Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Monday, October 31, 2011 A Good Day to Die, Part 2 The evening before we left town, we discovered that my Saturn wasn't the only thing on its last legs. Before bringing Bucky up to the neighbor's house so he could stay with them, as is his custom when we go out of town, I thought it best to clean his cage out, as is my custom. Still kind of wound up from my whole car situation we'd had to deal with that day, I carried the cage into the bathroom (a smaller room with fewer hiding places than M. Edium's bedroom), along with the bag of aspen bedding, a plastic shopping bag to dispose of the used bedding, his food, and his exercise ball. He likes to roll around in his ball while I clean the cage, and I'm happy to oblige. Although I'd be even happier if he switched roles with me, so I could roll around in a ball and he could clean the smelly hamster cage. But the ritual was a little different this time. Usually he comes out of his little plastic house the moment I lift the cage, to see what's going on. Even if he's deeply asleep, he's usually up and around by the time I set the cage on the bathroom floor, and when I've removed the wire top from the plastic pan, he's usually ready to go. But this time he just stayed in his little house. We've been noticing signs that he was reaching the end of the one- to two-year lifespan that dwarf hamsters normally enjoy. He'd been slowing down, not spending as much time in his wheel. He didn't seem to be eating as much. Oh, and the bald little pinkynail-sized tumor we'd spotted on his belly over the summer, which are apparently quite common and don't generally cause the little guys any pain, had ballooned to the size of…well, the size of Bucky. For months, he hadn't seemed to mind or even notice it, not that he ever reacts to much beyond a sunflower seed handed to him. But the dried blood I discovered in his exercise wheel one morning a couple of weeks ago seemed like a serious sign, and that's when I started preparing M. Edium for the reality that Bucky might not be around too much longer. And Trash and I got into the habit of peeking into the cage to make sure he was still breathing. Which he always was. Pet death isn't an entirely abstract thing to M. Edium. He remembers the deaths of our late cats Strat and Turtle a few years ago, but this would be the first time losing a pet that was all his. He's always understood that Bucky would have a short life no matter how well we cared for him. I think he got it. But he had one question I didn't have an answer for: "What if he dies when we're in New York?" Well, the night before I left, I watched Bucky sit motionless in the ball where I'd just tucked him. Then I gently tipped him back out onto the floor and watched as he helplessly wobbled on the tumor that, as of that day, was now preventing all four of his feet from touching the ground at the same time. And I decided that no, he wasn't going to die when we were in New York. But there was obviously only one way to prevent that, because he wasn't going to make it another two days, let alone five. So when M. Edium got home that evening, Trash and I broke the news that Bucky had gotten much worse, and that the time had come. He agreed that no, he didn't want Bucky to die in pain, hours or days from now, in a less familiar house with people who, as much as they like him, aren't his family. We explained that we were going to bring him up to the vet (which, thank God, happens to be open late on Tuesdays), where the doctor would give him something that would help him go to sleep and then Bucky would be dead. M. Edium nodded bravely through the welling tears, curled up in Trash's lap, and informed us that he was coming with us. Which, bravely, he did. Soon all four of us were in the exam room we've been inside the least since we started taking pets there. The one with the comfortable furniture, and the hand-painted mural of Pet Heaven on the wall. It turns out hamsters aren't euthanized the same way cats are, with a simple injection. Bucky would be taken downstairs, in his food bowl where he'd been sitting motionless in since I'd finished cleaning his cage, and placed into a small Plexiglas case that would be pumped full of general anesthetic, and then he'd get the injection. Apparently even experienced vets have trouble finding a vein in a creature the size of a donut hole. This was too much for M. Edium, who decided to retire to the lobby with Trash while I accompanied Bucky downstairs. It took a surprising amount of time for him to lose consciousness, although it may have been less than we thought because in his current state, consciousness wasn't too far from unconsciousness. But eventually he was out, the doctor gave him the shot, and that was the end of Bucky. This was sad enough, but while downstairs, I didn't get the text from Trash. Apparently the permanence of death had finally hit M. Edium while he was waiting with Trash in the lobby, and he wanted to give Bucky one last petting and goodbye. So it was a bit of a surprise to return to that exam room and find him and Trash back in there as well, expecting just that. He took it well, though, and I quickly chased down the sympathetic vet tech who had just boxed Bucky up for cremation, and retrieved the cardboard coffin. So M. Edium was able to give a last goodbye and pet to his little friend, who frankly was as responsive as he would have been had I gotten the text in time. M. Edium also decided he didn't want cremation, but to bury Bucky in the back yard. So after we'd gotten the little clay imprint of Bucky's paws with the letters of his name and a heart stamped into it, we made the short drive home in the dark. But it wasn't too short for him to take Bucky out of the box and unwrap the washcloth so he could look at him. And then box him back up and pass him to the front seat so we could, too. And when we got home, at a time not long before M. Edium's bedtime, on a day that had already gone completely pear-shaped, with so much left to do before we left town, we were out in the space that used to be the vegetable garden, digging a grave by the light of a flashlight and camping lantern. After a couple of feet of hacking through tree roots, M. Edium decided it was deep enough. We carefully placed the box inside and dropped clots of dirt over it until the ground was again firm and level. M. Edium moved a fancy tomato-ladder over to the spot as a marker, said goodbye, and we went inside. Given how his sadness over the death of his pet was warring with excitement over flying to New York the next day, he had a very difficult time indeed getting to sleep. And given that the last thing he said before he did was to share his plans to dig up Bucky and look at him again when we got home, so did I. posted by M. Giant 9:49 PM 4 comments 4 Comments:
I too had a late moment of wanting additional closure. Unfortunately, it came the next day & by then the fire had claimed its due.
By Well now M. Giant, I've been reading you anonymously for years, but that was so moving, so poignant and so darn funny (in all the right places) that I just had to say thanks. Don't ever forget that you have a lot of fans out there on the Internets.
By Yup. What Anonymous said.
By Dittoing the Anonymice.
By Thursday, October 20, 2011 A Good Day to Die I knew I had to drop off my car at the shop as soon as I'd dropped M. Edium off at the school bus stop Tuesday morning. It was a couple hundred miles overdue for an oil change, and its automatic shifting was off, and just that morning it had just started to make a noise like a bicycle with an iPod in the spokes where a baseball card is supposed to be. Our repair place is just a mile from the bus stop, but to my surprise, I found myself actually hoping the car would be able to make it. Which it did. I dropped off the car and walked home, and an hour later, the guy at the shop called with bad news. I had thought it was just the transmission, but the guy told me there was no way to tell for sure what was wrong with it, given that the engine was utterly destroyed. After a depressing conversation with him about how a new engine and transmission would cost more than my beloved '99 Saturn station wagon is worth, at least in dollars if not to my heart, Trash and I had another, even more depressing conversation. She needed a car to drive to her professor job on Monday evening, which is the most important class of the semester. I would need a car to pick up M. Edium from school on Monday afternoon, which is the most important part of any given weekday. This was Tuesday. Early the next morning, we were leaving town, not to return until Sunday evening. And as vigilant and violent as our entire block of neighbors are about burglars when we're gone, they wouldn't be able to help us out. Bottom line: we needed to buy a new car today. Trash and I try not to buy new cars any more often than we have to. I've been driving my '99 Saturn since it was brand new after my second twelve-year-old station wagon in a row died in the driveway. Trash loves her '06 Saturn Ion, which we only bought because the two-door '98 Cavalier she'd bought as her second car ever after the totaling of her '92 Geo Metro was unsuitable for putting a baby into. But M. Edium's been nagging me to get a new car, and Trash and I have been wondering how we're ever going to tow that used pop-up camper we bought last year. I'd been resisting, saying I had a perfectly good car. But suddenly I didn't any more. We met my dad at the nearest Chevy dealership to take advantage of his car-buying expertise and employee discount. Funny thing about car dealerships: as soon as we walk in to buy a car, we're always immediately pounced upon by the oldest, most desperate, most Jack-Lemmon-in-Glengarry-Glen-Ross sales guy on the whole staff. Which is fine, except for how they're kind of slow, and distractible, and watching them try to operate their computers drives Trash to frustrated paroxysms of repressed rage. But the experience wasn't as bad as it could have been. Trash took care of the paperwork and financing, as she does, while I worked on my laptop in the waiting lounge, trying not to be distracted by Rachael Ray cooking on the TV on a day when I had missed lunch. And after a mere two-and-a-half hours, I drove a perfectly lovely Equinox off the lot. It's higher and bigger than my Saturn, which I don't love. But it also has other features the Saturn didn't: OnStar, XM Radio, a dashboard "information center," a CD player, three working electrical outlets as opposed to zero, a cavernous back seat, and a front bumper that I've never had to try to Krazy-Glue back together. I was a little worried that the Equinox would only work on March 21 and September 21, but apparently it operates year-round. So all things considered, I was actually in a pretty good mood when I got home. But then I had to go to the shop to deal with the Saturn. I asked the guy at the shop if he thought I could drive it home, or at least onto the street where it could wait to be towed away by whoever I ended up donating it to. After all, it had gotten me to the shop, right? Turns out I didn't fully understand the seriousness of the situation. It seems that as soon as they got it into the garage and started the engine, a rod punched through the crankcase and shot a hunk of metal across the room. Which, most mechanics don't go to work in the morning expecting to be nearly killed by shrapnel. They couldn't even drive it out of the garage, forget about the idea of my getting it any further without a whole new engine. When I got there to clean it out, I took a look under the hood. Now, I don't know much about cars, but I know that when there's a piece of metal poking through a hole in the front of the engine, that's bad. I had literally driven my Saturn its last mile. It was kind of sad cleaning all the stuff out the car I've been driving for almost 13 years. They don't make Saturns any more, after all. Or station wagons, let along Saturn station wagons. But it could have been worse in so many ways. Nobody was hurt by the flying metal in the shop, and it happened in the shop rather than at the bus stop, where I could have brained one of the kids M. Edium rides to school with. We're especially lucky that we're in the financial position we are, and that we had my dad on hand. And most of all, I only lost a car. I didn't lose a pet, like M. Edium did later that same day. But more on that another time. posted by M. Giant 8:48 PM 3 comments 3 Comments:Oh they do too make station wagons. I've got a Jetta Sportwagen TDI and I lurve it. Viva la Wagon!
By Oh, no! Excavator?
By We got an Equinox just over a year ago, when our minivan finally died a painful death, and I have to say that I love it. A little more room than your average car, with better mileage than an SUV--and an iPod dock.
By Monday, October 10, 2011 The Wedding Bassist Many years ago, when I was still feeling trapped in the call center and my future professional prospects seemed bleak, Trash got a recruitment offer from some former clients who had always been impressed with her genius. They were starting a new company, and offered her a fat pay raise to join them. The catch was that the job would be in Jackson, Tennessee. But I could see that working. Trash was a recent recipient of a Master's degree that she had worked hard for, and I wanted to support her. And as for myself, maybe this could be my chance to try and make it as a session musician. Don't laugh, now. It seems a little silly today, but at time my bass-playing powers were at their peak. BuenaOnda's boyfriend at the time, a way better bassist than me, told me he thought I had what it took. And maybe relocating to a city halfway between Memphis and Nashville would be just what I needed to make it happen. Well, that and a willingness to play a lot of country music. With the money the recruiters were offering her, she'd be able to support me for a good while, and if I followed her to Tennessee, she'd feel obligated to. Never happened, though. Trash decided to stay where she was, and had a long, mostly happy career at that company that lasted until two years ago, when she switched to her even happier current job. And I started a blog and became a professional writer instead. As for Jackson, I've still never been, but it's apparently been plagued by floods and tornadoes that we haven't had too much call to worry about here in Minneapolis. I won't say I never looked back, because see above, but it hasn't been often. Last summer, when I signed my rusty ass up for a month of Rock Camp for Dads, it was on more of a lark than anything else. Best-case scenario, I thought, maybe someone at the gig would hear me and want me to join their band. I knew this was totally unlikely, of course. It's what happened anyway. We started practicing without a singer in the fall, found one in December, and started playing gigs in January. We've played more than a half-dozen since then, which I kind of can't believe (although those of you who have been putting up with me plugging those gigs on Twitter probably can). The upshot is that my old powers have been coming back, almost to the level they once were at. And although I still don't have any intention of moving to Tennessee any time soon, I'm starting to remember why I considered it. Last month, I got an e-mail from the Rock Camp for Dads maestro, saying a friend of his was looking for a bassist to sub in for a wedding gig. I've never done anything like that -- by which I mean subbing, not playing a wedding, because this would be my third wedding gig -- so I sent an e-mail offering my services. To my surprise, they accepted. This was a pretty tight schedule, mind you. The wedding was on a Saturday. We had time for one practice together the Thursday before, which was also the first time I met all of them. Before that practice, I had a week to learn about three dozen songs (a quarter of which I had, fortunately, played before). I drove out to the western exurbs, plugged in my bass, and played about two dozen of those songs with them before we called it a night. We didn't get through the whole setlist, but we'd get to the rest of those songs in a couple of nights. In front of the audience. At the wedding, there were some sound issues, and a song tossed in that I'd never played in my life, but I'd have to say it was a success overall. I got paid, at least, which has to be a good sign. It was just a one-time thing. I made plenty of mistakes. It was my second gig of the day, after one with my regular band at a neighborhood festival that afternoon. But it's kind of amazing how much it made me feel like a real musician. The feeling has yet to wear off. And I didn't even have to move to Tennessee. posted by M. Giant 8:14 PM 1 comments 1 Comments:
My first gig in the professional music realm was one of those "baptism by fire" things as well. Few rehearsals, tons of music and then some of the worst venue conditions we've played in. But they liked me enough as a sub to become their full-time keyboard player and it's crazy how fulfilled I am doing it. Never thought playing Bad Romance would be what would save me from a life without music, but there you have it!
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