a real dragon!”

I just read an entry in a private blog concerning a neighbor that made off with my friend’s trash container, which in turn has reminded me of a tale of our own from some years back.

When our son, newly turned eight years old, was still in diapers we had a diaper genie for disposal, and had dedicated a particular many-gallon trash can to containing the contents thereof for trash collection. To put not to fine a point on the matter, no matter what we did or did not do, that trash barrel stank.

So one fine Sunday night we put three 30-gallon trash barrels out in anticipation of collection the following morning. Monday came around, and in front of our house were but two containers. I checked, but the others were still full, so it hadn’t been emptied and tossed to roll away up the street, as happened on occasion. We concluded that it had indeed been stolen in it’s full condition. Further investigation indicated that it had been the one dedicated to the diaper genie. And so it was that the thieves made off with exactly what they deserved. Quite literally, they got s**t.

Michigan City, Indiana, as it turns out, has a very nice little zoo. It’s open from April through October, because, well, it sits on the side of a sand dune in sight of Lake Michigan, and not many people will brave lake effect snow and wind to visit it in the winter. We went to meet a friend and her son there yesterday, as our kids have a two day fall break from school now. I found myself explaining estrus to my son, as he asked why one of the baboons looked like she was sitting on a bright red donut cushion. (I can’t imagine why the boys were ignoring her, but they were. Since I don’t want to explain mating behavior to an eight year old in public, I’m just as glad.) He was enchanted by the rhea with its chicks - four rather largish balls of silver grey fluff. I was quite interested in the bobcat, which turned out to be of a color, size and conformation that seemed remarkably familiar. This is a part of its native range, too, so now I have a tentative identification for the creature I saw a week or so back.

But best of all were the lions. The male considered anything he could see, hear or smell subject for commentary and displays of dominance, and roared pretty much constantly. His lady friend lay at the front of the enclosure, ignoring him and looking bored. I got the distinct feeling that she was thinking “So he roars. So who listens?” And then there was the warning sign. It indicated that the male could and would mark territory outside his enclosure. In other words, the cat would spray. My friend said that she’d seen him do so on more than one occasion, and that the shrieks of the humans so claimed were far more entertaining than the feline itself. I can well imagine. Of course, if I saw that creature turn its tail to the fence when it wasn’t just sort of sauntering away, I would step quickly out of the path. I don’t know what a lion’s range is, but neither have I any desire to be part of an empirical test. Unneutered housecats are pungeant enough. I don’t want to think about what sort of trajectory something more than ten times bigger would manage. I also don’t want to know how it would smell.

From an attorney of my acquaintance, describing a judge: “He’s the sort to who has to bite an attorney every morning on doctor’s orders.”

And from my beloved husband, setting out the trash for pickup on the morrow: “The geese are honking across the road. They must be saying ‘Damn! We should’ve stayed in Canada.” It’s gotten abruptly winter-cold in our neck of the woods and I suspect the geese are no more pleased by this development than I am.

Normally I try resolutely not to watch things like hurricanes hit. I don’t watch train wrecks, either. I listen to the news, keep an ear on the situation, and go on about life. But this time I have a dear friend who chose exactly the wrong week to vacation in Cancun, who is riding out the current blow in a bunker away from the coast even as I write this. He is sure he’ll be fine, and it sounds like he will be. But none the less, I am watching Wilma’s progress as if she were due to make landfall in Indiana. Nothing like a very personal concern to make you sit up and pay attention, I suppose. And to make me wish I could do more than I am.

I have just seen my first wild cat.

No, I don’t mean a housecat gone feral. This creature was about twice too big for that, with a voice commensurately deep. I mean an real, wild, forest-bred feline.

I can’t tell you what species it was; it was twilight, so my ability to perceive detail was somewhat limited and I’m no expert. But there it was, crouched between the rows in a field of corn stubble and nearly the same pale tan-brown color. As I watched it, it watched me, making a sound that in its smaller cousins would have been an inquiring “mew” but in this creature was somewhere around low tenor in range. When I made no move and no sound, it turned back to its business. It crouched where it was awhile, then moved one slow paw at a time until it pounced on some small creature, which it then carried off into the woods at the edge of the field, head held high as if in pride at its demonstrated hunting skills.

It occurred to me that it was possible that my impression of its size might have been skewed by the light, that despite its voice it might have been smaller and closer than I had thought. So I walked out into the field until I found a feline footprint in the mud. No delicate kitty-print this; it was about 2 inches across. It was also every bit as far out from the road as I had thought. So somewhere in the woods of not-so-wild northern Indiana, there is a well-fed feline, not domesticated but well accustomed to the humans it has made its home among.

I’ve been walking just about daily and trying to take better care of myself since we moved here, a matter of about two months now. The walk around the “block”, a matter of three miles, has become easy enough that I can still sing as I go at the end of it. And I just bought new jeans.

I really can’t see a difference in the mirror yet. But the jeans I bought shortly after the move are now loose enough to slide off without unfastening, and there’s a blouse I loved so much I just couldn’t bring myself to get rid of that now buttons without strain or gaping. Last time I tried to put it on, the sleeves were an impossible squeeze and I’d have had to wear a tank top underneath to make it work. Now it fits nicely. So no matter what the mirror says or doesn’t say, in the ways that matter, there is perceptible, if incremental, change. I have to admit I like it.

Our son’s eighth birthday is today. He has been building up to it with an enthusiasm previously unseen, and this morning bounced into our room at 5:15 shouting gleefully “It’s my birthday!” He was running as he did, so the shout was punctuated by the sudden advent of a small warm body rocketing its way into the middle of our bed. Sometimes (ok, usually) I get irritable about the o-dark-hundred wakeup calls, but he was so happy, and so excited, that I couldn’t. I played with his wriggliness for a good half hour before he decided it was time to play with dad for a while before that worthy gentleman had to leave for work. I will admit I went to back to sleep while they played Monopoly. Our son is proving to have a cut-throat instinct for the game, beating his dad fairly 4 out of 5 games without much help, and it certainly is improving his math skills quickly!

Most kids get the hang of the birthday thing by the time they’re four. Ours was still unexcited and uncomprehending at six. So the number he said when asked the usual adult question changed. So what? It had no signifigance in his mind at all. But somewhere in the following year that changed. He came to understand that the number getting bigger was associated with his little self getting bigger, older, able to have greater autonomy. Last year he wanted a real birthday party with all the trimmings. This year he talked about it a little bit, but did not give me the names of any children to invite. That’s one of the difficulties of being in a new school, in an area where there are very few children nearby for him to play with. Something about the nearest house being a quarter of a mile away, although one of his classmates does live in that house, as it happens. But that’s ok with him. Monday his birthday gift from his grandparents arrived, and he sent them a thank-you e-mail voluntarily, all by himself. No help with composition, nor with the mechanics of getting it sent; all I did for him was open his e-mail account. Yesterday he and I made his favorite sugar cookies together, then frosted them and put sprinkles on them. He took them to school this morning as a treat to share with his class. That was another benchmark reached. There again, every time I’ve tried to bake with him before, even when it’s been his idea, it has turned into “Mommy, you do it” within three minutes. Too hard, too much coordination involved, and too little attention span or willingness to endure minor frustration available. Not this time. This time he checked the ingredients off the list and helped me gather them ahead of time. He watched as butter and sugar joined forces in the bowl, said “eww” but did not leave as the egg dropped in, measured and added the flour and sour cream. He helped me roll little balls of cookie dough and put them on the cookie sheet for me to press flat with a glass. Ok, he ran off after the first sheet was filled, but that’s 15 cookies, not 2 or fewer, and he was willing to get cookie dough on his hands. And later, when they’d all been baked and cooled, he laid them out on wax paper so I could frost them, sprinkling green sugar and multicolored nonpareils on top of each as I finished with them. No getting bored after the first one or two were done, not this time. He did the entire four dozen before scampering off to play with his trains again, chattering about the cookies and how no two were alike the whole time.

His birthday present from us is a waterfall for his train set, which we will give him after his dad gets home from work. But I have had my gift on his birthday this year. My son understands his birthday. He sent his grandparents a thank you note, and helped me make cookies for it. Those are normal milestones for typical kids. We had no idea if we’d ever see them, and suddenly here they are. My gift, on my son’s birthday, is my son.

It being Yom Kippur and all that, I betook myself to the local synagogue Wednesday and Thursday evenings. I’d have liked to go for the day on Thursday, but kidling comes first, and he can’t handle it when the whole congregation starts to sing. He lasted about 45 minutes on Rosh Hashonah, and I could not for love nor money nor any available bribe get him to agree to go for Yom Kippur. Since forcing the issue only gives him negative associations that last literally for years (if there’s anything that works perfectly, it’s his memory), I decided that staying home with him was the better part of wisdom. But since he wasn’t there, once I got there, I was able to sing to my own heart’s content. Now, any who know me know that when I sing for the delight of it, I do not sing the melody softly, hoping no one will notice. I sing harmony, generally made up on the spot. Add to that that my voice is high soprano, and carries. In places large enough to need amplification, I do not need a microphone. And there was an older man, in his early 70s, who had clearly had a good deal of voice training singing in a magnificent baritone. I wove my harmony around his.

Heads turned. Eyebrows telegraphed questions. Even the rabbi looked around. Finally services ended, and the rabbi made a direct line to the young woman I sat next to. Her name was Jane, and it turned out her father was the baritone. The rabbi walked up and said “Jane, why haven’t you ever let us know you could sing like that?” And Jane, with a look as impish as any I’ve ever seen replied “It wasn’t me.” She pointed. “It was her.”

So in addition to the warmest welcome to a new community I have ever in my life gotten, I have been recruited to sing. The congregation, which does have a rabbi (her other job is running the religious school for one of the big congregations in South Bend) has no cantor, so those who can take turns. Our son will be in the religious school, which is also the congregation’s weekly social gathering. And I’m hoping that if Mom is up in front singing, our son will come and listen, and incidentally learn a little more of what it means to be Jewish.