pedestrian saga

I recently rented March of the Penguins, that big cuddly sleeper of 2005, to understand what all the fuss was about, but I still don’t understand what all the fuss was about. It was good, but it didn’t move me like Winged Migration, which was exceptional. (Man, those French have totally cornered the market on quality bird flicks!) Perhaps it’s unfair to pit the waddlers against the flyers. Perhaps it was more beautiful on the big screen. Perhaps if it had emerged when I was ten and in the mental throes of a penguin obsession…

Anyhoo, to drum up some penguin mania in advance of this documentary screening (since we’re almost three years behind the curve here), we staged a stuffed penguin death match with the dogs, or as Scott has dubbed it, Munch of the Penguin. Enjoy!

• Mr. (”Misto”) Gordon
• Gordon-guy
• El Gordón
• G-dawg
• Big G
• Little Dude
• Twinkletoes
• The Flash
• The Gourd
• The Gordomeister
• Gremlin
• Gordzilla
• Stinkbutt
• The Fart

Gordon went under the knife on Wednesday and, three extracted rotten teeth later, returned home positively indignant that he’d been tricked out of breakfast. He’s rebounded remarkably fast to cheeky bunny from little bear with a toothache. Here he is doing his best impression of a garden statue.

NB: Hoover works better if I change the bag every once in a while. Buy two packages, get one free at Fred Meyer = nine bags. Stocked! Let the fur-bustin’ begin!

Pop quiz: Which creature is barely managing to sit still after sprinting 20 laps around the garden, and which one can hardly keep from trembling long enough to claim the soft meaty treat I’m bribing them with?

November
Has tied me
To an old dead tree
Get word to April
To rescue me
November’s cold chain
Made of wet boots and rain
And shiny black ravens
On chimney smoke lanes
November seems odd
You’re my firing squad
November

“This is a song with a lot of weather in it, and I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for weather.” -Tom Waits, November 2004 (listen from 04:55)

So! Moving right along.

Yesterday was cold and dry, and I tried to spend the daylight hours outside. Scott and I headed downtown to the last outdoor farmers market of the season. I bought a pair of poblano peppers because they’re so damn cute and quite tasty in quesadillas. At one of the apple stands, Scott picked out a bunch of Stayman Winesaps and Mutsus, and I cleaned up on pippins. Time again to try my hand at dumplings.

Back home we turned the dogs out to romp and rummage and turned our attentions to the garden. During the week some mad winds had blown the tin roof off our little porch shelter thing and stripped the remaining foliage off our two maples. So while Scott hit the roofs, collecting and stowing the tin sheets and scooping out the gutters on the house, I raked the maple leaves into a gorgeous pile by our new compost bin behind the greenhouse. (Okay, okay. It’s not as idyllic as it sounds or appears. That photo shows the garden in summer before we bought it. The greenhouse currently sits empty, as we haven’t actually moved in to it yet, and the plants are rather soggy and brown these days. But I’m really proud of our leaf pile.)

Gordon snacked on some gutter gunk before I chased him inside. Maddy obsessed over cat tracks in the bushes until I chased her inside too. She smelled, quite pleasantly, of mint and rosemary!

I took a break from raking and climbed up the rickety ladder, stretched out on my back on top of our house, spied into the neighbors’ gardens, felt a little lighter.

Sunny and 91 degrees here at 8:00 this evening in the Heart of the Valley. There’s nothing for it: It’s cherry pie a la mode for dinner, a glass of wine to rinse it down (and the Ramones anthology streaming out of iTunes, to keep me awake). Now if only I had some yummy Twin Peaks on hand! With my own Gordon Cole and Madeleine Ferguson sacked out on the floor, I’d curl up and study the best moments of the series over seconds. As consolation, perhaps it’s time to wander over to that one link Dennis posted last month. Oh, yes… very promising indeed…

Leapin’ Labradors! It’s the Year of the Dog!

[Hollers at Maddy to get off the sofa]

Thanks, chenb, for your thousand-plus words.

I managed not to cry yesterday, despite heavy doses of Lucinda Williams and Kris Kristofferson, nor did I wash my hair, so I guess I’m in pretty good shape luck-wise. Definitely could have done with some fireworks and dumplings though!

Now, go enjoy more “aw”-inspiring photos and ponder the irresistible allure of Aardman dogs and conversational British English. That’s a good dog…

Day Two of pacing around the house, tense and seemingly incapable of focusing long enough to accomplish anything productive. Meanwhile, the shining sun beckoned, and so I took the dogs out to the OSU farm for a very long walk. Maddy is such a scaredy-dog! Passing by the mellow cattle and the curious alpacas, she stood frozen and wide-eyed and held her fluff-tail low. The sheep were grazing too far from our path to test her shepherd cred. A magnificent raptor hovered above the grass between us, strutting its acrobatics before swooping down for a field snack. A hawk, maybe, with a striking white brow like an owl’s. I didn’t find a picture of the species, but the attendant distractions of the search led me to the happy discovery that this big book is online. I really enjoyed seeing the “double-elephant folio edition” at the Huntington Library.

Did I mention I’m not concentrating well these days?

Back home, I gathered the post and added another job rejection letter to my growing collection. But it’ll be okay, because it turns out Saint Matthew’s Churches out of Tulsa, OK, are poised to pray for me and my job search. In fact, they say in their letter they “FEEL THAT SOMETHING VERY WONDERFUL IS TRYING TO COME TO [ME].” Apparently, the next 24 hours are crucial, because “timing is important to God.” Bad news for a procrastinator like me! As I consider their list of prayer needs, I wonder if I’m supposed to check all that apply. I certainly wouldn’t want them to pray for “confusion in my home”! The Brat Pack can manage that on our own, thank you. They offer to pray for “a money blessing” and even provide a space for me to specify an amount. No blank to indicate the exact make and model of “new car” I might want, however, and could I substitute a bicycle anyway? As for the mystical paper prayer rug I’m to mail back with my needs checklist and my seed gift, I’m with this guy: I’m keepin’ it. Unless maybe Paul Turner would be interested in hanging it with his velvet Jesus at the Darkside.

File this under Easily Amused. I’ve started reading The Oregonian (OregonLive.com) regularly. Yesterday I wandered over to their Tails of the City to peruse the photo albums of cute canines. Next thing I know, I was following some weird late-night Internet show-and-tell impulse, and now, check it out! My dogs, Oregonians. (Never mind that those particular photos date to our previous move.)

As they say over at Salon’s Video Dog, all together now, Aw!

Relaxed evening stroll along quiet sidewalks. Gordon, a thick string of slobber dangling from his chin, intently sniffs at a bush. I stoop to marvel at the artistry of the spiders’ webs, and he tries to lick my face. “I’m not gonna kiss you! Gross!” just as we pass the honky-tonk. Sideways glance from the urban cowboys drinking and yukking it up on the patio. Duck behind a monster pickup and scurry away.

I sure seem to talk to my dogs an awful lot.

This is not a cry for help.