Crickets

Oooh. . . I'm full of spicy Thai food and feeling rather fine. It was a nice evening out and about with friends, and now I'm getting ready to relax for a while with some reading, music homework, math, and a little chocolate before going to be. But first, our trip into town was worth recounting, mainly because our first errand was to the "One Stop" pet store in Brattleboro, where a kindly fellow sold us one dozen crickets.

"Small, medium or large?" asked the man behind the counter, as if we were ordering coffee. We told him that we had a leopard gecko; a hungry one. "How old?" One year. "Then medium should do it. A dozen, you said? OK, I'll go catch them now." We also bought a little plastic "critter carrier" to improve their quality of life -- as well as social possibilities -- for we still had to pick up another friend, go out to eat, and then do some grocery shopping. In the car, we took turns holding the crickets under our coats to keep them warm. "How is it being pregnant with all those babies?" asked Lisa when it was my turn.

We picked up Lucy at her house and then continued on with our stomaches to guide us. "What if they start chirping in the restaurant?" somebody asked as we pulled up to the parking lot.

"I think they only do that when they're mating," was the reply. Since we didn't want them to get shivery in the car, the crickets spent the duration of the meal perched on an empty chair at the table, neatly concealed in a brown paper bag. After we ate and paid the bill, the crickets moved from inside one jacket to another until we reached the co-op. They became a large lump, with an edge of brown bag poking out, in the front-left portion of my down vest. At the checkout counter, I explained I was not shoplifting but instead carrying something I'd already purchased, conveniently, under my clothes.

Our gecko -- who still doesn't have a name -- was very pleased with us when we came home with crickets. It was quite entertaining to watch him go after them with quick yet calculatingly lazy hunger.

I don't think I've had such a fine evening in quite a while!

Amaryllis

Here's the flower I've been talking about! Each of the three blossoms is about eight inches wide. Check out this Wikipedia article on Amaryllis.

Whistling Tea Kettles

It's too bad that our tea Kettle didn't whistle. It always boiled water fine, very readily in fact, but never a single note did it produce in its tea-making experience. This one flaw, combined with spaciness and tiredness on my part, brought its life to an abrupt and unfortunate end Wednesday night.

At about 12:00 am I noticed that my programming homework made less and less sense, so I it therefor was time to make a cup of tea to perk me up a little. I trundled into the kitchen, turned the kettle on "hi", and resumed my glazed staring at the computer screen. The next thing I knew, awful cracking and popping sounds were coming from the kitchen and I knew something was terribly wrong. There being no water left to boil, the stove was now trying to boil the metal bottom of the kettle -- and doing a fair job of it!

"Poop!" I said aloud.

Picking up what remained of tea kettle from the orange burner, I rushed it outside to try and keep from setting off the fire alarm -- not what you need at 12:30 am in a weekday! Of the tea kettle, whatever hadn't dripped into the bowels of the stove stayed on the burner in a flat metallic patty that shined up at me. It took about twenty minutes of open windows and frantic door-fanning (for there was almost no wind) to drive out most of the smoke. And boy did it stink! Burning metal and plastic is rather desensitizing, and the reek of it is staying on my clothes for a while. Ew!

I bought a new kettle for Lily the following evening, and it turns out to be exactly like the old one; it's even the same, exact model. It doesn't whistle, either! Ah, the price we pay for the pleasurable habit of drinking tea. But to keep this element of my life, though, I think I would happily burn tea kettles on a regular basis.

In just a few minutes, I'll have some fine tea-sipping folk arriving at my door, possibly carrying instruments, so I must end this post here. We are going to drink tea and sit around admiring the fabulous Amaryllis flower that has utterly exploded into bloom with blossoms the size of a large hand. (I'm glad that Valerie left it behind for us to enjoy, but I hope it doesn't miss her too much).

I'm now going to put the new kettle so as to be ready for my visitors. Don't worry: this time I will watch it like a hawk!

Cold

It's been remarkably cold lately, and windy, too. It's the kind of cold that seers your nostrils and makes your eye sockets ache; it is inspiration to walk briskly and to spend as little time exposed as possible. This afternoon, as I was walking on the college campus, a particular gust of wind took me nearly off my feet! The snow is falling out of the sky lazily, but once it reaches ground level it is hurled very quicky in blinding gusts. A few times today, when walking on campus, I had to just give in and turn my back to the blowing snow for several seconds before moving on.

There is something--perhaps insanely--enjoyable about the cold weather we experience in New England. We don't really fancy the feeling of freezing fingers or ears any more than usual, but the staggering contrast between our summers and winters is, in a way, peculiarly thrilling. I remember getting excited, as a young 'un, when it dropped below zero. The window panes would ice up on the inside at that temperature, and somebody would have to get up in the night to load the wood stove to keep the house comfortable. Can't really say now that I get excited when the world utterly freezes, as it's chosen to do, but I still have a freaky appreciation for it. Well, keeps the superfluous sunbathers in Florida, I guess. Finally, it has wizened up and put an end to the spooky warmness that made this year's winter so uncharacteristic until now.

Crash-Landing

So here I come; here I am making my crash-landing into cyberspace. It's a little bit frightening because it feels sort of like a one-way ticket into huge, scary, somewhat foreign world. I never really considered starting a blog, but then some recent head-scratching could turn up no good reason not to start one--so I did. And here I am. I'm only hoping that it does not become addictive behavior that sucks hours off my calendar like a shop-vac on steroids. (I can hear it starting up right now: a dull, slurping roar). Minor apprehensions aside, I can't help but marvel at how easy it is to get yourself (digitally) published nowadays.

One reason for posting here is so that I don't forget how to write. My classes in college this semester are not demanding much writing from me at the moment. But is something that I enjoy and would like to keep up in some way.

The title of this blog has really no explanation I can think of. I suppose it's because Google was sitting there, waiting for me to type something, and they didn't have "ilovemytoad" or "bananasarereallycool" available. But maybe it will come to mean something someday.