| Author | Message | ||
     Joancrystal |
Thank you Dave for creating this very public space in which we can air our most private thoughts. I am a big city expatriot who never ceases to be thrilled at the "wild" life which abounds here in Maplewood. As I begin this diary entry, my cat is looking up at me trying to get his paws on the keyboard. I can't help but wonder what he would write were he starting such a journal. The world must look so different to the other life forms that share our towns. The cat would no doubt write posts asking that cats as well as dogs be given time to romp in Memorial Park. He would eagerly volunteer himself as mouse catcher to all the rodent infested posters in HOME FIXIT and ask that the century old tree be saved so that he and his friends could climb it whenever the urge arose within them. The squirrels who live in my attic, squatters that they are, care nothing about REVAL. They would much rather discuss the merits of acorns to be gathered from the various oak trees ringing the property. The birds, who love squawk at the cat at every opportunity, would be busily planing their fall vacations. I wonder where they will fly off to this year. What would this board be like if all the living creatures in our two towns were to join in posting on this board? | ||
| Mem |
Um, Joan? Can you give me directions? | ||
| Buffalojoe |
Ah, Joan -- great post! I just completed a chapter in my novel wherein a ten year old girl is having an imaginary conversation with her dog. Have you read the Dave Eggers story about this subject? If not, hie thee to the library (or borrow from me -- my email is IKElly8902@aol.com) and read it -- it is astounding. And will make you cry for any animal that is underexercised. I was thrilled to no end when I saw a hummingbird feeding at my geranium a few weeks ago! And I could, were I so inclined, spend hours watching the various birds who visit my feeder. My cats like to watch too -- but I suspect their motivation differs from mine. | ||
| Bobk |
It always surprises and thrills me at the variety of wildlife we have here. Raccoons, skunks, opposum, muskrats all are able to live and thrive in such close proximity to man. Sometimes at night we hear the sounds of an animal fight. I often wonder if the cats are fighting for turf with the raccoons or just fighting among themselves! I wonder what species knocked over the garbage cans the night before! Our neighbors cat, a very friendly sort, often is waiting for me when I leave for work in the morning. I sometimes get the impression that she is trying to tell me about her adventures of the night before. For several year we had a cardinal living in our yard. Alas, she hasn't returned this year. A loss. Even the deer with all the problems they cause offer a moment of joy when I find them feeding on the front lawn. | ||
| Mem |
Cheaper than King's! | ||
| Jrf |
Bob, Ah yes, the deer feeding on my lawn. Causes me to get out the shotgun and the Buick. Oh moment of joy. | ||
| Bobk |
Jrf, I have the same feeling sometimes, but they are pretty in the morning. A very peaceful and tranquil feeling at 6:00 am or so. | ||
| Joancrystal |
The cat is sitting on my lap, his head pointed towards the screen, a satisfied grin on his face. I have been reading all of your posts to him and I just know he is looking forward to MEM's visit and the succulent host gift he just knows she will bring for him. MEM: My house is easy to find these days. It's the one with absolutely no campaign signs in the front yard. It seems that all my neighbors are posting ads for their favorite (or a family member's favorite) candidate now. Even the admittedly republican households are not totally immune. Since ours is a mixed marriage (one republican and one democrat, so between us we can vote in all of the primaries), we have agreed that the lawn should remain neutral in this election. Discussions around the dinner table are apt to be another matter. Buffalojoe: Your posts are all so brimming with life! I would love to read one of your books sometime. (Who knows, maybe I already have.) I will definitely take you up on your suggestion to read Dave Eggers' story just as soon as time permits. The cat keeps telling me that it is time to get a LARK (life after raising kid [or is that kitten]?). The kid will be 22 years old this month and the cat is only 10, but the cat can be very self-centered when dwelling on such matters. It's amazing how much time you have when the kids are grown, even though nothing else has changed and you never seemed to have enough (any?) time for them when they were in the house. So, the garden gets trimmed and the house gets cleaned (once in a while) and the to-read list gets both smaller and larger at the same time. | ||
| Joancrystal |
The cat, who coincidentally is ten years of age and tempermental bordering on aggressive, has been following the "Bad Kitty" discussion with great trepidation. Can cats identify with one another? Apparently so. Anyway, since we have read this thread together, he has taken to avoiding the basement entirely, except when necessary to visit his litter box. He actually comes inside the first time I call him which is very unusual behavior for his feline highness and he almost always gets off of an inappropriate surface very shortly after being asked to do so. Napes, I hope the discussion on your thread has helped improve your cat's disposition. It has done wonders for my cat's. Thank you. | ||
| Joancrystal |
The cat, who is beginning to feel that this discussion is very much more his profile than mine, has asked me to post this next entry on his behalf because he having trouble striking only one key at a time and because he is spell check challenged. "Meeeow! Mruuu! Meow! Mrr mru meemru mruumr meow!" He assures me that Napes cat will understand the message even if the rest of us don't. | ||
| Joancrystal |
Memo to Self: Never, ever, ever, ever post ANYTHING on line again while under the influence of pain killers. The brain DOES turn into a fried egg when you are on drugs, even if you have a perscription for them. The normal cerebral editors for connotation and tone vanish into the stratisphere. Judgement goes out the window. Memo to Everyone who may have been offended by anything I said on line this past week: If I ever need to go on pain killers again, I pledge to (1) ask a family lock the computer in a closet and give the key to a very strong individual with clear instructions not to relinquish it no matter how I much I beg. (2) ask a family member to change all the passwords and flush the resulting new list down the toilet without memorizing it first. (3) lay in a much larger pile of books. Once again, to anyone I may have offended and to everyone who told me how much I offended them, thank you for putting me straight and I promise never to behave so irresponsibly again. | ||
| Wendy |
Welcome back to the "real" world, Joan.  | ||
| Mem |
Joan, Do you have any left over medication? | ||
| Joancrystal |
I did. But, my doctor made me give it all back to him when I went for my follow up visit today. I suspects he reads the board. | ||
| Joancrystal |
I'd been living in Maplewood for 20 years when I began posting on MOL. Since I chose to post under the full name I use around town and since I have been active in a variety of organizations around town over the years, I assumed a formal introduction in my profile really wasn't necessary. After all, John (Extuscan) even knew about the carriage doors on my garage! The I read Aero8's suggestion that I join MOLs 5K team and I realized the time had come to say a bit about myself. By the time the 5K race starts, I will be over 55 years old and no real competition in a road run I'm afraid, though I would be very happy to enter a road walk or cheer from the sidelines. I am married and I have one son (now 22 years of age) who is still in college. He has attended Prospect Coop, Tuscan School, Maplewood Middle School, and Columbia H.S. A lot of my community activities: making bazaar items and running class games at Tuscan Fest, coaching recreation league soccer with my husband, serving as secretary of my son's boy scout troop's troop committee for many years, etc. came out of a desire to share his growing up years. (It was only later that I learned that all of our years are growing up years.) I have also been active in Newcomers, the VFW (where my husband has been Senior Vice Commander for several years), and helping out with the 4th of July Celebration in a variety of small ways. I work full-time in the New York City for the City of New York. I am an apolitical bureacrat. At present I specialize in writing and administering civil service examinations (sorry Maplewood PD but I am a firm believer in the 1 out of 3 rule and in the use of a structured interview as a competitive component of a test battery for uniformed promotion examinations). I also do position classification for all of the City of New York's managerial positions and for about 20 of the City's agencies. I am a regular on the 6:27 AM train which precludes my participating in municipal government or even attending many township meetings. I do believe in taking an active role in helping to shape Maplewood for the better and I have tried to do this in part through my posts. I believe century old trees in good health should be protected, that memorial park is not large enough or underutilized enough to be used for running dogs off leash, that we need to look to consolidation of government jurisdictions and regionalization as a means of reducing taxes, that we need to give the same energy to developing and maintaining Springfield Avenue and the surrounding community as we do to every other part of town but that we need to give some serious thought to the best use of that space before we begin making any major changes there, I don't consider grafitti a protected form of self expression and I just don't like the look of lawn signs whether they advertise contractors or political candidates. My hobbies, other than posting on MOL include reading novels (especially humorous murder mysteries), doing puzzles of all kinds (and hopefully solving at least some of them), and doing needlework. | ||
| Dave |
A few titles of humorous murder mysteries, please! :-) | ||
| Joancrystal |
Dave: The Maggoty series by Joan Hess, The Cat who... series by Baum, and the Roedenbauer (sp) books by Laurence Block are good examples of this gendre. | ||
| Jem |
If you're looking for amusing murder mysteries, the Spenser books by Robert B. Parker are, at least in my opinion, must-reads! For what it's worth, I'm a big fan of Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder books (which are not the least bit humorous) but I dislike both his Bernie Rhodenbarr and his Evan Tanner books. Somehow his attempts at humor simply annoy me. Humor is a quirky thing, I guess. | ||
| Joancrystal |
On Anonymity: There seems to be a fixation on the part of certain posters to this message board to the effect that if you want to be taken seriously, you should sign your full name to your post so people will know who you are. Huh??? Every poster to this message board signs their full name to their posting. Whether this is the name they use solely for communicating on this message board or whether it carries into the parallel universe of the REAL(?) flesh and blood community of our two towns remains a personal choice. In point of fact the only truly anonymous participants on this message board are those who never post at all. The nature of discussion on this message board leads to the making of very personal statements. VIRTUAL personalities reveal things about themselves that they are far less likely to reveal in face to face discussion. A profile of each poster quickly emerges whether or not it is laid out neatly in the confines of the Member Profiles directory. If anything, the people who use virtual screen names which are not their first name only, last name only, first and last name, or initials, are the ones who reveal the most about their inner personalities. The very selection of their screen names says so much about them. I might not recognize a virtual friend on the streets of town but even if they were to switch to another screen name, such people are readily recognized on line for their appearance (style of writing) and their interests and political/social positions. This has been evidenced recently with the speed with which three regular posters to this board were immediately identified when they opted for new screen names. | ||
| Joancrystal |
I couldn't believe how quick our trip in and out of the City for Thanksgiving was this year. Anticipating check points, car searches, and the normally very heavy traffic we allowed about 2 hours each way. Turns out that we got into the City in about 20 minutes and spent about an hour and a half walking around my cousin's neighborhood before it was a seemly time to go up. We even found parking right in front of the building my cousin lives in --- unheard of in a normal year. The trip in would have been even faster if the police at the entrance to the tunnel hadn't stopped the car two vehicles in front of us. Turned out there was a dead dear strapped to the roof of the car. The police asked the occupants of the car where they had gotten the deer and the driver answered that they had shot it! I guess someone was having fresh venison for Thanksgiving. (or was that SBenios' contribution to a Thanksgiving soup kitchen?) I couldn't believe how empty looking Manhattan was, next to no traffic, few people on the streets, plenty of on street parking, few places open. My cousin told me it has been like that since 911 and her's used to be such a vibrant community. I read an article in Time magazine a few weeks ago in which the author predicted that most Thanksgiving celebrations this year would include a discussion of 911 but I never expected the topic to surface in quite this manner. The trip home was also quick. No wait at the tunnel. We were home in under half an hour. To answer the question Soda asked me on another thread, I didn't cook on Thursday but the second night of Thanksgiving: complete with a 11 pound turkey for the three of us, stuffing, and cranberry sauce was at my house. |
