Tales from the Shark Tank

There’s a Chinese buffet restaurant next door to the gym I work out at, which seems to be extremely popular with the retired contingent. I’ve never tried it, so I can’t speak to the quality of the food, but it looks incredibly midwestern, which is not a resounding recommendation in my experience.

So yesterday as I was walking up to the gym, I saw a slender young woman walk in wearing jeans that fit more tightly than a tattoo. She politely held the door for an extremely elderly couple walking out. I heard Mrs. Elder say “My goodness, how did she even get those britches on?” “I don’t know, but it would’ve been interesting to watch” was her husband’s response, with a grin that said clearly “I’m ninety, not dead.”

Cats are notoriously finicky about what they will eat. Even our cat, who spent a fair amount of her life pretty much eating what she could catch, can be picky about her cat food. And her kittens, having never known such a hard life or really anything except the ready availability of Mom are much more particular. I have been trying to teach them the wonders of solid food, and while Tornado was pretty much amenable, eating neatly from a pie plate right from the first time I blended kitten-formula with canned kitten chow, Hurricane has been another matter entirely.

He’s decidedly the bigger kitten; he’s going to be a big boy when he’s grown by all indications, while Tornado takes after her mother and is small, delicate, and already, at 6 weeks age, quite graceful. Hurricane has the classic kitten pudgy tummy and tumbling clumsiness. And he has not been at all interested in any food source other than Sophia. I had tried the same kitten food Tornado would eat, holding it on my finger for him to sniff. His mouth stayed resolutely closed and he turned his head away. I repeated the attempt several times daily over the course of a week or so. Same result. Sophia got to lap up a lot of kitten-gruel, which made her very happy. I tried dry kitten chow. Same result. Kitten chow soaked in either formula or water was disdained as well, as was a bit of fresh raw salmon that Tornado couldn’t get enough of. I’ve been hoping to deliver the kitten to his new human-mama this coming weekend, before we’re busy for the next two in succession, so I was getting a little desperate.

So yesterday, while at the store, I looked at the illustrations on cans of regular adult cat food, looking for one that did not show any chunks. One looked promising, so I purchased a package of four cans. I’ll be going back for more. It comes in a sort of broth, so I just mashed it up a bit to get it to kitten consistency. Then I picked Hurricane up, tucked him into the crook of one arm, and put a bit of the new stuff on my finger.

He sniffed. His tongue came out and licked around his lips. He sniffed again, then leaned forward to lick what he could get off my finger. That performance was repeated, with me holding the finger closer to the pie-plate each time. Finally I let the finger hover over the food, and he brought his nose down. Wow, a whole pool of this yummy stuff! He all but inhaled a quarter of a can, eating very neatly, without even getting a paw in it. Then he sat back to wash, and I lifted him down from my lap. (That’s the only way I can keep Sophia from snarfing it all before the kittens can get to it.) Tornado’s turn came next, and she was similarly enthusiastic, demolishing another quarter can, and this probably not long after they’d nursed. Sophia was just as pleased with the remaining half can when it was presented for her delectation. Unlike prior attempts, I had no leftovers to refrigerate.

So now Hurricane knows he can eat solid food. I’ll be repeating this performance three or four times a day until Saturday, when I’m planning to take him to Indianapolis. I’m sure eventually he’ll have to learn about dry food, though he’s a little young for it yet. But at least now I know he won’t stage a hunger strike, deprived of his mother’s mammaries.

Our son’s elementary school is doing a Talent Show on Friday, as an end-of-year fun thing. I remember those, and remember being terribly nervous about them. I knew my parents would cheer for me, but I wasn’t so sure about anyone else.

The original plan here had been a single, 1 hour show. They’ve had to expand and split it up, to accomodate all the kids who are eager to perform, so there’s a show in the morning and another in the afternoon. Clearly, these kids know the whole community will be cheering for them. And they’re right; this is the sort of place where everyone attends everything whether they have kids involved or not, or even whether they have kids in the school at all. There are perhaps 70 houses to the entire town, and I’d guess around 200-250 humans. (There are more sheep than people, I think.) And it doesn’t much matter whose kid is up on stage. All the kids belong, all of them are applauded enthusiastically, and enough of them to fill two hours worth of shows are secure enough to sing and dance and do magic tricks, because everyone watching is a neighbor, and all of them are going to cheer. And that, to my way of thinking, is as it should be.

I have a limp noodle of a black kitten on my arm. She’s incredibly soundly asleep.  Less than 30 seconds ago she was batting at anything that moved and some things that didn’t, including her own other paw.  Then she paused a moment, gave a huge kitten-yawn and simply collapsed into a sleeping heap in the crook of my elbow.

My son used to do that.

There’s a new study out that indicates that eating chocolate can boost brain function.  You know, any woman could have told them that!

Reading over the day’s news last night, I saw an article about the boy who won the national Geography Bee by knowing where the Cambrian Mountains are. (They’re in Wales) The reporter wrote about the usual things, how the child had studied and who his family is, with mentions of the second and third place winners by name. The journalism was uninspired, the photo of the beaming young man sweet.

But what struck me were the names. It is not mentioned, but judging by those names all three of the primary winners are the children of immigrants. On the one hand, that is very cool, especially in the face of the current xenophobic attitudes. On the other hand, I can’t help but think what it says about the priorities of those immigrant parents as opposed to the priorities of most American parents. To accomplish what they did, those children worked, and worked very hard. Someone – presumably their parents – taught them that school matters, that education is vitally important. Equally importantly, someone taught them that it’s ok not to fit in, ok to stand out from the herd. It’s a fair bet that the kids who won the National Geography Bee are not the “popular” kids at school. Probably they’re considered ultimate geeks, and while some of us consider that a compliment now, in 8th grade it’s anything but. It’s ok to stand out for being athletic, but not for being intelligent.

I read a lot about how shameful it is that American companies are out-sourcing jobs Americans should have. I read about how American students lag far behind those from other industrialized countries, and how that makes it difficult to find qualified people for jobs requiring those skills unless the companies hire from overseas. Most of the things I read seem to blame the companies for that, or the schools for failing to train our kids. But I don’t think that’s where it starts, or where the responsibility lies. I think it lies with us, with our society, with parents that say that working at grade level is “good enough”, with a popular culture that glorifies the athlete above the inventor. Oh, sure, outsourcing assembly-line work is purely a matter of what they need to pay here as opposed to what they need to pay in less developed countries. But outsourcing scientific development? Bringing in immigrants specifically to do highly technical work? That happens because Americans don’t teach our kids that education matters. Too few of us encourage our kids to do the work to win the National Geography Bee, or the National Science Fair, or the Westinghouse Scholarships. And if American parents boast more about our Little League national champions than of our Brain Game scholars, then why are we so surprised when the kids from other countries surpass ours where it really matters?

Poor Sophia has been having quite a time of it here lately. The kittens have erupted out of our son’s bedroom and are in full exploration mode, leading a mama cat to try to be two places at once. She mewed and called and trilled, and finally let out a yowl I interpretted as “Mom! Come help me with the kids!” So now I have Hurricane curled into a little kitten-ball in the hollow of my shoulder as I type. He was sound asleep, but is now licking my neck at a great rate. I have kitten formula, and tomorrow we’ll begin the process of introducing tiny felines to solid food. I’m expecting an enormous mess, with little paws in the saucer and all. All babies are messy eaters; I see no reason felines should be any different.

And Sophia herself is following Tornado around, making sure she doesn’t get into trouble. She reminds me much of myself when our small son was toddling, except that she hasn’t got hands or opposable thumbs with which to grab her offspring. I suspect she dearly wishes for those things right about now.

I have a large, very tangled thorn-brush in my front yard, right by the electrical box. A lot of it was dead wood, which I cut back and threw into the meadow and marsh across the road. I left the green parts, albeit with some hesitation. My landlady didn’t know what it was, and it had some of the most vicious thorns I have ever laid eyes on. It spreads by sending up canes from underground, and those new stems are entirely covered in a mat of dense thorns in assorted sizes. Some of the upper branches have more widely spaced thorns, and some are covered with tiny, fine thorns that break off in anything that brushes by – skin, clothing, you name it. The thing is a major ouch. I had decided to hit it with Round-up and cut it out entirely once it was dead, but hadn’t yet done so because I was waiting for a windless day to avoid the chemicals blowing into the field next door. It just seemed rude to get Round-up on the neighbor’s crop, and the prevailing winds being what they are, that was inevitable if there was a breeze.

I went out of town this past Saturday morning, coming home mid-day Sunday. In the interval it began to bloom. Turns out what I had thought might possibly be a multifloral rose is nothing of the sort. It’s a minature yellow rose, of a variety that clearly grows on its own roots rather than being grafted. I love roses, and have never had them before, and here is one that is clearly anything but fragile or delicate. I’m very glad the weather didn’t cooperate with my plans to take the thing out.

Update:  Not only is the bush covered with tiny, 1 1/2 inch ruffly yellow roses, but they are scented, as so many current roses aren’t.  I’ve been known to plant entire beds for the sake of the scents they would create.  This is wonderful!

It is open knowledge that I color my hair, and have done since the early ’80s. Its natural color is a chestnut brown that is far too dark for my face, requiring me to wear make-up (base and blush at the very minimum) if I don’t want people asking me if I feel well and offering me chairs in fear of my pallor. This not being Victorian or Edwardian times, and exceedingly pale skin no longer a coveted mark of a lady of leisure, I find that tremendously frustrating. So since my hair sunbleached to auburn when I was a kid, that’s the color I tend to go for now.

Once in a while, though, I do like to experiment, and such a mood struck last week. I chose a box that named itself “intense coppery red”. It also had “New Fadeproof Formula!” emblazoned across an upper corner of the box in large confident letters. Having had some experience with such products, I took both “intense” and “fadeproof” with a certain amount of salt. A small Siberian mine might possibly have supplied enough – or possibly not.

But the manufacturer’s honesty in those points is unquestionable. The color is, indeed, an extremely intense red, verging on punk. If my own natural color is too dark for me, then this is equally too bright. And it is fadeproof. I tried everything I have ever used to fade haircolor, often having discovered how well it worked when I didn’t want it to be so, and none of it has. After dandruff shampoo, chelating shampoo, shampoo designed to strip pool chlorine and attendant conditioners (and it’s actually more often the conditioner than that shampoo that causes the fading) and a couple of rounds in a chlorinated pool, the red is still as “intense” (read “garish”) as ever.

Of course, I did get a couple of funny exchanges out of it.  I first did it while my son was in school, and he commented on it when he got home.  I was trying to decide if it was beyond the pale or merely bright, so I asked him if he liked it.  He looked at me consideringly, then said “Mom?  Before I answer that question, can I have a snack?”  I made him his snack and waited awhile.  “Does it look ok, or is it too bright?” I asked, trying again.  “Come look at the kittens first.  They’re rough-housing, and they’re adorable.” was his response.  He never did answer the question, which of course is an answer.

A couple of days later, I mentioned over lunch with my younger foster-daughter and some others that I’d been trying to tone it down. “Don’t do that, Mama” she said. “It’s only fair to give people warning”. At which another of the group opined thoughtfully “No, that won’t work. Those who know her don’t need the warning, and those who need it won’t heed it.” And what could I do but hug them and laugh?

Every story, from every culture, about fairies or other magical entities that come out of nature and interact with humans includes the concept that they can, like humans, be good or bad. Either way they are usually portrayed as capricious, with motivations and abilities outside of human comprehension. They looked humanoid (almost), but were not, a fact that one forgot at their peril.

There is one that used to visit me regularly, but generally no longer does. That would be the hormone fairy. Elfshot by her, I would invariably succumb. The first day of it, I’d be a bit moody and start eating anything that didn’t run. (I sometimes thought PMS should stand for “perpetual munching spree”.) Chocolate, of course, figured largely in my consumption. Next day I’d start to bloat, usually adding just enough that my clothes didn’t fit properly over about 24 hours. Day after that, I’d be touchy and tearful, dissolving into a drippy puddle without any discernable cause, regardless of where I was, who was there, or what I was doing – not a good thing in court, let me tell you. That was what bothered me most. My dignity has always been important to me. It is in fact less important now than it was back in the day, which should tell those who know me something about how much it mattered then. After my self control went down in flames, my digestion would follow. Then and only then, after 4 or 5 days of progressive hell, the hormone fairy would make her visible appearance, and after perhaps 8 hours all the preliminary discomforts would go away for another month.

I pretty much finished with that about four years ago. I had a 24 hour crisis over the results of the doctor’s hormone testing that showed me that I’d never quite given up the hope of bearing a child, then came to terms with it. I have many kids, a genetic heritage that is medically pretty miserable and, though I really seldom think of it so, a fairly fragile body. It’s probably actually best that I never bore a child, and never will. The hormone fairy, on the other hand, isn’t quite done with me. Every so often, she feels it necessary to remind me of her existence, whether or not the “P” is followed by “M”. It takes me awhile to add it up sometimes, as much as anything because I’m not expecting it, but usually the penny drops.

And so it has. Last night, for no reason at all, I was moody as all get out. I usually talk to K. for an hour or so most evenings. Last night I really wasn’t in the mood, though I put it down to a severely achy shoulder, and excused myself for a hot bath when she offered me the option. This morning, my chocolate stash got raided twice before 8:30. I had weighed myself yesterday and gotten the number I expected. This morning it was up by 2 pounds. By noon, when I checked again on a hunch, it was up another pound and a half. (I’m not checking again; it’s pointless.) This afternoon I found I was raiding the fridge at exceedingly frequent intervals, though I did manage to stick to fruit and yogurt. Finally, as I was doing the dishes, the thought crossed my mind in the form of “Five years ago I’d have been checking to see if I had the necessary supplies”…and then followed that errant thought and realized that it was right on point.

So now I can relax about it all and ride it out, knowing it’s hormonal. But while the hormone fairy’s visits are much more infrequent now, they have a different problem. Used to be there was a natural ending to the whole ride. Now that “P” is not always followed by “M”, this can go on for three weeks. I just hope and pray I haven’t offended the evil hormone fairy enough for her to do that to me.