No Regrets

Wednesday Rotogravure: Good Pest, Bad Pest

We know we're lucky to live in a little corner of paradise, but our two-acre Eden is not without serpents; also raccoons, deer, gophers, coyotes, and the occasional California mountain lion. It's a jungle out there. While we are generally happy to share the turf with critters who do not chip in for the property taxes, the limits of our hospitality are reached when the turf gets rolled back, dug up, and roiled about in the search for grubs.  We hope this guilty grubber is happy in his new home, far, far away from ours...

 

Turns out there are plenty more where he came from. This one, relocated a week after his confrere, above, was really feisty. Also well-fed; he'd gotten into the garage and gorged himself on pet food, leaving behind a lot of mucilaginous crap teeming with deadly, long-lasting (7 years!) neurotoxins which I was foolish enough to clean up myself instead of calling a hazmat team. Duh.

 

It's tempting to anthropomorhize the little buggers: the bandito mask, the cunning wee claws, the fact that the mommy raccoons keep their offspring for a full year, passing on tricks of the trade to their offspring before going into heat and engendering more incredibly irritating critters. You can tell I've sucessfully resisted the temptation, and you should, too. Just look at the claws on this one. Plus his/her shit can kill, or at least mess you up.

 

Pestilence is in the eye of the beholder. There are those who say that squirrels are just rats with better art direction, and when we lived in a townhouse in Baltimore we, like all our neighbors, considered them a terrible nuisance. Here in Marin County, they're a minor-key pest, upgradable to save-worthy status. The same day we launched our Raccoon Relocation Program, this kit literally dropped from the sky, and we leapt at the opportunity to save her life, giving her cardiac massage on the way to the Wildcare Emergency Room after rigging up a sort of incubator for the trip. Alas, she did not make it through the night—she'd fallen from a great height, and that blood around her nose was not a good sign.

 

The kid is never going to live this down.

 

Absent good art direction, and present a serial-killing cat, around here rodents are simply picked up with a plastic bag and deposited in the trash. No heroics or hijinks, and I try not to step on them in my bare feet—see how well this one blends with the carpet in my study? It's a jungle in here, too.

It's an old Q'um hunting rug, and the Deer of the Week, too. They are fleeing from the tiger disemboweling one of their herd, though it appears that the long-ago weaver had never actually seen a tiger. Or a deer. For humans, it's a nice old piece of folk art; for Murphy, the serial killer cat, it's an inspiration.

 
Amusing pest: Trixie, with rubber rat. She's a year old now, and so far she hasn't killed anything—with Murphy monopolizing the trade, it's hard to get a kill in edgewise.

The Freud Feature: Peeping Sigmund. The peep-ee does seem complicit.

Sheep of the Week, on a great old plaque above a bar in Copenhagen, shot last summer.

 

Wednesday Rotogravure: Deer Hot Tub Party; Lizards on the Fence

  

Murphy has successfully gamed the screens we installed at not-inconsiderable-expense in an attempt to keep him from bringing his prey inside the house. A trail of blood documents this lizard's last moments: smuggled under the screen in my study, clamped in Murphy's jaws; bleeding copiously in a corner of the hall loo; expiring rather attractively on my favorite carpet, which, luckily, is more or less the color of dried blood.

As an accomplice to a serial killer, specializing in body disposal, I've come to appreciate the creative potential in the grisly remains of Murphy's habit. This guy is gorgeous, but the fat ones rot rather than shrivel up. Too bad.

 

We found this perfectly desiccated fellow in the leaves of a dusty silk plant when we were prepping my mother's house for staging after her death. I added the cicada wings and left it on my desk for a few months, waiting for inspiration to strike...

And was so happy when it did. Stasi Baby and Dragon, 2010.

 

Elsewhere on the homestead, we are on the losing end of an epic struggle to carve out even a little bit of No Deer's Land for human use. Here's a buck, under the main deck...

And the rest of the family, having a party on the hot tub cover. They have no shame.

See? Even the fawns are sassy.

BBs do not affect the hoofed ungulate monumental sense of entitlement. It's kind of fun shooting at them, though. Here Answerjack is attempting to clear the deck of varmints to make it fit the youngest member of the family.

The lovely Miss Meredith, in her first pair of jeans (vintage—how cool is that?), a gift from her Grandpa Answer-J.

Grandfather and granddaughter, sharing a hearty chuckle about A-J's Kafka T-shirt. OK, maybe they're just playing with potholders.

Three generations. Papa Jon, Grandpa Answerjack and Meredith.

The Freud Feature. Here's Sigmund at my parents' wedding.

Aunt Gene and her girlfriend Marge. Great boots, ladies!

Sheep o' the Week, #1: Mother's Day mug decorated with sheep, by Jessica.

Sheep o' the Week #2.

Wed. Rot.: Claws and a Kiosk

Murphy left these claws on the doormat a couple of weeks ago...dried out and trimmed of leftover bird bits, they're pretty cool: fragile and menacing at the same time.

 

A carnivorous start to the family spring birthday extravaganza (4 of 'em!): dinner at the ridiculously retro House of Prime Rib—Hoppers to the cognoscenti—still at the same location as in the 1956 ad below.

Same address, same phone, same delicious specialty. The parking policy has changed in the past 54 years, though.

I love the anonymous extras in the backgrounds of old photos. The foreground is my impossibly young—she's 19, he's 23—parents. Who's the cute kid being more or less dragged down the stairs in the background? She's loving the camera, so she cannot have met my father.

This is as a good place as any to insert the Freud Feature.

I got one of those official! First class! Fill out and return immediately Republican "Census" forms. I was gobsmacked: here in Marin County, California, Republicans are deeply closeted. They were asking for some very personal information, like did I care that the "Democrat deficit" would ruin the lives of my children and grandchildren, and if I did, how much money would I donate to the RNC to save the country? I am a good citizen, so I used the handy postage-paid envelope to let them know exactly what I thought.

The start of tomato cultivation season on the bedroom deck...

And the reason why, on  a two-acre lot, we can only grow tomatoes in barrels three stories above the ground. That's Deer of the Week lurking outside my study door, chomping the deer-proof ground cover I install every spring. This batch lasted about 3 days. That Adirondack chair prevents him and his buddies from smearing their snotty snouts on the window panes...

See his furry antler-ettes? The swine.

Saw this couple at SFO, man and woman, identically dressed, head to toe, marching along in step. I wonder how/why they started dressing alike while traveling? I'm trying to imagine how I'd look in one of Answerjack's Che Guevara tees or Tommy Bahama shirts. Possibly better than Answer-J would look in my post WWII-era suede jacket and clogs...

Wed. Rot.: Night Bird Nesting and The Blue Moon

It's full spring in Memphis, a brief and blessed season wedged between surprisingly bitter winters and the Mid-South Extended Humidity Festival. You can see we're pretty pumped.

Not much of a shot, huh? Just another business gone bust around the corner from the loft. Keep your eye on the fuzzy grey blob on the left side of the transom window.

Look! It's a cute little night bird, nesting. We thought she might be hungry, worm availability being limited on Main Street in Memphis, so Answerjack jogged back to the restaurant we'd just left for an avian-appropriate morsel.

He came back bearing a corn muffin. Hey, it's the south!

We set the muffin on the ledge at a distance so she wouldn't get spooked by our giant warm-blooded hands.

A nesting Peeps, tucked into my napkin ring after Easter dinner at home in Marin County.

Easter is the one festive occasion when faux sheep may safely graze without being subject to discussion about their suitability as table decor. Once the Peeps barrier is breached, all bets are off; Sigmund joined the party, too. Here is Sheep o' The Week and The Freud Feature, in one shot!

That lovely pale indigo liquid is a Blue Moon cocktail, here with home-smoked salmon. Drink recipe follows...

These things are delicious, a variation on a wildly popular pre-prohibition drink called the Aviation. I get enough aviat-ing, thank you; I'll take a

Blue Moon Cocktail

2 oz. dry gin

1/2 oz. lemon juice

1/2 oz. Creme de Violette. (You might not be able to find it locally, but you can order it from here. And you really should, it's terrific stuff.)

Shake with ice and strain.

My father's buddies, indulging his life-long penchant for very staged shots...

A function later served by his children, all of whom are now pathologically camera-shy. My sister Chris and me, Easter, 1955.

An even earlier Easter. That's my Grandma Lydia; she's about 39. I would envy her those shoes if there was even a remote chance that I could stand up in them. She styling, all the time.

Back in Marin County, life goes on as usual: Murphy approaches with the catch of the hour...

And the catch of the next hour.

The yearlings are out on their own, dopey, destructive, and endearing. I had to practically carry this one out of the middle of the road. He's young, he's dumb, he's the Deer of the Week.

And the view out there, from up here, this morning.

 

 

Wed. Rot.: Gobble and Pack

Murphy continues to celebrate the approach of spring...

I try to be understanding about Murphy's dietary practices, since we eat some weird stuff, too. Our dinner here was whale sashimi, in Tokyo, where it may or may not be legal.

Eclectic food tastes run in the family. My father, apparently a stone-age locavore, is on the left. Why those boys dressed up in suits to horse around with garbage cans is a minor mystery.

The cliché factor for photos of rainbows is right up there with pictures of kitty cats. This one was in my front yard. If you look closely, you can see that it's a double rainbow—cool.

Back yard, same day: a flock of wild turkeys, silent but for the rustle of the underbrush as they pecked for grubs or whatever. They were huge, like ostriches with stubby legs, and brilliantly colored.

Sheep of the Week...this style is called a "putz." That seems a bit mean.

The Freud Feature. Here, Sigmund visits New York City. Such a lot of tall buildings, thrusting up to the sky! I'm going there in a few hours, too. I'd better pack...

Wed. Rot.: The View From the Hood

The sun came out, briefly, and Murphy the serial killer celebrated in his inimitable style.

As we did in ours. Bunny for dinner, a harbinger of spring. Rabbits come out of the culinary closet in today's New York Times: Hippity Hop Cuisine

The view is limited when the hood of the car is up.

It's striking how many old photos prominently feature automobiles. Tiny Answerjack, about 3 years old, perched on his about-to-become-stepfather's car. It's a long way to the ground—good thing the little tyke didn't topple.

The two males had a complicated relationship.

The mommy/wife at the heart of it. She's about 16 in these pictures; in the next year a half she would be married, widowed, and a mother.

Was she prepared for what was coming?

Her kid sure was cute.

The Freud Feature...

Having re-upped for more months of consulting in Memphis, Answer-J moved to different loft. I like the the sign on the brick, an urban Biblical injunction.

As always, the view is better at home in Marin. This was taken this morning; yeah, I know, another picture of paradise. I appreciate it, believe me.

Sheep of the Week, the only pink one in the collection, from my sister Chris.

And some over-the-top Deer of the Week, from Coco Chanel's apartment, which looks awfully rococo for the woman who invented the little black dress. Go figure.

 

Wednesday Rotogravure: The False Azure of the Windowpane

At home in Marin County this weekend, we heard a surprisingly loud thwump! as a hummingbird flew into one of the glass doors and fell, stunned, to the deck. Murphy promptly stuffed the creature into his mouth, but we pried open his jaws and rescued it. The bird was panting hard but not bleeding—the red patch on his throat is feathers.

You can see his tongue hanging out.

We improvised a recovery room in one of the candle lanterns to keep him safe from Murphy while we finished our coffee and Answerjack read the paper. Me, I went inside and got my copy of Pale Fire, which opens with the amazing lines "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain/By the false azure of the windowpane..." The bird was beating his wings against the glass before I reached the end of the poem, we opened the lantern door and he flew away, having survived collision, capture by cat and confinement, a lucky little string of alliteration. I bet his blog entry was exciting. You can read the rest of "John Shade's"/Nabokov's poem here.

A brief pause while Murphy re-armed, and then Answer had to extract a lizard from Murph's mouth, which he popped into a wineglass. Not sure why; perhaps for just this picture?

The halo effect.

The serial killer himself, in the false azure (sort of) of the mirror.

More weekend excitement: Jessica and John had a minor nautical misadventure on the Bay and wound up at our house in the middle of the night. They crept in silently on little cat feet; in the morning, Anabel's sea-going gear let us know J & J were upstairs asleep in the guest room.

My 11-year-old mother and her Aunt Gene, onboard a ferry on Lake Michigan, 1940...

I am completely out of patience with the damn deer. They chomp their way right up to the front door, barely stopping short of ringing the bell and demanding food and drink.

Marin does a great job of moonrises. This, from the big deck, where to-the-death struggles—Murphy vs. rodents, lizards and birds; deer vs. gardens; humans vs deer; raccoons vs. everyone—are taking place in the mysterious dark, to the cheerful chirp of crickets.

Wed. Rot. on Thursday: Scavengers, Predators and Pests

This saucy fellow hangs out at a lobster pound in Southwest Harbor, Maine, hustling handouts. Scavenger, predator or pest?

When in Memphis, we spend our Sunday mornings at Flying Fish: 2 dozen gulf oysters, a bottle of Pinot Grigio and the NYT. These aren't Marin Miyagis, but they're very tasty with green Tabasco. Preachers in general: scavengers, predators or pests?

 

Families who eat bottom-feeders by the bushel: definitely scavengers. Here we are at Jessica and Johns place in San Francisco, after a feast of blue crab, a perverse preference in Dungeness country.

Murphy is famous because of this picture. No, it's not Photoshop'd; he cornered the mouse on an amaryllis bud—a predator taking out a pest. Since it falls to me to clean up the remains, I guess that makes me the scavenger.

The most challenging scavenge ever: this was behind the refrigerator, waiting for me when I got back from vacation this week. Thanks, Murphy. Heads up if you click to enlarge: it's truly disgusting. Those little white things? Maggots. Who knew they could move so fast?

Some rats are neither pest, predator or scavenger. Manny the Rat here accompanied us on our cross-country journey when we were briefly exiled to Baltimore.

Here he is at Crater Lake, in Oregon...

...and enjoying some river or another in Idaho. This was in Manny's prime.

Alas, Manny is the latest rodent casualty, quietly going to pieces at the ripe old age of 10. Plus you can see he's got osteoporosis. We'll lay him to rest when Answer gets home.

Deer o' the Week: definitely pest.

And the Sheep of the Week, from the collection. This one is large, and lives on top of a bookcase.

Plus bonus collectible: a spawn of Manny. This one lives in front of our house in Marin County.

Postscript:

 

Murphy's catch of the day, discovered just after posting. He's an Alpha predator who can be deceptively endearing:

 

Does he look like a serial killer?

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Wednesday Rotogravure: Guns, Guts and Bathing Beauties

Why did the deer cross the road? To get to our yard, where I just installed $100 worth of "deer resistant" ground cover and grasses on a wee bit of turf I tried to claim for human use. The plants lasted about 12 hours.

Like many gardeners attempting to share space with deer, I've been driven to violence. This water gun will shoot 37 feet, an oddly specific range. I'm dressed to kick ass in my Gogol Bordello T-shirt. Thanks, Natalia!

I'm not the first person in my family to bear arms against wildlife. Here's my great aunt Gene, circa 1925.

Serial killer cat Murphy doesn't need a gun. He can't be bothered to eat the whole bird, just picks out the choice bits and leaves the rest.

A typical scene in Memphis: car carnage and an ad for the Cochran Firm. Even in death, Johnnie Cochran litigates; his image beams down from billboards about town, urging Memphisonians to sue. Wonder who got this case?

My father took the picture on the left when my sister Chris and I were about 9 and 11 years old. Thirty-some odd summers later, my mother staged and shot my daughters Natalia and Jessica in a similar fetching and oh-so-natural tableau.

Aunt Gene, 1931. She's pretty fetching, too.

Deer of The Week. PETA, save your protests until after you've clomped a mile in my gardening clogs.

Sheep o' The Week, from the collection.

Wednesday Rotogravure: Suburban Archeology & More Drinking Grandparents

A rare picture of my paternal grandfather, who died before I was born. He usually looks stern and stuffed in photos; I like this one because he looks like he's having fun.

My father and a chum, pre-marriage, pre-paternity. His buddy looks like a monster, lurching down the street, sucking on a stogie.

Working in the yard, I've uncovered some interesting artifacts left behind by the previous owners. I'm sure any 10-year-old could tell me the name of this pinheaded monster.

Another monster. Godzilla? Nice wings.

Were the previous owners Republicans?

Cleaned up, this buried pewter candlestick fits right in on the mantel.

This wasn't buried in the backyard; it was found on the top shelf of the master bedroom closet. Not the original artifact; stock photo.

There must be a million of these things around the property; Murphy, the serial killer cat, brings them to me daily, mostly dead and sort of pretty.

Deer of The Week, I wish. They've exfoliated a huge jade plant and are munching ground cover that just started to fill in.

Sheep o' The Week, from the collection.