Mini is resting comfortably on her first evening in town.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Not Fade Away
I should share why we named little Milly little Milly: because just then, when I had woken up my mom to wish her a happy birthday, we decided it was a little miracle that she had recovered and would be coming home in the morning--and the Spanish word for miracle is milagro.
Little milagro = little Milly.
Sometimes, life presents timing so ironic that it sounds like a screenplay someone's writing at a Starbucks.
But I have some good news. The breeder, Julie, in a very considerate gesture, is sending us Milly's sister on Tuesday. She'll have some big paws to fill, but we look forward to her arrival.
And Craig suggested the perfect name: Vanilly.
Little milagro = little Milly.
Sometimes, life presents timing so ironic that it sounds like a screenplay someone's writing at a Starbucks.
But I have some good news. The breeder, Julie, in a very considerate gesture, is sending us Milly's sister on Tuesday. She'll have some big paws to fill, but we look forward to her arrival.
And Craig suggested the perfect name: Vanilly.
Didn't Make It
Just got the call. Little Milly died at almost exactly the moment we finished naming her...
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Mysterious. Serious. And Better.
Happy to report that vet's update today is that Mitty/Tuaca/Sitka is doing a little better--upgraded from critical to serious. She's no longer minute-to-minute, in other words, and the real problem is that they still haven't figured out what's wrong with her (or her kidney.) Still, I'm optimistic, and hopefully she'll be able to come home soon and resume chewing things.
Friday, June 17, 2005
"Critical But Stable"
So says the puppy hospital. If she makes it through the night, she might make it, period. So I'm guardedly (and perhaps unjustifiably) hopeful.
Too Short a Stay
If she doesn't make it, my family and I will have had the most awesome pup ever for the shortest possible time. And if she lives, she'll be not just the most awesome but the most spoiled, too. Heck, she can have the giant alpacas.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Wounded Dell
Tonight my laptop screen fell off -- but only halfway. What amazes me most of all is not that it broke (it's mine, after all) but that it's still working, even with a half-amputated display.
Tremendous thunderstorms all evening long. If I were Charles Dickens, I'd describe it as a night full of symbols and portents for the future. Since I'm not, I'll instead note that I had dinner with my cousin's boyfriend's older brother. There's family, there's extended family, and then there's... my cousin's boyfriend's older brother.
Tremendous thunderstorms all evening long. If I were Charles Dickens, I'd describe it as a night full of symbols and portents for the future. Since I'm not, I'll instead note that I had dinner with my cousin's boyfriend's older brother. There's family, there's extended family, and then there's... my cousin's boyfriend's older brother.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
A Tale of Three Taxis
I inspired two taxi drivers to fight today. One pulled the other out of his car and punched him. The other whacked back. Nothing too fancy, just your typical sidewalk brawl. Not because they each wanted me as a client, but because each wanted the other to take me instead. The people behind me in line were much older, wore jewelry, and didn't carry backpacks. They probably looked like better tippers. While the two of them brawled, I walked down the street to a third taxi.
This driver, a Russian man, waved at the fight. "America wonderful country," he said, "But sometimes too much freedom."
This driver, a Russian man, waved at the fight. "America wonderful country," he said, "But sometimes too much freedom."
Monday, June 06, 2005
The Demise of a Dropout
My Final Return to Harvard University
or
scribblings on an airplane
My friend Sasha, who ran away to Europe to become a composer and buy a house in Belgium, would warn me against using the word "final" too loosely. "You've said it before," he'd say, "And look where you are now."
He's right. I've always been too aware of endings--even of endings I've invented ahead of time, to mark progress in a life that has been more spiraling than straightforward. As a second-grader, I used to be sad that I would never be a first-grader again.
But he's also wrong. Because while from time to time I may still walk the streets of Cambridge (no doubt observing the increasing dominance of chain stores), and will undoubtedly have many more chances to pass through the Yard and study my Canaday A-13 window before some daring university president finally knocks the building down to make way for something less depressing, I have no reason to believe I will ever be back as a student.
Perhaps as a fellow. Or even a professor. These seem remote prospects, but I've learned not to discount the remote: in almost every case it's only a hop and a bus ride away. That's how I found Patzcuaro, a town in the Mexican mountains where I wrote parts of my undergraduate thesis. Arguably that's how I founded DemiDec (though you'd have to substitute a jaywalk and a Chevy Blazer for the hop and the bus.)
As I write this, I'm flying across the Midwest. A few minutes ago we crossed over Chicago; I looked out the window just in time to see it disappearing into the Great Lakes.
I have a template I ought to be designing, for Resources. I have poems that I kind of feel like writing, old-style sonnets, the sort that I like to utter now and then in cheesy homage to past greats (and, more than that, just because I love the way rhymes sound.)
But nostalgia has the upper hand for now.
The first time I flew to Boston, I did so with a teammate, Becky, and her mother. One week earlier we had won nationals, eaten Reuben sandwiches and--to the best of my knowledge--said our farewells to Decathlon. I brought along a trenchcoat. It seemed like the appropriate thing to wear. The next day, I would be standing on the steps of a dorm feeling the wind lift it a little, pondering whether I could spend four years in this place full of bricks and homeless men, when a student unexpectedly approached me with a psychic flash.
"I know what brings you to Harvard," she said. "You want to be a writer."
Maybe I looked the part: hands in pockets, studying the grass, at a slight remove from everyone else. Or maybe everyone who goes to Harvard either wants to be president or a writer of prose, and I just clearly wasn't the former. I was still digesting the import of a year in which M Building defined the outer limits of fun and purpose. Those limits were busted, the purpose fulfilled, the fun captured in an album full of anecdotes. It seemed reasonable to imagine that anything was within reach, if I only designated to it the same passion that had helped my teammates and I find our way, via mischief and, well, mostly more mischief, to New Jersey.
...to be continued...
or
scribblings on an airplane
My friend Sasha, who ran away to Europe to become a composer and buy a house in Belgium, would warn me against using the word "final" too loosely. "You've said it before," he'd say, "And look where you are now."
He's right. I've always been too aware of endings--even of endings I've invented ahead of time, to mark progress in a life that has been more spiraling than straightforward. As a second-grader, I used to be sad that I would never be a first-grader again.
But he's also wrong. Because while from time to time I may still walk the streets of Cambridge (no doubt observing the increasing dominance of chain stores), and will undoubtedly have many more chances to pass through the Yard and study my Canaday A-13 window before some daring university president finally knocks the building down to make way for something less depressing, I have no reason to believe I will ever be back as a student.
Perhaps as a fellow. Or even a professor. These seem remote prospects, but I've learned not to discount the remote: in almost every case it's only a hop and a bus ride away. That's how I found Patzcuaro, a town in the Mexican mountains where I wrote parts of my undergraduate thesis. Arguably that's how I founded DemiDec (though you'd have to substitute a jaywalk and a Chevy Blazer for the hop and the bus.)
As I write this, I'm flying across the Midwest. A few minutes ago we crossed over Chicago; I looked out the window just in time to see it disappearing into the Great Lakes.
I have a template I ought to be designing, for Resources. I have poems that I kind of feel like writing, old-style sonnets, the sort that I like to utter now and then in cheesy homage to past greats (and, more than that, just because I love the way rhymes sound.)
But nostalgia has the upper hand for now.
The first time I flew to Boston, I did so with a teammate, Becky, and her mother. One week earlier we had won nationals, eaten Reuben sandwiches and--to the best of my knowledge--said our farewells to Decathlon. I brought along a trenchcoat. It seemed like the appropriate thing to wear. The next day, I would be standing on the steps of a dorm feeling the wind lift it a little, pondering whether I could spend four years in this place full of bricks and homeless men, when a student unexpectedly approached me with a psychic flash.
"I know what brings you to Harvard," she said. "You want to be a writer."
Maybe I looked the part: hands in pockets, studying the grass, at a slight remove from everyone else. Or maybe everyone who goes to Harvard either wants to be president or a writer of prose, and I just clearly wasn't the former. I was still digesting the import of a year in which M Building defined the outer limits of fun and purpose. Those limits were busted, the purpose fulfilled, the fun captured in an album full of anecdotes. It seemed reasonable to imagine that anything was within reach, if I only designated to it the same passion that had helped my teammates and I find our way, via mischief and, well, mostly more mischief, to New Jersey.
...to be continued...
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