writing, sentient ads, and bad news for the cats

I have a few recurring dreams. Most are bad (the narrow passage, dead animals in forgotten cages, the house with no wall), but one is nice, and I'm always sorry to wake up on those mornings. I had this dream again a few days ago, and felt sad getting up to make coffee. Got in the car, told the radio to play my feelings. It played this:

Someone call Paul Rudd right now

Well, thanks for that, radio. I'll just ask someone to punch me in the face next time.

This week I accidentally made allies with the taco truck guy. I had been sitting and spying on the truck from my little chair in the library doorway when a couple of drug addicts got into a fight in front of the truck and threw garbage everywhere, then ran off screaming into the bushes. The taco guy came out of the truck and seemed a bit nervous, trying to pick up trash and looking around to see if they were coming back, so I went across the street to check on him. I told him to come and get me if he ever needs help. Now he waves at me in the morning, and on Friday he sent one of our mutual patrons over to let us know that a scary-looking guy had been messing with the book drop after we closed. We appear to be looking out for one another now. I am going to have to buy a taco. This feud is going terribly.

Helping walk-ups is better than a lot of other job duties, and I enjoy the folks who send me on quests ("I need five historic mysteries that are kind of funny, I'll take whatever you choose!"), but I'm not really allowed to do anything between patrons, even though it would be a good way to pitch books on whittling or miniatures or urban sketching. After spending a week skimming the terrible paperbacks on the sale rack and naming all the birds that hang around the front walkway (my favorite is Blobert, the dove with no legs), I started carrying around a notepad and writing an outline for a book. Nobody minds if I'm writing on a pad of paper between checkouts. And I'm making progress. Except sometimes I only have a minute to scribble plot points or ideas in the margins, and then later they turn out to be not so helpful.

 ENERGY ZEPHYRS, gotcha

After the mayonnaise mug cake incident, I had a serious sit-down with my phone's microphone settings, and the number of creepy eavesdropping ads dropped. And then it redoubled its efforts. I spent a couple minutes drawing thumbnails of my hero's failures in battle, thinking I could paint 14th-century illustrations to go along with the story, and when I picked up my phone a few hours later, it offered me this:

my doodle on the left; my phone's ad on the right. I had not been looking up horses or toys.

It can read minds now. Fantastic. Into the ocean it goes.

Home

The cats have been malfunctioning. Po started peeing blood and is now on a diet of expensive food for kidney stones, and Mjolnir needs surgery for a tumor. Waiting on the quote from the kitty surgeon. Looks like I need to get my butt in gear with the online painting shop so I can pay for this thing without draining my savings. I'll never be able to run away and become a wood witch if I keep using the cabin money to chop off bits of my cats.

it's not very visible here, but the lump is on his left side, below the shoulder

Baked some kolaches to comfort the kids. These are easy and delicious, if you have cream cheese on hand. Which I do, because I bought an entire costco log of cream cheese and then only ended up needed 4 oz. of it for the Japanese cheesecake I made last weekend. Read the recipes first, folks.

The in-between minutes add up. Kurt Vonnegut wrote an entire book on scraps of paper, a paragraph at a time. There is still time for us!

Fun with minor concussions

In the age of pandemic, the hamster ball party rentals are doing a brisk business. To celebrate a 12th birthday, the middle schoolers crashed around in plastic bubbles, occasionally getting upended and kicking their feet in the air until someone came over and rescued them. Leif managed to make it through the battle arena before taking off the bubble, running to catch a football, and tripping face-first into the turf, concussing himself. He'll be joining a target-based school sport instead of a contact-based one until he learns to stop traveling across the ground on his nose.

Leif is the hamster second from right

My mother has lived another year, sticking it to the NICU doctors who told her parents to say goodbye to her as a 3lb preemie in 1959. It is a day for shrimps and cakes.

A homemade cake, even a bad one, is a sign that someone loves you. I am not a skilled cake decorator, but I can make a cake from scratch that tastes like someone loves you. This year my mother gets a devil's food cake with an elderflower glaze, chocolate buttercream, Italian buttercream piping, and chocolate covered raspberries on top. 

and it looks like a spider-eyed monster, but WHO CARES

I'm happy with it.

This week the library opened up for computer users, and they immediately began squeezing through the security gates and prying open the automatic doors before we could unlock them, smashing their faces in the crack while I told them to back up, put their masks on, and wait for me to finish the usage spiel. One hour! That includes bathroom breaks! No coughing!

HELLO LIBRARY I AM HERE FOR THE YOUTUBES

I have been herding people around, sanitizing workstations, and picking piles of books for people. Yesterday, as I ran by with a stack of comics, someone pulled up and yelled, "HEY, DO YOU WORK HERE?" I stopped and looked down at myself. 

No, I just dress like this OKAY?

It's been fine, people are happy to see us. I sat on my little chair during the slower moments and read the new Hunger Games book. It was good.


No hunger at home, though; the banana trees have finally decided they're ready. We've got three of these, and the lychees are almost ready. In 5 years, I still haven't figured out how to preserve lychees. We just let the neighbors rob us until they're gone. Should work on that.

Painting update: I don't have time to paint, and my model is still being disagreeable. By the time I get this thing blocked out, it'll have an adult head on a kitten's body. 

Maybe there's a prize category for "wtf happened with this one".

bananas

At the library, there are lots of people picking up books about racism and social justice, stopping to have a laugh at my day-glo traffic vest (this is good). Also lots of people getting in fights, screaming, and making me write incident reports (this is not so good - whoever  “Patricia” is, she should definitely dump these guys). The good weather is bringing everyone outside to stretch their legs/fists. Being stationed at the front door is much more interesting than being strapped to the print station all day, I’ll be sad when we open back up for computer use.

Painting

I gave up on having time to myself and just painted some bananas that were sitting on the table, in between making snacks and breaking up kid arguments.

spot my assistant

I don't like paintings of bananas. It seems like an arbitrary thing not to like, so I was hoping that spending time with them would fix my attitude. It did not. I am just not a fan of bananas in art. Add it to the list.

White women in white dresses looking out windows
Children in pastel-colored clothes at the seashore
Martini glasses
Sunflowers 
Dead birds
Masks
Dolls
BANANAS

Pretty fussy for someone with a raw porkchop hanging on their wall, I know.

How’s the pandemic?

Hawaii’s cases are ticking up again, slowly. Ross reopened, but their staff didn’t have enough time to summon the barge, which takes 6 weeks to arrive from California. There were apology notes taped to empty shelves.

I found a tablecloth anyway.


Kitten content

Drupiter (the kids accidentally named him "Droopy" and felt bad because that is a stupid name, so they upgraded it to sound like "Jupiter") has been trying to train Billy to be a proper cat, but he still rolls over and yells "HELP DROOPY IS BEING MEAN TO ME" whenever he's losing a match.

And then I come over and take pictures instead of helping

One of these two smelly babies is going to help me try to win $1,000 in art supplies. Trekell is having a pet portrait contest, and the entry fee is the purchase of the fancy wood panel to paint it on. A QUEST. My panel arrived today. So far most of my reference pictures look like this:

BILLY. I can't paint with these, people are going to think I've never seen a cat before.

There is still time to buy a chinchilla. 

Hey look, I'm on the youtubes

It took a few weeks, but my storytime videos are being added to the library system's youtube channel. Here you go - a fun story, my nonstop grimacing, and a peek at my socks. I'll add the other ones here as they're posted. Note: I did not choose this terrible clip art, I wasn't invited to be on the editing committee.

Oh no, I found the ones where I sing, ha. Here I make barnyard noises:

Here is the song that makes babies cry if I get too dramatic with sad mamma duck at the end:

librarianing, fake graduation, and a close call

Nobody needs to hear about my feelings right now. Brutality and racism are bad. If you're being asked to harm people, don't. Do what you can to help the people around you. As a librarian, I’m in a position to purchase relevant books and put them straight into people’s hands, and I’m doing that.

Curbside checkouts are going well. I've been stationed by the doors on a little wooden chair for 5 hours a day, staring out through the security gates at the taco truck across the street and watching one of the homeless guys try to make a harpoon gun out of a broken umbrella, sticks, and a chunk of metal with a hole in it. He hasn't figured it out yet. I've been thinking about books that might help him - except that I'm the closest thing to try it out on afterwards.

When it's slow I've been reading Season of Storms on my little chair. When it's busy I've been jogging around in a reflective vest throwing books into people's cars. It's an okay way to spend the day.

Housekeeping note: I’m re-adding some of my old entries again, slowly moving back through 2011 into 2010. Going through old memories without being able to yell warnings at yourself is like carving at your own chest with a melon baller. I don’t recommend it, as pastimes go.

This week, Leif ‘graduated’ from 6th grade. “Congratulations!” I said, “You’re still not qualified for anything.” We decorated the car and honked our way through his parade anyway. It was fun.

mask for photo-op with principal in the school driveway

After work the next day, I was almost killed by a drunk driver. Got home, walked into the house on shaky legs, and had nice lie-down on the floor.

Rescued another baby bird from the cat. It’s recovering - because I gave it to my mom to take care of. I've got this bird rehab thing figured out.

Red-vented Bulbul, from the same family that keeps dropping babies out of my lychee tree every spring

Been listening to this song in the car lately. Hadn't seen the video until just now. I like it.

Schrodinger’s plague

I’m trying to be a good employee and dutiful citizen, but dang, it’s depressing.

The library is a maze of quarantined boxes of books, and the phone rings all day with people I have to disappoint. "You're open!" "No!" Two weeks after reintegrating with coworkers, our staff PPE arrived - one pair of gardening gloves and two reflective vests. Very helpful.

It’s cool, I have a lineup of homemade masks. My coworker has a favorite mask that she won’t wash or change, and keeps taking off. It’s cool, it’s cool. Because it turns out I am also very bad at wearing a mask for 9 hours a day. It’s hard to go back to your normal, safe workplace with your normal, safe coworkers and remember to try to treat everything like it might kill you. Without meaning to,  I pull the mask down to breathe, sneeze into it, and forget to put it back on after answering the phone. Also, the mask does nothing to curtail my horrible face-touching habits. I rub my eyebrows in exasperation, sit through meetings with my forehead in my hands, nap with my face smashed flat on my non-disinfected desk because I'm low on oxygen/vitamin D/living essence and can't stay awake. It's ridiculous.

applying virus to face 

So it will surprise exactly nobody that I’ve spent the weekend like a wet sock on the couch, tired, headachey, feeling my lungs struggle with a painful pressure in my chest, wondering if I’ve been exposed or if I’m just having a reaction to breathing through masks my cat has been sitting on. Statewide, we’re down to 0-2 cases a day, but I wonder how much that has to do with assholes like me just not wanting to get a swab up the nose for vague symptoms. I don’t know. It’s Sunday on a holiday weekend, my doctor’s office is closed, and I don’t have a fever. It’s fine, probably.

In positive news, Billy Boy has learned how to be a proper kitten this week. He eats wet food and sleeps through the night. He’s the best. Except that I caught him peeing in the dining room and ran through the house with him held at arm’s length while he sprinkled like a tiny hose, catching Leif across the chest with the spray as I went screaming by. Had to wipe up a trail through the entire house. But that was my fault for forgetting how peeing babies work.

Also some renovation happened, because the kitchen faucet broke and wouldn’t shut off, and we decided to do the bathroom fixture while we were at it. 

I’ll get back to painting if I can stay awake long enough. Spending most of my down time watching Korean time-traveling detective shows with the kitten sleeping across my neck while the kids work on their tiktok choreography. Only feeling motivated to solve crimes with a tough-yet-wholesome partner who lives 30 years in the past, sorry paint.

How to storytime

Spent an entire week filming storytime videos, following the state guidelines.

Shoot in landscape. Long, separate clips. Dress professionally. No background music. 

So, not any of this. 

(I’m on tiktok now, I guess - same user name)

The beaches reopened, and the kids went to maintain social distance with the sea turtles while I had the house to myself for the first time in 2 months. Painted another African Tulip - local flowers that look like demogorgons.

Next week we interface with the public.

Well

It’s going great, everyone. 28 takes and I finally pronounced my own name correctly. Wrapped my scarf around the mic three times. Got mad at my own cheeks.

Acting is hard.

Phase 1

Officially back in the library every day, though we’ll remain closed for checkouts for a week or two. My main job is to film storytime and how-to videos, which is fun except that my hands have been shredded into bloody ribbons by the kitten. I‘ll need to muppet-flap fast enough to keep them blurry, wear sock puppets for everything, or tell stories dressed in a cotillion gown and elbow-length gloves.

Pleeease may I gnaw your remaining fingers off

During these mostly-homebound weeks, there was one thing I said I would do and had been putting off; paint a landscape. I haven’t painted a street scene since my workshop two years ago, and I have an attitude about the color green, so it seemed like a good time to stretch myself. But I did not. Now my time is up. When I received the news, I got off the phone with my boss, marched straight outside, and painted a potted taro in my yard until the rain mercifully chased me inside. It is not a landscape, but it was painted outdoors, SO THERE.

The chickens dug through all my barricades and murdered the apocalypse garden I had been trying to grow. In an actual apocalypse, they’d better watch their drumsticks. Luckily, three of the banana trees are growing bunches, and the lychee tree is fruiting. We’ll live.

And so I have traded in my hippie clown pants for jeans and cardigan. I’m glad to get my hands on some fresh books and warm up my quacking voice again. A change of scenery is nice, because the neighbors have purchased a trampoline and let their preschool boys jump on it naked while riding BMX bikes with their dog. The sight of flying dog paws and bike wheels and unprotected wieners in that netted battle arena is more than my “this is about to end in an ER visit” alarms can comfortably handle.

I’ll post links to the videos on the library website once the editing committee finishes with them. There will be clapping, mooing, and a stuffed cat pillow being jostled like a baby. Quality content, folks.

Maybe we can qualify as a nonprofit

Midmorning, three days ago, Leif looked up and shushed us. “Do you hear that? It sounds like a kitten.”

There was no kitten. There were baby birds in the tree, some crooning chickens, a cooing dove, but no phantom kitten. We looked around anyway. “Huh, it really sounded like a kitten that needed help.”

A few hours later, a distressed teenager showed up at the house with a very small and desperate kitten in her passenger seat. The humane society told her they wouldn’t take unweaned kittens, her mother wouldn’t let her keep it, and Gavin is the high school ‘cat guy’, so there she was. We took it.

This is Leif’s fault. He summoned it. Luckily, he’s focusing his powers on summoning mug cakes now. He found a recipe in his mug cake cookbook that called for mayonnaise, and made an awful face, but I assured him that mayo makes a good substitute for oil in some cake recipes -  20 minutes later I got Twitter ads for mayonnaise in mug cakes. Smashed my phone with a hammer.

Babies are intense, even the ones that weigh as much as a sausage. Driving to the school today to pick up worksheet packets, I turned onto the winding road and was halfway through the snaking curves when the pavement suddenly seemed to rise up and roll like waves toward me. Realized I had slept a total of 6 hours in 3 days, and would have been safer driving tipsy. Not going out again until the night bottles stop.

Before getting completely derailed by bottle feeding, I painted another portrait of Plucky.

I wonder if painting while having sleep deprivation hallucinations would be better or worse? Like the LSD portrait experiment. But slower, and more confused, and with a call to poison control after dipping the brush into coffee and drinking paint thinner.

Probably going to pass on that.

GO TO BED