ba-dum-bum

One perk of my LNFU work is that when it's raining out or I just need a change of scenery I can walk to an office I regularly interact with by way of the natural history museum. I normally walk pretty briskly past the taxidermied fauna but today I crossed paths with a steady stream of Catholic junior high schoolers who were exiting what must be a much larger classroom than I originally thought based on how many uniformed kids came out of it. I decided to wait it out, and then trailed an older woman with a cane who was bringing up the rear. It was a slow walk, owing more to the Catholic schoolchildren than the lady.

She and I chatted briefly on our way down the stairs - she opened the conversation by saying she had two bionic knees. I told her I was very impressed, and even more impressed that she was taking the stairs in spite of them. Then she said she walks with her cane at school because she tends to topple over and she works with kids who are at an age where they're very self-involved.

When I arrived at my destination, a coworker said the next time I find myself in a similar situation I should just announce I'm an unwed mother who's had three abortions.

Me and my brainpan

The cure for writer's block is not:

a. Carrying your kitty who is asleep in her wicker basket over to your sofa so you can pat her while you feel the sort of self pity which is appropriate only in those stupid vampire movies and cry as quietly and non-mucous-producing-ly as possible.

b. Roaming the basement of the thrift store you roamed yesterday, and roamed when you had writer's block before, back when roaming thrift stores cured your writer's block.

c. Swearing out loud.

d. Writing like you talk when what you are doing is (see c. above).

e. Sighing.

f. Trying five too many times to work a Miss Cleo analogy into an article about the worrisome fate of capitalism.

Independence

Sometimes I think I will never make the right decision about the way I live my life, and some days I feel done in by PolackPappy's warning that a lack of decision is a decision in itself.

But enough with the maudlin. On Friday the LNFU had a members-only party for itself and I decided to attend, hoping for free tasty snacks and maybe door prizes. Alas there were neither. There was rain, and mud, and beakers filled with what I decided was the blood of all the virgins they sacrificed to ensure the LNFU's continued prosperity. The red stuff was meant to be poured over ice cream. There was also a ginormous cake, and a chocolate fountain, and a lot of booze. But I didn't want to get near the booze and couldn't get near any of the other stuff because it wall-to-wall people. You could not move, or see anything, or hear anything. I think if I were an undergrad it would have been fun, but it was no place for a grown-up.

oink

Dr. Moo has been full of tales of the non-bovine ilk lately. This weekend in the cousin-and-auntie-filled bedroom of a haunted northern inn she told the sad tale of Oink. Oink was a five-year-old 250lb pot-bellied pig who was purchased from a trailer park. He had separation anxiety and would tear things up if left alone too long. He was a pretty, pretty princess when it came to getting shots. Like all piggies, he had frequent, fragrant gas.

Oink really liked to hang out on the sofa. It was a good life. But then one day he became morbidly constipated and Moo was called at midnight to send him waddling across the Rainbow Bridge. Dispatching Oink wasn't the problem. Moving him off the sofa post-dispatch was. After some amount of discussion, a sled of sorts was built (I believe a rug was involved) and Oink's body was dragged across the floor, out the door, and onto the lawn. They were originally going to try to drag him into the shed but in the end (and after consulting with Dr. Moo as to whether "anything would eat him" if they did so) they turned a wheelbarrow over on him and buried him the next day.

Woodsy

I attended cousin B's wedding in northern NH this weekend and managed to work in a short solo hike. It has been long enough since I've hauled ass up one side of a mountain and down the same side that I found myself cursing its steepness. Despite all the wind I sucked I beat book time, thank GOD. Because I need a reason to be proud of my meaty meaty man-legs.

I didn't leave myself enough time to fit in a second peak but the jog I took the next morning was quite hilly and calf-satisfying. That neck of the woods is gorgeous, but there is of course a lot of poverty. I don't know what the solution is to the issue of some people having to scratch out a living in a place where others own a second or third home that they own solely for pleasure, and perhaps if I spent less time ruminating on things over which I have no control I would spend more time working on things I can actually fix. Talk is cheap, right?