Hatched!

 

The video is not new – but it WAS the start of something new. Have a look.

 

Poor little thing. Two seconds into the world, he already gets his first whacking.

 

I tried to post this video on my blog almost a year ago and failed. My free WordPress plan wouldn’t allow me to. That was the first time I considered an upgrade. Later, when ads started appearing annoyingly mid-post, the idea took more concrete form. Being a somewhat elderly blogger, it took me yet a while longer – five months or so – to gear myself up to taking the step. Today, finally, I clicked on the “Upgrade” button. What ensued was . . . surprisingly quick and uneventful.

It may not look much different to you, but it feels different to me. Like I am now really out there in the blogosphere for the first time

And now here I am, taking my new-and-improved Trek out for a spin. Checking out what it can do. Different font sizes? (Nope, that doesn’t work.) Can I finally use different colors? (The answer is “Yes!”) Next will come layout changes maybe. Before you know it, I’ll be following those WP tips for increasing readership. Scavenging for views.  Foraging for Likes . . .

“Let the bullying begin!”

My Ghoulish Menagerie

It just occurred to me that I am surrounded by ghoulish pets (and ex-pets).

First there is the black cat in the basket next to my laptop who I have long known to be possessed by the devil. Then there is Dog Four at my feet, who just had a growth removed from her head and now looks a bit like Frankenstein.

 

To my left is my latest crochet project – a recreation of the deformed, quickly deceased chick I hatched in an incubator. His bulging right eye earned him the name Quasimodo. (I made this stuffed animal at the specific request of my sister, who will then give me back the evil bat I made in summer.)

 

And finally, just outside my office door are the three dead and dried out creatures we discovered while cleaning out our basement yesterday.

 

It also just occurred to me that it is October 31^st and therefore a good day to share all of this with you.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

 

Thawing

 

As I have related over the past two years, my one-sidedly antagonistic relationship with a certain neighbor has been slowly warming. We now regularly have short and shallow chats as I pass her house on my daily dog walks. A while back she suggested that we allow our ducks to roam more freely. She wouldn’t mind at all if they waddled down to her yard to eat some slugs. Last week she offered me a peach.

Yesterday, however, she had a particular concern to discuss with me. A complaint, really . . When my husband came home later in the day, I told him about the conversation

‘She said we should kill our rooster and eat him.’

 

To backtrack a minute, we have discussing this exact topic for a while now. Whereas I was thinking along the lines of re-homing the rooster like we did last time, the husband was for a more final solution. I found that sort of sad. This rooster had once been part of a happy Band of Brothers and by sheer dumb luck became the sole survivor (two of his brothers have long since been digested, the third one landed in our freezer). Unfortunately, he made a fatal mistake when deciding to start his days of loud crowing at 4:30 am. Now his time was up.

 

I thought that by telling the husband about my conversation with Mean Neighbor Lady he might change his mind. He didn’t. In fact, it seemed to make him more determined. He told me later that he was going to do the deed himself. I asked him how and he explained. I asked him if he was going to use an axe and he said, no, probably the big butcher knife he had gotten from his brother.

 

We sat in silence for a time and I contemplated his burgeoning collection of knives and his predilection for reading grotesque psycho killer thrillers.

‘You know,’ I said, ‘they say one thing all mass murderers have in common is that they killed small animals in their youths.’

‘I killed mice when I was young,’ he responded. ‘Of course with traps.’

‘You didn’t enjoy it though . . . or . . . did you?’

He didn’t respond.

I thought about what we were going to do once the animal was dead. He had said earlier that he would probably just bury it because it was too old to cook. I sighed.

‘I guess we will have to eat him. Otherwise it is just murder.’

 

The husband is now sitting out on the porch in his farmer overalls and watching YouTube videos about how to properly slaughter and dress a chicken. And I have to go clean out and reorganize the freezer to make room for a second rooster. The whole time I will be muttering about Mean Neighbor Lady and how she is to blame for setting this whole unfortunate series of events in motion.

Yesterday, my life had only one old bird in need of thawing. Soon there will be four.

 

 

Gerontogynophobia

 

It’s official. In the Best Vacations competition, Easter beats Christmas hands down. The weather is warm, the sun sets at 8:00 pm, there is no present-procurement stress, and no one asks if you want to go skiing. The supply of chocolate in the house grows dramatically, while the surplus of eggs in the fridge gets reduced. This last point is particularly fortunate, now that we are getting up to seven (!) a day (she says proudly).

Despite a long mental list of Easter vacation projects, including catching up some more with blog friends and long overdue house improvements, I — somewhat inexplicably — spent the first two days crocheting this giraffe. It is my very first stuffed animal:

This was all before Notre Dame started burning, before an overnight trip to Vienna with my two daughters, and before the Mueller Report landed with a thud, kicking off the collective hyperventilation of America’s journalists and pundits. No, for those two days, I happily binge-watched silly Sci Fi series and counted stitches. My greatest concern was what to do with the giraffe once I had finished. Gingerbread Man to the rescue! Since he is my only other crocheted stuffed animal thing, I introduced the two and they became immediate bff’s.

Speaking of new friends, I have one too. And it is none other than Mean Neighbor Lady! For more than two decades I suffered her Daily Disapproval Tours and disparaging comments about my (lack of) gardening skills.  Hundreds of times, when my Nice Neighbor Lady (NNL) and I walked our dogs past her house, I stood back silently while those two had a friendly chat or MNL gifted her a plant from her garden. All I ever got was half-nod and a grunt. MNL became a constant source of bemusement between NNL and me.

But then things changed. The thaw began with Dog Four and was helped along by the chickens. MNL and I began to have very short talks about various plants and I sometimes saw her bringing kitchen scraps to our goats. About two weeks ago, on my dog walk, I heard someone calling my name. I turned around and it was her. Up to that point, I wasn’t aware that she even knew my name.

I retraced my steps back to her. She wanted to know if it was true that the noise her grandson made when he rode his moped around the cornfields bothered . . . . . . my husband. I assured her that he had never complained. She replied, “That’s what I thought.” Then she offered me a plant from her garden. A week later she complemented my new flowerbed. On my next dog walk with NNL, she got the icy grunt and I got the friendly hello.

“I guess I’M her favorite now!” I crowed as we walked on.

 

I have no illusions that this new friendship will endure. One escaped goat munching on her flowers would surely be enough to end it. And then there is my well established fear of little old white-haired ladies, especially those with scowly faces.

I checked the official list of phobias to see if I could find my particular condition, but the closest things I found were a general fear of women and the fear of growing old. This made me realize something. Maybe it wasn’t the scowling little old ladies I feared; maybe what I really feared was becoming one of them myself. Which brings me back full circle to my giraffe.

Crocheting stuffed animals is something grandmas do!

In fact, my own grandma must have been almost exactly my age now when she made the Gingerbread Man. I did the math.  And in the ensuing years she proceeded to shrink as her hair turned white.

But then again . . . I came to think of her as one of the most beautiful people I knew – ever more so the older she got. She was still able to live on her own at the age of 90. She loved to dance. And she never scowled.

 

I Stand Corrected

 

Hey guys!

I just wanted to let you know that my most recent posts included a certain amount of . . .  misinformation (especially when I tried to make predictions), so this one should set the record straight on a few things.

So far we only have one new grandchild (but a second egg is in motion):

 

I still have fifty pages to go and there has been no 70° weather yet:

 

 

It took three visits from Vera to half deplete the cleaning supplies. I will continue to monitor the situation silently:

(Now, in defense of my recent posts, please notice the reports in today’s paper – “Desperately Seeking Young Teachers” and “Styrians are Keeping Chickens Again”)

The fourth correction to be made is that the picture in my last post was of my elder daughter’s second last high school test. Today she had the last one – in German, so no drama there. It’s now looking fairly certain that she will make the Honor Roll – no, scratch that. I did not say that. (“I will not make predictions. I will not make predictions . . .”) I was also sort of wrong about her being done with high school. She came home today with an English assignment to do. A sample test question for the upcoming graduation exam.

Her task is to write a blog post and to make things easier, she got this handy instruction/information sheet including useful phrases to use. I looked it over and it seems I have been doing this blogging thing all wrong for the past four years.

The info sheet begins by defining a blog as an “online diary” that deals with “political themes, private experiences, travels, music, art, sports, youthful topics, or work”. (So, no chickens, Cheetos, or childishness.) Each post should have a title with a lot of nouns (Oops!), and an introduction that encourages the audience to keep reading (Oops! Oops!). It should begin with a friendly and familiar greeting, like “Hey guys!”

 

Aside:

“I never do that,” I told my daughter.

“Yeah,” she answered, “but I have to or my teacher will deduct points.”

 

In my daughter’s case, the post must be three paragraphs on the topic of binge drinking, whereby the first includes a negative experience, the second lays out all the disadvantages and negative effects, and the third is there to “explain [her] view on the matter”.

Aside:

I asked: “Can you write that you have these views because the test question told you to?”

“Yeah,” she answered, “but my teacher will deduct points.”

 

In addition, her blog post should address the reader directly, include some questions, and conclude by asking for/encouraging comments. So, what do all of you think about all this? Have you ever seen rules like these? Is this how you write your posts? Let me know! I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts! Please share in the comments below! I’m not kidding. DO IT!!

And in case you need some help in writing your comment, here are some useful phrases you can use:

• • I have stumbled across your blog recently and I . . .
  • I must say that I really enjoyed reading your blog.
  • I am so happy to have read your blog and I can only recommend it.
  • Thank you for pointing out that . . .
  • I just wanted to say that I completely share your opinion.
  • Great job!

 

If that is not enough, you can check the comments in your spam filter for more.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!!

 

German, English, Norwegian, Scottish, Irish, and Roman

 

I’m back to talking chickens.

Loyal readers will know what that means: there has been too much NSFB (“not suitable for blogging”) stuff going on and occupying my thoughts lately. Add to that the fact that I also subjected blogworld to two political rants in a short space of time, making me feel like I have to make up for it somehow. I have been rooting around for a nice, easy, non-political topic I can spend some time on . . . now, let’s see . . . what could I write about? . . . I know! . . . chickens!

 

 “We’re going to be grandparents of three,” my husband said to me a few days back. He had just checked our third batch of incubator eggs with his special illuminator device, homemade out of a toilet paper roll and some tin foil. Of the six eggs, three of them had dark shadowy innards. It takes almost exactly 21 days for the eggs to hatch, so in about two weeks’ time, I will be able to tell you if he was right.

Our first attempt, some of you may remember, resulted in the deformed, short-lived Quasimodo and the equally doomed Fred, the German Reich’s chicken who was clearly too beautiful to live. Those two were accompanied for their short time by some hastily purchased Wyandotte chicks, all four of whom turned into roosters and, subsequently, three of whom turned into dinner. The fourth is the father of our current incubator batch. This time I am actually hoping for a rooster. I want to name him “Pete Buttig-Egg”.

Our second attempt at incubating was more successful – it produced four hearty Orpingtons who managed to survive the harsh winter in a small henhouse with an open door. They did it by sticking close together. By March we had three full grown hens and one rooster but, sadly, no eggs. For months I fed them, checked the empty laying box, and then informed them that they were a bunch of good-for-nothing losers. But then – on the very same day Mueller finally submitted his report to the aptly named Barr – one of them laid an egg:

Surely there will be more to come. There has to.

 

All this focus on progeneration naturally led me to other thoughts. What about me? Where do I come from? I still remember asking my mother about it way back in grade school when the topic of nationalities was first introduced into my consciousness. Just like Elizabeth Warren’s mother’s tale of a Native American ancestor, my mom had a theory of her own to tell:

“Well let’s see . . . you are German, English, Norwegian, Scottish, Irish and Roman. Pretty much in that order.”

“Roman?” I asked. “Where does that come from?”

Mom told me that her own mother was 100% English, but that she had dark hair and olive skin – so that probably went back to some Roman soldier from the Empire’s occupation of England in the first millennium. It seemed pretty feasible.

In defense of my mother, I assume now that she was being a little facetious and never thought I would go on to repeating that list of nationalities – including the last one – for the next two decades. Thank goodness there was no “Roman” box to tick on my college application form!

The mystery surrounding my heritage was further complicated by my elder sister who has spent years compiling a massive database of our genealogical tree. I only know a tiny bit of it, but I vaguely remember her correcting my version of our connection to the Mayflower and – more importantly – not being able to confirm the “Irish” part of my nationality list. This disturbs me greatly because I once distinctly heard the call of my ancestors while wandering around the peninsula of Dingle in Ireland. On the other hand, when I was in Rome a few years back, I listened for a similar call and . . . nothin’.

Fortunately, modern science might offer me a way to prove or disprove my mother’s and sister’s theories. My Cuban friend (whose mother told her she had some Chinese ancestry) did a DNA test through “MyHeritage” and got some surprising results. To cut to the chase, she now walks around feeling less connection with the Ming dynasty and more with the Massai.

Of course, after hearing her tale, I went online and ordered two kits for me and my husband. They have been sitting on a shelf for weeks, but I’ve decided that today is the day to force the hubby to swab. Once that is done, I will mail the spittle off. So . . . in about six weeks’ time, I will be able to tell you if my mother or sister was right. I’m curious to find out who, if anyone, will be exonerated.

 

 

Unceremonious Endings

Two of my activities today got me thinking about all the times I have lost jobs. Technically I have never been fired – at least in the sense of someone looking me in the eye and saying “You’re fired!” But that is only because two of my former bosses were simply too chicken to do so. One of them took 9/11 as an opportunity to quick give my class to someone else. (I had missed the start of the semester because I was stuck in the States waiting for a chance to fly back to Austria.) That new teacher ended up calling me to tell me the news. Never heard a peep from the boss about it.

About 10 years later I got fired by forwarded email from my boss’s boss instructing me to clear out my office and give back any of the Institute’s stuff I might have. The layoff itself did not come as a surprise to me, but the way it was done was galling. A particularly nice sendoff after 25 years of employment . . .

Today, a new twist on this form of email termination was born. I wrote an email to my boss requesting that the university course I have been teaching be cancelled. In other words, I basically fired myself. This was not the easiest thing to do because I always loved teaching this particular course. Unfortunately the whole program is winding down and the number of students has been dwindling for years. Last year I had to go and proactively look for students – corral a few warm bodies into my classroom to teach. This year I didn’t want to do that anymore.

So I am down to one job now. I would be feeling sorry for myself if not for three of our chickens who have had an even harder day. Remember those four chicks we got for the purpose of keeping our one incubator chick company? Well, all four of them turned out to be roosters. Three of them had to go and today was the day.

We grabbed them, stuffed them in a box, and my husband drove them to the local . . . Chicken Ender. A half hour later, he was back home with a bulging plastic bag.

Tomorrow one of the roosters is going into the oven and then comes the moment of truth. I am not convinced that I will really be able to eat him. My husband is determined to cultivate a realistic attitude about it all. He says if he can’t handle the fact that animals – even those he knew when alive – are killed and eaten, then he should become a vegetarian.

I, on the other hand, am considering turning the meal into a little ceremony. I will take a moment to remember and honor this rooster for his many contributions to our family enterprise. I will thank him for his good work and give him the thoughtful sendoff he so richly deserved.

I’ll try hard not to gag.