Family and/or Autobiography – Page 3 – Hey, Look! A Writer Fellow!

August 8, 2022August 8, 2022

For The Birds

I’ve never been a big fan of birds. I’m unnerved by the parts of them that are dangerous. Look at those feet! So pointy! And their faces also come to a point! A super-sharp, eye-pecky point! Seriously, they’re like little, feathery weapons of war.

I also dislike birds because in the movie, The Birds, those avian psychopaths killed sexy schoolteacher Suzanne Pleshette while sparing the lives of personality vacuums Rod Taylor and Tipi Hedren.

I mean, really, birds? Really?

But the main reason I’ve never liked birds is because they poop. They poop on my car, they poop on my lawn furniture, and, many years ago, when I was window shopping in Ridgewood, NJ, a pigeon pooped on my head.

So birds suck. Everyone who knows me knows that I think birds suck. The innate suckiness of birds is one of my favorite discussion topics.

So you can just imagine my wife’s and son’s surprise a few months ago when I told them what I wanted for Fathers’ Day.

“A birdbath?!” Alex sputtered. “You want a birdbath? I thought you hated birds because of that movie where they pecked Suzanne Sommers or whatever.”

“Suzanne Pleshette,” I sighed. “Birds can peck Suzanne Sommers every day for eternity, for all I care.”

“They poop, you know,” Ellen added. “I vaguely remember hearing a story about a pigeon pooping on your head. I might be misremembering it. You’ve only told me about it four million times.”

“The birdbath wouldn’t be for birds,” I explained. “It would be for my squirrels. I want a birdbath without a pedestal so it can be on the ground, near where I throw their peanuts. They can drink from it.”

Oh, how I love squirrels. Everyone who knows me knows that I love squirrels. I love them almost as much as I hate birds. They’re so sassy and funny and full of personality. I could watch them all day.

Also, squirrels don’t poop on my car, so they’re kind of perfect.

“Birds are gonna show up,” Ellen warned.

“Not if my squirrels have anything to say about it.”

The squirrels in my yard are ornery and territorial. I’ve personally seen my favorite squirrel, Serpentine Shel, backhand a crow. I knew I could depend on my rodent pals to maintain the status quo.

Fathers’ Day arrived and I got my birdbath. I was ecstatic. I wasted no time setting it down and filling it up. I tossed a few peanuts nearby and waited for my squirrels to enjoy their new watering hole.

And they couldn’t have cared less.

Even lazy Fatty McGee, a squirrel seemingly designed to lounge poolside for hours on end, wanted nothing to do with it. Fatty and Company just ate their peanuts and split.

I was miffed.

But not nearly as miffed as I was when all the birds showed up.

They came from everywhere. Robins, cardinals, blackbirds, blue jays, doves, a woodpecker, and a bunch of tiny yellow and brown ones I couldn’t identify. Jillions of them! A simple cement saucer turned my side yard into Bird Disneyland.

“Dangit!” I grumped.

“Told you,” Ellen said.

So now I was stuck with a bunch of stupid birds fluttering around right outside of my kitchen window. Worst Fathers’ Day ever.

But as I crabbily watched them each and every morning, I noticed, perhaps for the first time ever, that birds are kind of pretty.

I also noticed that they were kind of fun to watch, too. They were messy, splashy bathers, yes, but I was charmed by their enthusiasm. They loved my birdbath. They appreciated its existence. And because they appreciated it so much, I started to put in an effort to maintain it. I kept if full of cool water, I scrubbed out the algae.

And maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I could totally tell that they were grateful.

Dang! I thought, birds are kind of cool.

I soon started to recognize the regulars. I’m especially fond of a chunky robin who shows up every morning at the crack of dawn to avoid the crowds. He plants his butt in the water, floofs his feathers, and zones out.

If I have a bird spirit animal, he’s the guy.

Long story short, I’m a changed man.

I have been unfair to birds. They’re not as bad as I thought. Not even close. I’ve even come to accept that the reason Pleshette died in The Birds and Hendron didn’t was because Alfred Hitchcock had a thing for blondes.

Every morning I take pleasure in peeking out of my kitchen window to see my birds all happy and flappy. They make me smile. I like birds. I like them a lot.

But if any of them even thinks about pooping on my head, all bets are off.

June 23, 2022

It’s National Typewriter Day!

June 23rd is the day to celebrate a thwacking, banging, dinging Steampunky masterpiece of engineering!

This analog computer for old people has contributed to the completion of many Great American Novels. It has made legible the wishes of many people with unreadable handwriting. And, most significantly, it has played a role in many of my fond childhood memories.

I’ve always loved typewriters.

I own two, a 1938 Royal Magic Margin and a 1928 Underwood, both so aggressively heavy I could become a bodybuilder by bench pressing them.

The Underwood originally belonged to my Uncle Jay who had it sitting on a shelf for as long as I can remember. I’d always stare at the thing whenever I visited his house. And, like everyone in the presence of a typewriter, I would absolutely need to press the keys. (They always jammed. Once upon a time someone had dropped it. Dropping an antique Underwood should be a crime, I think.)

That Underwood always stood out among Uncle Jay’s many possessions. Not only because I liked it so much, but also because it was so out of character. Uncle Jay was not a writer or a collector of antiques. Quite the opposite, really. He was a gadget guy. If something new hit the market that was state-of-the-art and/or techy, he would be the first in line to buy it. I believe Uncle Jay was the only person in the world to own a 3-D television—a technological marvel that was as awesome as it was useless.

Uncle Jay sensed I liked his Underwood by the subtle hints I would sometimes drop—like the way I would endlessly shout, “I really like your Underwood! I wish I had an Underwood! I always wanted an Underwood!” So when he and Auntie Susan decided to downsize and move to Florida (the legally mandated nesting place for New Jersey old people) he gave it to me.

A little bent, a little broken, but a beauty nonetheless.

I was ecstatic.

Because the keys are damaged, my Underwood is “for display purposes only,” which is regrettable. But old Underwoods are such beautiful machines that I almost don’t mind its lack of functionality. I like looking at it. I like the idea that I own one. And I especially like the idea that I have the option to get the thing refurbished. Which I will. Soon.

My Royal is a different animal entirely. It’s built like a Sherman tank and works like new. I found it in a thrift store and consider it the smartest purchase I’ve ever made. Where else can a $40 investment lead to decades of happy, satisfying, cathartic thwacking?

God, what a fun machine. It’s such a refreshing change of pace from the wimpy, whispery clickitaclickitas of my laptop keyboard. Writing is hard work, dangit! Bangs, whumps, and thumps from a good old fashioned manual typewriter makes it sound like you’re working!

Longtime readers of this blog know that this isn’t the first time I’ve delivered an ode to typewriters. This (typewritten) blog post below is from 2013 and I still agree with it–especially my views on Davy and Goliath. (Click to see larger.)

Long story short, I highly recommend that you peruse the secondhand
shops for a typewriter right now. One THWACK and you’ll be a convert for life.

Are there any typewriter fans out there? Do you prefer another (non-laptoppy) way to write down your ideas? Leave a comment! Let’s chat!

April 20, 2022April 21, 2022

Gerbilishly Challenged

A blurry Dusty, milliseconds before rejecting my offering.

I have loved and cared for many rodents over the years.

I’ve had two rats, one fancy rat and one sewer rat (posing as a fancy rat).

I’ve owned the world’s most ornery guinea pig.

I’ve cared for wild mice.

And I’ve had gerbils. Lots and lots of gerbils.

I love rodents because they’re cute and small and easy to care for. They’re fun and playful and full of vim and vigor. They have big personalities.

But I think what I love the most about rodents is their intelligence. Rodents are dang smart.

Lucy, my fancy rat, figured out the latch on her cage and would explore the house whenever the mood struck her. Ethel, my sewer rat (and Lucy’s roommate), was also smart, but in a different way. When Lucy escaped, Ethel stayed put; being a sewer rat, Ethel understood the harshness of the wider world and had no desire to leave the cushy existence I had set up for her.

My childhood gerbil, Jerbs, also escaped from his cage repeatedly—not to explore and raise hell like Lucy, but just to see if he could. It was a puzzle he enjoyed solving. When I would come down to breakfast to find an empty cage, Jerbs would immediately traipse up to my side and stamp his feet boastfully as if to say, “Hey! See what I did? Awesome, right? I am so awesome!”

My guinea pig, Pigamajig, potty trained herself. This bears repeating: I did not potty train my guinea pig. She potty trained herself. Because Pigamajig was a lady, and ladies don’t just go pee-pee on the floor.

My gerbil, Salt, was observant in the way all mischievous children are, waiting for me to glance the other way before misbehaving. Salt’s buddy, Peppa, was the architect of the duo, arranging his toys and toilet paper tubes into a network of walls and tunnels that rivaled the engineering marvels of the ancient Roman aqueducts.

I could go on, but I think the point is made. Rodents are brilliant.

Well… until I got Dusty and Oreo.

Dusty and Oreo are the newest additions to my household. They’re gerbils. They’re cute. They’re friendly.

But wowza, they’re dumb.

Oreo is terrified of my presence and races behind his exercise wheel to avoid me at all costs. I understand this, of course. Rodents can be very timid and often need time to get used to someone. Despite my apparent threat level (and Oreo’s terrified squeaks of “STRANGER DANGER!”) he’ll always accept treats from me, which is something you really shouldn’t do if you think the treat offeror is an enemy.

But that’s good news, you’re thinking. The fact that Oreo is accepting food from you means that you two are establishing trust, right?

Well, no. Moments after I feed him, Oreo forgets me entirely and repeats his terror run whenever I happen to pass by.

Dusty is different. He associates me with food and races to the cage door whenever he sees me coming. Once I give him the treat, however, he decides that he doesn’t like it.

He’ll drop the delectable morsel and mope off, both disappointed in me and life in general—until I give the same treat to Oreo. Then Dusty wants it. He wants that dang treat more than anything else in the entire world.

So Dusty chases Oreo around the cage demanding the treat. Oreo, the beta male, does as Dusty commands.

Poor Oreo, I think.

So I offer Oreo a second treat. But Oreo runs behind the exercise wheel because I am an evil stranger.

Dusty, after stealing his treat back from Oreo. Camera shy Oreo is hiding behind the exercise wheel.

It should be noted that my gerbils need these treats because they’re starving. The gerbils are starving because they can’t find their food bowl. They can’t find their food bowl because they bury their food bowl under bedding. Then they forget that the food is there.

Sometimes I think I can almost hear their anguished conversations:

OREO:
I’m so hungry Dusty!

DUSTY:
I know, my friend. I am, too.

OREO:
Maybe we should look around for food?

DUSTY:
There’s no point. Searching for food will only weaken us further.

OREO:
I guess you’re right, Dusty. You’re so smart.

DUSTY:
I know, Oreo. I know.

So every day I scoop bedding out of their food bowl and say, “Look dummies, food.”

They stare at the bowl in wonder. “FOOD!” they squeak. They scarf it down. A minute or two later, however, they begin to worry.

The Food is really important! they think.

We need to protect The Food!

We’ll protect The Food by hiding The Food!

We’ll hide The Food under the bedding!

So the gerbils bury the food bowl and, in a twinkling, forget that the food bowl is there.

I sigh. Alarmed by my sigh, Oreo hides behind the exercise wheel.

“STRANGER DANGER!” he cries.

So much dumbness.

But oh, how I love them.