• goodbadi

    An Afternoon Skunk

    February 1, 2011

    Today as I rode my bike up the slushy gravel road amid the forest noises of melting snow, what did I see about 15 yards ahead, in my tire track, waddling towards me, unphased in the least by my presence, but a skunk.

    I’d almost had a run-in with a skunk once before, back when we lived in town and I barely noticed it in the dark of the morning as I pushed my bike up the driveway. But this was the middle of the afternoon. Was it rabid?

    I couldn’t simply move to the left tire track; that wouldn’t have given me much room to sneak past it. I couldn’t jump off the road a ways just to let it pass; the drop to the stream on the left and the steep bank on the right had me penned. I climbed off my bike and walked back down the road a few yards.

    The skunk kept right on approaching.

    This wouldn’t do, I decided. I wasn’t going to reroute myself, which would have added a long time to my ride, time I didn’t have because I wanted to get home to spot the damage the neighbor’s escaped cows were wreaking on our yard. In deep thought I looked down at the ground, where I found inspiration: snow balls.

    One after the other I threw, most of which scattered around the stinky varmint, who raised its tail and squeaked a couple times and kept walking towards me. I persisted, however, and soon enough it moseyed up the steep bank and I continued home.

    Read More
  • goodbadi

    Snow Days: A Report

    January 28, 2011

    Tuesday I pedaled home from school with no dog interference and excited about supper. I’d planned to–and did–bake three pounds of burger into patties. We ate some of them for supper that night:

    But that meal wasn’t the only item on the excitement agenda for the week. Last week I’d heard rumors of a storm that was guaranteed to hit us, and Wednesday morning played out nature’s goodness that let me sleep in, mosey about for a while, do a little house remodeling work, and delve into renewing our home owners’ insurance which, I found under “Perils We Insure Against,” does not cover anything related to pretty much anything homeowner related.

    For example: “We do not pay for loss caused by any of the following: … faulty, inadequate, or defective: a) planning, zoning, development, surveying, siting; b) design, specifications, workmanship, repair, construction, renovation, remodeling, grading, compaction; c) materials used in repair, construction, renovation, or remodeling; or d) maintenance; of part or all of any property on or off the residence premises.”

    What’s left to lose, pray tell?

    While doing my “office work,” I also called our credit card company to see if our card could be made eligible for any of the benefits–cash back, etc.–that are so politely advertised by other cards. No dice.

    Since cancellation of school today was announced last night, M and I stayed up “late” to watch Zorba the Greek, who is responsible for some great lines: “You have to admit, boss. It is big. But she shakes it well”; “Listen. God, who is a clever devil, today put in your hands a gift from paradise”; and, “They say that age kills the fire inside of a man. That he hears death coming. He opens the door and says, ‘Come in. Give me rest.’ That is a pack of old damn lies! I’ve got enough fight in me to devour the world. So I fight.”

    Today, then, found me burning the year’s brush pile, ordering a shock collar with remote for our dear but disorderly dog, and making supper: a few more of the burgers specially placed to bottom out our mashed potatoes (I made plenty, ’cause I wanted extra…not sure I exactly wanted five quarts of leftovers):

    Now, with school already called off for tomorrow, I think M and I will finish off the peach cobbler she made, and then maybe I’ll stay up late (until 9:30?) working on the letter I’m writing to my so-typical insurance provider pleading for reimbursement for our planned home birth this summer.

    Read More
  • goodbadi

    (Attempting) A Positive Spin on Our Lack of Progress

    January 18, 2011

    No wonder we never get ahead, someone pointed out to me recently after I complained that our current income is limiting our house remodeling: we live slow lives.

    In fact by some standards we live very slow lives. I commute by bike when, during these cold months, I could drive home in the time it takes me to change into my warm biking clothes. I limit work-related tasks that cut into evenings at home. M takes only minimal out-of-home employment. I prefer to preserve my summers off. We resist too many evenings away from home. We’re trying to turn off the computer by 8:30 at night.

    Keeping things slow, however, hasn’t dissuaded me from running a List: Put in new windows in the space of our future kitchen; build the future kitchen; re-floor our downstairs (and hey, why not the upstairs, too); turn the old kitchen space into a study; renovate the downstairs bathroom; build a deck/balcony; add a porch roof or two; develop our own water supply system; install a central vacuum; buy a Subaru, Jeep, minivan, shotgun, miter saw, new computer; and I’m only getting started. It’s a hopeful yet depressing endeavor, the List, since just saving towards projects is a long-term project in itself.

    But while our pace of life is certainly stunting our financial growth and house metamorphicating, slowness allows a certain accepting of the “fierce urgency of now” (I Have a Dream): Playing with and reading to N (for weeks some afternoons, it seems); singing with ourselves and a band; occasional writing; gardening; going to bed at a reasonable hour; eating home-grown food made from scratch; sitting in front of the toasty wood stove. And there are always free projects to do around the house, for when I’m needing tangible productivity. 

    I can only try to keep my dreams balanced between the part of me that wants to fix up the house at gut-wrenching speed and the other parts of my rich life that do     not afford financial progress yet are incontrovertibly priceless.

    Read More
  • goodbadi

    Saturday Night Bible Study: Unicorns

    January 9, 2011

    If you read the King James Version of the Bible–and of course you do, if you’re concerned about the misinterpretations offered by, say the NRSV–you are no stranger to the fact of unicorns in days of yore.

    I also searched the Bible for cyclops, but to no avail.

    And while I’m on the subject of animals, and since the previous post referred to my dear Canela, I’ll just say that the dog-narrated book The Art of Racing in the Rain, which I quite happily reshelved after reading only several short chapters of its shallow philosophical cuteness (“Let me tell you this: the Weather Channel is not about weather; it is about the world!“), has made me feel a special kinship to our mutt, for no particular reason other than it made me realize that she’s always excited to see and greet me, the alpha male, which is something special after dwelling all day in my professional world of seventh-grade moodiness.

    Read More
  • goodbadi

    Canela’s Christmas

    January 8, 2011

    Our dear dog (well, my dear dog, and M’s bane of existence) received two Christmas gifts: a dog treat bone from the Midwest, and this card:

    I’m sure that upon receipt this card will vanish as quickly as did the bone.


    Read More
  • goodbadi

    Watching TV

    November 28, 2010

    My parents raised us without TV, for which I am eternally grateful. That’s not to say that when I was a kid I didn’t crave television, and occasionally it becomes readily apparent–as it did at my parents’ this Thanksgiving–that my sister’s kids sometimes feel the same way:

    Read More