Engine Summer

As most of you have undoubtedly already heard, my lover and I awoke this morning to discover that we were just in time to prevent ourselves from starring in a post-modern remake of The Blob. At least, this is what I assume; I didn't actually see inside the tupperware myself, but I did hear Ruth making the sort of noise that is generally followed by "It's alive! It's allliiiiivv--AAAAAHHH!!! *crunch**smack**gulp*" and a call to the Seventh Cavalry. We then burned some fresh sage to get rid of the peculiarly pervasive smell, and sprayed some perfume to get rid of the new peculiarly pervasive smell. After having left the windows open and the fan on all day, I can now say authoritatively that none of these smells have lingered, thank all the gods.

I can also say authoritatively that this whole incident was not our fault.

What had been in the tupperware was, in a previous existence, coconout milk. It was two days old and in an airtight container. My cookbook insists that coconut milk will keep for a week if tightly closed in an airtight container. Next time, therefore, it will go into said container by means of Ruth right after it is opened WHILE I am still stir-frying and have not the use of my hands, and we'll see what happens then. If my cookbook is a dastardly liar as well as a purveyor of recipes, I shall just have to learn to cook some things that call for can-sized quantities of coconut milk, as the Thai stir-fried mushrooms and noodles in coconut curry that I had made with the rest of it had turned out magnificently.

Also, this doesn't happen with this refrigerator too, too often. The Saga of the Thing in the Crisper was, fortunately, before I moved in, which is good, as we never did figure out what it had been or its possible relationship to anything Ruth had brought into the fridge, and it sounded like the sort of occurrence that I personally would much rather move house than have to deal with. I admire her fortitude on that one.

Still, the creation of life was a rather aggravating start to the morning.

In other news, Ruth finally got around to building a shelf in our closet for our soon-to-occur kittens to have their litterbox on. It is a very good shelf, although we will have to give them a chair to jump on to get to it till they get a bit cat-sized. It brings us much closer to getting kittens, which is good, as both Ruth and I have reached a stage of pet deprivation that I tend to think of as The World Is My Petting Zoo. I do not, when I have animals of my own, think that every single dog I pass on the street is the cutest fuzzie that ever existed. We need to get kittens so that I can return to the normal and healthy state of knowing that my own pets are the cutest fuzzies that ever existed. I briefly thought about getting two males, one orange tabby and one black, and naming them Pfirsich and Rosen, but Manfred Pfirsich Maria Rommel is far too long a name for a scrap of kitten and Ruth pointed out that Rosen would Never, Ever Forgive Us for having him neutered and would dive-bomb us every morning to wake us up. (For reasons why these cat names are witty, consult Donna Barr's The Desert Peach, positively the best alternative comic about gay German officers in Africa during WWII out there. I recommend starting with Vol. 2: Politics, Pilots, and Puppies. Yes, that is the actual title.)

So we will name the cats whatever they tell us we ought to.

Angst-O-Meter: 2. Still unemployed, but Boston people soon and a happy life in general.

Consider me to be sprawled on the floor in one long swoop of contented cat. It has been a very good day... we got a new ISP, so we are no longer hung up on every time we try to change websites, nor does it redial every time we get off it; summer and roses have finally made their fullblown way to New York; and today has been both interesting and full of people. On a Sunday, who cares about being unemployed?

Ruth and I went over to the First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn today for service. Ordinarily I have a massive, massive aversion to churches unless dragged to one for a wedding, a funeral, or (with reluctant enjoyment) by Sei Shonagon. But it feels rather foolish to have a Unitarian church less than a block away, have been a self-professed Unitarian for over a year, and not go look at said church, y'know? I was pleasantly surprised, firstly by the church's appearance.

I had forgotten that in the list of the masterworks of Louis Comfort Tiffany, the windows of the First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn are very close to the top.

I have not seen a better set of stained glass windows on this continent. Frankly, I'd probably still go to this church every so often to stare at them if it were some denomination I'd never heard of. And they aren't really Christian stained glass, which suits my goddess-worshiping self just fine. Personification of virtues type windows, not lives of saints type. I was also pleasantly surprised by the people. The real atmosphere of community and merriment in this place was a high. Everybody was social, everybody wanted to be there; this is not what church was like when I was a child. I could walk around with my girlfriend on my arm and not have anybody blink an eye at it. I was also really happy with the sense they communicated that nobody there will ever tell me what to do, what to believe, what to think, or anything like that, in any way. Ever. I've left two separate religions now, the two I was raised in, because I will not be told who to be, and this is the reason I become paranoid the moment I set foot in most churches and start looking over my shoulder all the time.

So that was good, and we talked with both Signy1 and some of the Boston people on the phone, which was really nice, and then we went over to Ruth's aunt's for dinner. I've always loved Ruth's New York relatives. Her aunt has carved concrete gryphons as doorposts, and the kids go out every so often and chalk them into living color; they have an ironwork gate and the World's Friendliest Yet Still Polite Cat; the cousins are charming at seven and eleven, and I know I was a pill at those ages, so I am very impressed and can talk about fantasy novels and why Ruth's hair IS actually a cat toy and if it is pulled out I shall be very distressed at not having anything to play with so if you have to scalp somebody, why don't you scalp your sister, yes I know she's going after you with a napkin, did you think she wouldn't defend herself after I said that, and for that matter I have a napkin too, you know, so if you try that again, young lady, I'll... EN GARDE!

(The above is an accurate representation of various portions of dinner, the portions before Ruth's aunt proved to be far more deadly with a well-aimed napkin than any of us and to be willing to disregard the laws of chivalry to save her china cabinet, a reason I found quite understandable. So we switched to arm-wrestling.)

And there was Haagen-Dasz and fresh strawberries and a book of appalling jokes for eleven-year-olds-- Said eleven-year-old: 'What does a three-hundred-pound canary say?' Me: 'I don't know, what?' 'Here, kitty, kitty...'-- so I have come home to lie decoratively sprawled on a cushion and groom desultorily and purr. All is well with the world, and Ruth's hair really is a good cat toy.

Angst-O-Meter: 0. Angst? What does that translate to in Cat?

Hiho, hiho, it's off to work I... don't quite go. Interview, though, if only with a temp agency, who of course did the whole 'we can't promise you a job, we can't promise you a good salary, and please fill out the following fifty forms in triplicate so we can get on with not doing it' thing. I slander them; I do think they will get me a job, eventually, as I did very well on all their standardized tests and they seemed a busy and efficient place. They were pleasant to me and did not treat me like office pool scum. It's just I hate taking that type of standardized test. Yes, I can type. Yes, I know simple arithmetic. Yes, I can fill out alphanumeric data entry forms. Do the tests for all these things have to be ten frickin' minutes? Couldn't it just be five? Also, the place is in Queens. I live in Brooklyn Heights. For those of you unfamiliar with New York, here is the equation: Brooklyn Heights--> Queens = 2 hour subway ride + 4 transfers. That's one way.

At least I have now been in four out of five boroughs, and am starting to feel like if dumped in New York without explanation of where I was I could get back to the apartment without winding up in Jersey. I have never been to the Bronx. It's further away then Queens. But Queens was OK. It was interesting to get off the subway and be faced by the largest random classical-type marble sculpture I have seen by a street for no apparent reason in North America. It should have been called The Excruciation of Heracles: big big brawny guy tied in itty bitty knots. Or possibly a study of a study of a copy of Michelangelo's Prisoners. With a fountain stuck in his ear, I kid you not. I had not been expecting this thing, and I had been reading Juvenal in the subway, which just made it weirder, as Juvenal is just full of statues that shouldn't have existed. I bought the copy of Juvenal's Satires, together with an omnibus edition of Plautus' best-known plays, off a street vendor for seventy-five cents apiece. Both books are new and, I find upon examination, still have the little security strips in them, leaving me with some concern that they may have, shall we say, fallen off the back of a truck. Still, even if they are stolen, at that price the thief is making no profit, and it happens to be the correct market price for Plautus; as well, I wouldn't know what to do about the possible provenance of the books if I tried. It seems appropriate to have a slightly shady copy of Juvenal. He would so disapprove. I probably wouldn't have bought them if I'd noticed those strips, though... does it strike anyone else that New York is possibly the only city in which one can buy illicit copies of the classics on a streetcorner? I mean, this is a city where a vendor set up on somebody's front stoop sold me obscure Latin authors. There are some things I like about New York.

Angst-O-Meter: Not sure. Tired and annoyed about alphanumerics.

O Deities of Double Majors, look favorably on these my sacrifices! For I have spent time in the Registrar's, and have been given the runaround by two departments at the very same time; I have been informed that I will have to write a Personal Statement and that my dean can veto one of my majors at any time over the next two years; I have prayed with sincerity to Thy altars that the Classics Major not be found to be a Bi-Co Major despite having been made Joint with Haverford, for Haverford Requires a 3.5 GPA to Double Major, For No Apparent Reason. I will sacrifice great quantities of money to these Thy Textbooks: yea, the bookstore will overflow with too much of my money. I beg Thee, be satisfied, and cut the bureaucratic red-tape margin, that I may have my well-earned Majors and my rest.