Bird is the word

While catching up on online local news, I discovered pictures of a pair of red-tailed hawks nesting very close to where I work at the LNFU. Then I did a bit more research and found out some fellow nerdy-nature watchers had set up a hawk-cam. (I highly, highly recommend reading all the way to the end of the hawk-cam article.)

Earlier today I caught a glimpse of momma hawk setting on her eggs, and occasionally redecorating by moving branches around with her beak. I had an immediate feeling of lurv for her, mainly because she reminds me of my kitty, who has great big green eyes and likes to wiggle her bum around while she's settling in to her own "nest" - a wicker basket with soft bedding inside.

This is the yoga my fatha should be doin.

Elephantitis

I recently commented to a fellow LNFU employee that after working there for a year, I had decided to take my relationship with the institution to the next level. I am no longer just sleeping with the LNFU. I am letting it be my boyfriend.

Today I roamed newer hallways in search of bulletin boards for posting, and to familiarize myself with a broader geographical area. I got to somewhere I'd been before, but via a different path, one that included a sweet old elevator with a door that you have to open yourself.

Later, while climbing a back staircase and trying my new set of keys in what turned out to be the wrong door, I happened upon the biggest taxidermied elephant head I've ever seen. The placard said it's a loaner, but my research suggests its owner shot it in the second decade of the last century so I doubt he's going to ask for it back. I felt pretty terrible for the elephant. Based on the size of the head, that was one spectacularly enormous elephant. I hope he went out in a blaze of glory.

Lies your children tell me

I have always been a bit gullible. Despite my asshole tendencies, and the world's asshole tendencies, I still have a gooey caramel-filled heart that wants to believe the best about people. Including that people aren't going to lie to me in order to amuse themselves.

Now I am not saying that this is the reason the children of friends tell me tall tales, because I just don't think their little psyches are developed enough for it, but I do find it curious that when little kids get around me, they start making shit up. Just yesterday I was sitting next to Max, who is 3. And Jewish. (The reason for noting this will be apparent momentarily.) He was telling me all about his day, and showing me the knitted kitten with mittens he'd gotten at preschool. Our conversation continued, and before you know it he was telling me, Al-Gore-like, that he invented eggnog.

Oh, really?

The other interesting piece of being lied to by little kids is that if I try making stuff up, they immediately call me on it. And look at me with pity. "Oh, McPolack," they seem to be saying, "Nobody eats helicopter pie. There's no such thing as helicopter pie, sad and dimwitted blond lady."

Sooooooooooooooooooo...

Went to a couple of museums this past weekend with a couple of friends. On Friday it was the Museum of Science with H. At one point we happened upon an older gentleman inflating sheep lungs with a hand pump. The lungs were connected to a sheep heart but that was all the sheep there was. H ably answered a question or two about the lungs, and I just managed to stop myself from bragging about her hands-on rib spreader experience.

I asked where the rest of the sheep was and was told it was on its way to somebody's dinner plate. Then someone brought up haggis, and I looked around and realized H and I were in a coffee klatch of sorts with a group of older male volunteers. They started talking about how factory-made haggis works, and one of them tried to gross me out by telling me hot dogs have lungs in them. Didn't work. H and I soon moved on to try and reassemble a supine plastic torso with removable innards and interchangeable genitalia. Next we watched a hip replacement surgery video. Surprisingly to me, this skeeved H out. I mentioned how creepily robotic it seemed to put metal pins and parts into flesh and bone, and this is what gave H the heebie-jeebies. It's interesting to learn what will do that to a person, especially a person who has spread another person's torso apart to peer inside at a beating heart.

Later I was surprised at my own reaction to a museum video, of a home birth in Mexico. It's one of four videos(fetal growth/c-section/va-jay-jay-ginal/home birth) in the museum's learnin' 'bout babies area. The movies are sort of hidden in this column in the center of the exhibit, and there are warnings that they show "actual human birth" but in my opinion (and that I had this opinion is what surprised me, given my hippie tendencies) they may have wanted to provide a bit more detail about what a person might see in that live birth. Especially if they choose the home birth option. Because what you get with that option is SERIOUS hippie. As in, Japanese sculptor married to Mexican lady, living on farm in Mexico, labor and delivery filmed by grampa, and by the end nearly everybody (not including gramps, but including two young boys) is nudie-caboodie in a dirty bathtub.

Prior to hopping in the tub, the mother announced in a voice-over that she was hungry enough, while in labor, to eat "three plates of rice and beans."

YUCK.

Lotso day

Much busyness and newness today:
*Tried out Ash Wednesday service at LNFU as it was convenient length-, location-, and time-wise. Not too many people were there. Keep forgetting I went to a Catholic college, which naturally meant there were more people at church. Anyhoo, this was a nondenominational service, which was more up my alley, because while I like me some Jesus, I prefer Him without a side of patriarchy and gay bashing.

*Attempted to walk from LNFU to BH, where adorable familial babies live. Got lost almost immediately, got rerouted by parking cop who I think I weirded out with my chattiness and I know I shocked with the length of my walk. Later on in walk, randomly ran into landlord. Shortly thereafter, looked at my watch, realized the time, and hopped on the subway.

*Was sitting on subway heading home trying not to cry owing to PMS etc. when down sat the lady from the LNFU who rightly questioned what I was doing at the LNFU when first we met. Which would be a rainy day when my hair looked crazier than usual, one of my earrings was half hanging out of my ear, my glasses were more than likely half-tilted on my face, and I had a bunch of books shoved underneath my jacket to protect them from getting wet. She is southern and to a Yankee like me it is especially bizarre to be questioned suspiciously in a honeyed voice. Anyhoo, we chatted a bit, and she was the last in a long line of people today who helped me feel less alone without their knowing it.

So that was interesting

Today I stood by Nabokov's desk at the LNFU, looking out the very same window he once did. There was a picture of him seated at the desk by the window, on the wall next to the desk by the window.

The desk itself looked like a set piece from the movie 9 to 5, which is troubling as it means my pictorial timeline of office furniture from the 1940s on is a skosh off, at least.

I did not think until later to ask if I could take a peek at Nabokov's cabinet of butterfly peen.

Poop chute

Based on the mostly Maine Coon kitty fur shedding index (a sister-from-another-mister to groundhog replacement Ethel), spring is on the way! I've brushed mountains of fur out of my girl's coat, in the hopes of avoiding a certain digestive issue that is awkward for both me and Daphne-Moon the beautiful, soft, fluffy, bitchy princess-cat.

Well I didn't brush hard enough. When I came home from work today I noticed a small poo on the rug...then looked over and noticed a much larger poo sticking straight out of a certain gray lady's you-know-where.

Ah me.

I donned a pair of food-prep gloves (disposable, single-use food-prep gloves, thank you very much) and took care of the problem. The Daphs of course yowled at me but later I saw her looking at me with affection because while there are certainly pleasanter testaments of love and devotion than pulling a poo-covered hairball out of someone's bum, there aren't many stronger ones.