Yesterday I saw a fascinating report about a just-born baby elephant at a zoo here, I think, in Germany. (I didn't catch the first part of the report.)
The mother delivered the baby in the shallow part of a pool which the zoo had built especially for their elephants. The zookeepers immediately became alarmed, and then the one thing they feared most did indeed happen: The feeble newborn slipped further and further into the deeper part of the pool. The water was soon over the baby's head.
The zookeepers ran to the edge of the pool in hopes of saving the little pachyderm. However, there was little they could do, because every time they made an attempt to grab hold of the baby, the mother elephant, who was also in the water, made aggressive gestures toward them.
The zookeepers stayed as close as they could, hoping for some very improbable outside chance to save the baby.
Then something fully unexpected happened. As the zookeepers looked on, they spotted the tip of the baby's trunk rise up out of the water. The protruding trunk tip then proceeded to move from one part of the pool to another, in up-periscope style. The baby elephant was apparently breathing through his trunk as he also demonstrated to the zookeepers that, although he was only a few minutes old, he was an excellent swimmer.
After a few long moments, for the zookeepers at least, the trunk periscope found its way back to the mother elephant, who then helped the baby back into the shallower water and, finally, up to the safety of dry ground.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Swimming to Work
A good day for watching sky –
blue from all corners
pointing toward each other.
It's God's geometry,
not a puff holding it in place.
Mud and muck under my back
hold me down, stir up if I move.
I don't. My feet seek no pedals.
The heaven still drills through closed eyes
and ten feet of water, rusty black,
the kind Mother said never mix with vodka.
I sip it anyway,
through ears, nose, toes, fingerprints.
It's not so bad, just part of the trip.
Arriving never takes too long.
blue from all corners
pointing toward each other.
It's God's geometry,
not a puff holding it in place.
Mud and muck under my back
hold me down, stir up if I move.
I don't. My feet seek no pedals.
The heaven still drills through closed eyes
and ten feet of water, rusty black,
the kind Mother said never mix with vodka.
I sip it anyway,
through ears, nose, toes, fingerprints.
It's not so bad, just part of the trip.
Arriving never takes too long.
duu-du-du-DUUU-duuu
While in Italy earlier this month with Cousins A. and K., I proved to be absolutely hopeless as a companion on evening excursions. By 8:00 p.m. every day, I had completely run out of energy. My only thought was "Go to bed! Go to Bed!". And that's exactly what I did. Sleep was fast in arriving.
That left Cousins A. and K. up to their own resources when it came to evening entertainment. Of course, the thought of two females who did not know Italian nor the ways of Italians roaming around the streets of Florence, Cortona and Venice alone after dark was understandably a bit unsettling.
So their only option was to find something to keep them busy in their hotel room. One of their favorite activities was to play word puzzles.
But even that can get boring after a while. So A. and K. usually resorted to the old standby activity that all of us know oh-so well: Watch TV.
That's why I'm dedicating the link below to Cousins A. and K. When you click on it or, if necessary, paste it to your browser, a page will open that says "Video download" about halfway down. Click on the first picture on the left directly under it. This was one of Cousins A. and K.'s most memorable not-so-high highlights of their otherwise highly enjoyable romp around Italy.
http://www.croatia.hr/English/Multimedija/Video.aspx
.
That left Cousins A. and K. up to their own resources when it came to evening entertainment. Of course, the thought of two females who did not know Italian nor the ways of Italians roaming around the streets of Florence, Cortona and Venice alone after dark was understandably a bit unsettling.
So their only option was to find something to keep them busy in their hotel room. One of their favorite activities was to play word puzzles.
But even that can get boring after a while. So A. and K. usually resorted to the old standby activity that all of us know oh-so well: Watch TV.
That's why I'm dedicating the link below to Cousins A. and K. When you click on it or, if necessary, paste it to your browser, a page will open that says "Video download" about halfway down. Click on the first picture on the left directly under it. This was one of Cousins A. and K.'s most memorable not-so-high highlights of their otherwise highly enjoyable romp around Italy.
http://www.croatia.hr/English/Multimedija/Video.aspx
.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Always in Search of a Good Buffet
I think the laziest bird on earth must be the seagull. They seem to do everything they can to avoid having to work for their food.
For example, instead of circling in the fresh air over the open ocean in lookout for a live fish to nab, seagulls go the city dump. And as if to kick dust in the eyes of the embarrassment of riches they find there, they fill their bellies and then decide to work a bit of it off by flying in circles over the great mounds of rubbish. Once they have burned up enough calories to have only half a stomach full, they casually drift back down for another course in an infinite meal. There's so much food available that the gulls never have to worry about fighting for it.
But there are other ample and reliable sources of meals as well. One of their favorite is the fleet of fishing boats that takes to the open waters each morning. Those fishermen work darn hard, especially since fishing is becoming less and less profitable. But that doesn't bother those seagulls one bit. As soon as they see the boats leaving port early each morning, they stake out the most promising looking one and stick with it. They know that the fishermen always catch a great deal of trash fish which they toss back into the ocean. The gulls immediately swoop down in a mad frenzy to grab as much of the free meal as they can. For millenia now, seagulls have practiced and refined this trade. I doubt that many of these gulls have ever caught a live fish. They've probably even forgotten how.
I know that some of you out there must the thinking that pigeons, not seagulls, are the laziest birds in the sky, or perhaps more accurately, on the ground. But I beg to differ. Pigeons at least go to a lot of trouble to keep up appearances. Just look at them. They are beautiful. They have such delicate features and their suit of clothes ranges the gamut from royal turquoise to autumn brown to winter white to hundreds of shades of blues and greens and, of course, the always fashionable basic black. Plus, they seem to put a lot of effort into ensuring that they are always well-kept.. I could easily imagine them fussing around in front of a full-body mirror for an hour each morning before they set foot in public. And they have such delicate eating habits. Instead of gulping down an entire fish in one gulp, they peck at tiny bits of food until it is even tinier. This can go on and on until the perfect morsel is finally crafted. I'm surprised that the poor things are not anorexic.
Then take a look at seagulls. They look like they all pulled on the first white T-shirt they could find each morning. Day after day, week after week, year after year, they wear the same damn Fruit of the Loom shirt. Not much fashion sense there, huh?
Furthermore, seagulls, if anyone, could benefit from seeing a cosmetic surgeon for a few snips, nips and tucks. First, they could go in for several sessions of beak reduction. Perhaps they could also invest in some contact lenses to make their eyes appear a cool, gentle blue rather than that harsh, almost nasty, faded yellow that makes their pupils look beadier than they really are.
When I lived in the San Francisco Bay area, I took a boat tour of the bay one week-end. The clearest memory of have of the trip involves a seagull. After having filled himself on goodies that my fellow passengers had tossed up in the air at him (I do have to admit that he was a talented catcher), he (or she? who knows) looked for a placed to rest. As if in a movie script, there just happened to be a spot right at the front tip of the boat. He lit down and faced forward with his face lifted up to the wind and sky, happy as any leading lady. Which led me to conclude that, in addition to being the laziest birds on earth, seagulls are also the biggest ornithological drama queens in the universe. No wonder the Titantic sank.
And one last thing: Always remember the Alfred Hitchcock movie Birds and the major role that seagulls played in it. No matter which way you look at it, you always come back to one unsettling thought: Just what kind of bird could be so low and demonic as to try to peck the living daylights out of the lovely Tippi Hedren?
For example, instead of circling in the fresh air over the open ocean in lookout for a live fish to nab, seagulls go the city dump. And as if to kick dust in the eyes of the embarrassment of riches they find there, they fill their bellies and then decide to work a bit of it off by flying in circles over the great mounds of rubbish. Once they have burned up enough calories to have only half a stomach full, they casually drift back down for another course in an infinite meal. There's so much food available that the gulls never have to worry about fighting for it.
But there are other ample and reliable sources of meals as well. One of their favorite is the fleet of fishing boats that takes to the open waters each morning. Those fishermen work darn hard, especially since fishing is becoming less and less profitable. But that doesn't bother those seagulls one bit. As soon as they see the boats leaving port early each morning, they stake out the most promising looking one and stick with it. They know that the fishermen always catch a great deal of trash fish which they toss back into the ocean. The gulls immediately swoop down in a mad frenzy to grab as much of the free meal as they can. For millenia now, seagulls have practiced and refined this trade. I doubt that many of these gulls have ever caught a live fish. They've probably even forgotten how.
I know that some of you out there must the thinking that pigeons, not seagulls, are the laziest birds in the sky, or perhaps more accurately, on the ground. But I beg to differ. Pigeons at least go to a lot of trouble to keep up appearances. Just look at them. They are beautiful. They have such delicate features and their suit of clothes ranges the gamut from royal turquoise to autumn brown to winter white to hundreds of shades of blues and greens and, of course, the always fashionable basic black. Plus, they seem to put a lot of effort into ensuring that they are always well-kept.. I could easily imagine them fussing around in front of a full-body mirror for an hour each morning before they set foot in public. And they have such delicate eating habits. Instead of gulping down an entire fish in one gulp, they peck at tiny bits of food until it is even tinier. This can go on and on until the perfect morsel is finally crafted. I'm surprised that the poor things are not anorexic.
Then take a look at seagulls. They look like they all pulled on the first white T-shirt they could find each morning. Day after day, week after week, year after year, they wear the same damn Fruit of the Loom shirt. Not much fashion sense there, huh?
Furthermore, seagulls, if anyone, could benefit from seeing a cosmetic surgeon for a few snips, nips and tucks. First, they could go in for several sessions of beak reduction. Perhaps they could also invest in some contact lenses to make their eyes appear a cool, gentle blue rather than that harsh, almost nasty, faded yellow that makes their pupils look beadier than they really are.
When I lived in the San Francisco Bay area, I took a boat tour of the bay one week-end. The clearest memory of have of the trip involves a seagull. After having filled himself on goodies that my fellow passengers had tossed up in the air at him (I do have to admit that he was a talented catcher), he (or she? who knows) looked for a placed to rest. As if in a movie script, there just happened to be a spot right at the front tip of the boat. He lit down and faced forward with his face lifted up to the wind and sky, happy as any leading lady. Which led me to conclude that, in addition to being the laziest birds on earth, seagulls are also the biggest ornithological drama queens in the universe. No wonder the Titantic sank.
And one last thing: Always remember the Alfred Hitchcock movie Birds and the major role that seagulls played in it. No matter which way you look at it, you always come back to one unsettling thought: Just what kind of bird could be so low and demonic as to try to peck the living daylights out of the lovely Tippi Hedren?
Broth of Thoughts from TT
When the world overwhelms you, take refuge in your own special weirdness.
When you overwhelm the world, watch others take refuge from your own special weirdness.
The question is not whether your basket of strawberries is half empty or half full. The question is who out there helped themself to the poisoned half.
Some call them child prodigies. Others call them brats.
Very few have ever seen Nessie. Even fewer will ever see any of that TARP money.
What do you call a two-dimensional, four-cornered space occupied by two Native Americans born to the same mother on the same day of the same year?
A twin-Injun plane (I apologize, I apologize.)
And for all you lovers of pop music out there (even if you did steal half a basket of MY strawberries), here's another goodie from Empire of the Sun. This link is music only, no video. It's got an 80s-retro, Twin Peak sound. How nice once again to have choices devoid of rap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmakOt65At4&feature=related
When you overwhelm the world, watch others take refuge from your own special weirdness.
The question is not whether your basket of strawberries is half empty or half full. The question is who out there helped themself to the poisoned half.
Some call them child prodigies. Others call them brats.
Very few have ever seen Nessie. Even fewer will ever see any of that TARP money.
What do you call a two-dimensional, four-cornered space occupied by two Native Americans born to the same mother on the same day of the same year?
A twin-Injun plane (I apologize, I apologize.)
And for all you lovers of pop music out there (even if you did steal half a basket of MY strawberries), here's another goodie from Empire of the Sun. This link is music only, no video. It's got an 80s-retro, Twin Peak sound. How nice once again to have choices devoid of rap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmakOt65At4&feature=related
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Ten (mentionable) things to do with a corn cob
1. Soak it in the juice from a tin of tuna fish, hang it from the living room chandelier, then sit back and watch how many different ways your cat can come up with to get it.
2. Find an old Barbie doll, cut the legs off, strap them onto the bottom of the cob, then tell your family and friends that you have found a sure-fire way to reduce their cobbin' footprint.
3. Affix a set of four wheels to the cob and then place an ad in your neighborhood weekly that screams "Cob Drivers Needed!"
4. String 50 cobs together end-to-end, sneak into the city zoo and hang the natural-materials-only necklace around the lead elephant's neck. (Alas. You can be sure that it doesn't survive a curious trunk for long.)
5. Slice a bucketful of cobs into coin-shaped pieces, stamp the image of George Washington on one side and Abe Lincoln on the other, then sell them on e-bay to gullible amateur coin collectors for $10.00 each.
6. If you can't find any buyers for the "coins" described above, dip them in chocolate and sell them as 100%-organic chocolate wafers to vegetarians with an insatiable sweet tooth.
7. Slice 4 or 5 cobs into long, thin strips and make peach "cob"-bler for the church supper.
8. Grind a cob up into a very fine powder, fill a box of small vials with it, and show them off to your friends as "mummy dust" the next time you get back from Egypt. (Of course, you can also do this even if you have never actually been to Egypt. I'm not telling.)
9. Drive a thin, foot-long metal rod through a cob lengthwise, mount the rod in a secured fixture on the floor, and Presto! you've got a sinfully pleasurable rotating foot massager.
10. Scoop out four small recesses at 90 degrees apart around the bottom sides of a cob, glue a tiny glass eyeball into each one, place the cob into a quart-size sleazy-green beer mug along with a handful of strike keys from an old typewriter, and then vacuum seal all of them in a bucket-size time capsule which you then bury in a seldom-visited part of the city cemetery. Now just imagine how many centuries archaeologists and intellectuals 2000 years from now will spend debating the meaning of it all after the capsule is accidentally discovered during Big Dig 2. (Sort of reminds me of what the Ancient Egyptians did to us!)
2. Find an old Barbie doll, cut the legs off, strap them onto the bottom of the cob, then tell your family and friends that you have found a sure-fire way to reduce their cobbin' footprint.
3. Affix a set of four wheels to the cob and then place an ad in your neighborhood weekly that screams "Cob Drivers Needed!"
4. String 50 cobs together end-to-end, sneak into the city zoo and hang the natural-materials-only necklace around the lead elephant's neck. (Alas. You can be sure that it doesn't survive a curious trunk for long.)
5. Slice a bucketful of cobs into coin-shaped pieces, stamp the image of George Washington on one side and Abe Lincoln on the other, then sell them on e-bay to gullible amateur coin collectors for $10.00 each.
6. If you can't find any buyers for the "coins" described above, dip them in chocolate and sell them as 100%-organic chocolate wafers to vegetarians with an insatiable sweet tooth.
7. Slice 4 or 5 cobs into long, thin strips and make peach "cob"-bler for the church supper.
8. Grind a cob up into a very fine powder, fill a box of small vials with it, and show them off to your friends as "mummy dust" the next time you get back from Egypt. (Of course, you can also do this even if you have never actually been to Egypt. I'm not telling.)
9. Drive a thin, foot-long metal rod through a cob lengthwise, mount the rod in a secured fixture on the floor, and Presto! you've got a sinfully pleasurable rotating foot massager.
10. Scoop out four small recesses at 90 degrees apart around the bottom sides of a cob, glue a tiny glass eyeball into each one, place the cob into a quart-size sleazy-green beer mug along with a handful of strike keys from an old typewriter, and then vacuum seal all of them in a bucket-size time capsule which you then bury in a seldom-visited part of the city cemetery. Now just imagine how many centuries archaeologists and intellectuals 2000 years from now will spend debating the meaning of it all after the capsule is accidentally discovered during Big Dig 2. (Sort of reminds me of what the Ancient Egyptians did to us!)
Friday, April 17, 2009
The Giant Florentine Rat Trap
Fresh back from a 10-day jaunt through Italy with Cousin A. and Cousin K. It was a trip filled with octopi, some unpleasant-smelling shells from the beach of the Adriatic Sea, expensive clear-glass pigs and colorful glass roosters, one extremely curly and spunky dog, a mosquito that showed up every night no matter which city our beds were in, a cool and cluttered bookstore filled with cats, and some veryvery (yes, that IS one word) large river rats.
Actually, I'm not sure that those giant rats were really rats or something that just looked like a giant rat. Whatever, they sure were interesting. It seemed that every walk we took through the city of Florence ended with us peering over the ledge of a bridge that crossed the Arno river, staring at those attention-grabbing creatures.
I first spotted one as he was swimming toward a small sand island that had formed around one of the pylons holding the bridge up. Initially, I thought he was a beaver. But once he crawled up on the spot of sand, it became very clear that he was no beaver. Instead of having a wide, flat tail, he had a narrow tail like any other city rat.
I watched him as he crept around the sand isle. The isle was also a resting spot for a number of seagulls, pigeons, ducks and geese. But the rat did not seem to disturb them, nor they him. They all went about their own business, unconcerned about their fellow inhabitants.
Here and there, the rat found a speck of something to eat. After about 15 minutes, he waded back into the water, found something there to eat, and then munched away for 10 minutes or so. When finished, he headed back out into the water.
He was an excellent swimmer. He seemed to know how to make the river current work for him no matter whether he wanted to head upstream or downstream. If he wanted to get downstream, he would swim out into the deeper part of the river where the current was strongest. If he wanted to get upstream, he would swim closer to the river bank where the current was not so strong.
He soon reached the right-hand bank of the river, crawled up onto the ground, and proceeded to clean and scratch himself. He was truly fastidious. He cleaned and scratched and cleaned and scratched.
Eventually, he got back into the water and swam upstream close to the river bank. After he had reached a point just past the upper tip of the little isle, he took a 90-degree turn out into the river and let the current take him back to the isle.
The giant rodent apparently fascinated Cousins A. and K. just as much as he did me. Every time we decided to head back to our hotel, some inner compass took us right past those rats. All three of us would lean over the bridge ledge or sidewalk wall overlooking the river in hopes of spotting the animal. And he never disappointed us. To be accurate, I should say they never disappointed us. We soon spotted at least four of them.
They were all about the same size, though one was distinctly more portly than the others. All four of them shared the same routine. They swam back and forth between the sand isle and the right-hand bank of the river, where they would either search for food (I got the impression that more than an ample amount of discarded food thrown in the river by tourists floated past them) or scratch and clean themselves.
The rodents appeared fully unbothered by us and all the other tourists hanging over the bridge to catch a glimpse of them. In fact, they seemed to acknowledge us if we stared long enough. They turned their eyes and heads up toward us, either to study us or, more likely, to encourage us to throw down something to eat. Yes, we fell for the trick and shared a few cookies with them. It was as if Florence had schemed up a giant rat tourist trap, and we were the ones that got caught. Nobody seemed to mind.
Actually, I'm not sure that those giant rats were really rats or something that just looked like a giant rat. Whatever, they sure were interesting. It seemed that every walk we took through the city of Florence ended with us peering over the ledge of a bridge that crossed the Arno river, staring at those attention-grabbing creatures.
I first spotted one as he was swimming toward a small sand island that had formed around one of the pylons holding the bridge up. Initially, I thought he was a beaver. But once he crawled up on the spot of sand, it became very clear that he was no beaver. Instead of having a wide, flat tail, he had a narrow tail like any other city rat.
I watched him as he crept around the sand isle. The isle was also a resting spot for a number of seagulls, pigeons, ducks and geese. But the rat did not seem to disturb them, nor they him. They all went about their own business, unconcerned about their fellow inhabitants.
Here and there, the rat found a speck of something to eat. After about 15 minutes, he waded back into the water, found something there to eat, and then munched away for 10 minutes or so. When finished, he headed back out into the water.
He was an excellent swimmer. He seemed to know how to make the river current work for him no matter whether he wanted to head upstream or downstream. If he wanted to get downstream, he would swim out into the deeper part of the river where the current was strongest. If he wanted to get upstream, he would swim closer to the river bank where the current was not so strong.
He soon reached the right-hand bank of the river, crawled up onto the ground, and proceeded to clean and scratch himself. He was truly fastidious. He cleaned and scratched and cleaned and scratched.
Eventually, he got back into the water and swam upstream close to the river bank. After he had reached a point just past the upper tip of the little isle, he took a 90-degree turn out into the river and let the current take him back to the isle.
The giant rodent apparently fascinated Cousins A. and K. just as much as he did me. Every time we decided to head back to our hotel, some inner compass took us right past those rats. All three of us would lean over the bridge ledge or sidewalk wall overlooking the river in hopes of spotting the animal. And he never disappointed us. To be accurate, I should say they never disappointed us. We soon spotted at least four of them.
They were all about the same size, though one was distinctly more portly than the others. All four of them shared the same routine. They swam back and forth between the sand isle and the right-hand bank of the river, where they would either search for food (I got the impression that more than an ample amount of discarded food thrown in the river by tourists floated past them) or scratch and clean themselves.
The rodents appeared fully unbothered by us and all the other tourists hanging over the bridge to catch a glimpse of them. In fact, they seemed to acknowledge us if we stared long enough. They turned their eyes and heads up toward us, either to study us or, more likely, to encourage us to throw down something to eat. Yes, we fell for the trick and shared a few cookies with them. It was as if Florence had schemed up a giant rat tourist trap, and we were the ones that got caught. Nobody seemed to mind.
Friday, April 03, 2009
pasta aplenty
Tomorrow is the first day of my upcoming 10-day trip to Italy. I'm going to hook up with my long-lost cousin to scare the hell out of all those Italians. I hope they have enough pasta in the country to keep up fed for the entire trip. If not, we will have to make a quick run into Croatia for some of their famous (at least that's what the Croatians say) mussels. So tonight I will go to sleep practicing my pronunciation of "polenta," "prego" and "piatti."
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