My Back Yard

“Didn’t you read about the weather in Holland?”

That’s what R, our bike tour guide, asked just after he exclaimed, “Those aren’t rain pants!” as he looked at my sodden jeans. We’d stopped to take refuge from the rain in a tunnel while R fixed his flat tire, the first of six (including three in one tire) on our first full day of biking and riding a barge from Amsterdam to Brussels. When I looked around, I saw that most of the other riders had rain jackets and rain pants. Some even wore rubber boots or sported waterproof shoe covers.

Despite the thunder and lightning, we couldn’t stop pedaling for anything but flats — or punctures, as our U.K. colleagues called them. We had to reach the city, almost 30 miles away, where our barge would dock.

Luckily, we were a good-natured group of cyclists. We’d assembled from the U.S. (only Iggy and me), Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Spain. Everyone spoke at least a little English. There were also pods of French and German.

It was a wonderful trip!

A chickadee darts toward my face.
With its black face mask,
it could be a Lone Ranger of the avian world.

I fall back.
The bird veers away.
No, not a Lone Ranger,
but a spoiled child saying
“Feed me now!”

I’ve been slathering peanut butter on
corn for the squirrels.
The chickadees caught on.
Now they peck at cobs more often
than their rodent teachers.

I’m happy watching them eat.

“What if obesity, long seen as a personal failing, turns out to come from a bug you can catch?”

Robin Marantz Henig, “Fat Factors,” New York Times Magazine (August 13, 2006)”

This article, today’s most emailed article on the New York Times website, explores the idea that microbes may be responsible for my excess weight.

It intrigues me because my nutritionist emphasizes getting rid of the bad things in my gut. Also, based on what I’m eating (most days) it seems as if I should be losing weight. I eat pretty well when I’m at home, so I prepare my own food.

If you read the article, tell me what you think.

Once again, I must thank Fat Charlatan for introducing me to a writing resource. This time it’s Sunday Scribblings, which gives a weekly writing prompt. The most recent prompt? “Who else can I still be?”

I would like to become a woman with many friends whom I can count on.

I grew up without many friends.

My kindergarten teacher at a private school noticed how quiet I was. She seemed to wonder if my parents were bringing me up according to the adage, “children should be seen, not heard.” The year after that, I transferred from private school to public school. Perhaps it was easier for my parents if my school didn’t challenge them. Or maybe their budget was tight.

I don’t remember having more than one friend at a time until my senior year of high school, when I was in a cooking club of four girls and participated in the school’s modern dance club. But that didn’t mean I turned into a social butterfly. I’ve struggled to make friends all my life.

One of the great things about getting laid off a few years ago is that my networking yielded new friends, in additions to useful contacts. One of them has become my writing buddy. She’s there when I need support — or a quick proofreading/copyediting.

I’m also happy about my writing group. I’ve come to feel close to some of the members. Earlier this summer I proposed that some of us get together for drinks one evening. I felt thrilled to muster a group of six people. I couldn’t have done that earlier in my life.

I also feel lucky that my Iggy and I have become closer friends.

I’d like to continue my upward trajectory with my friends.

I got Iggy an Inuit stone carving of a dancing polar bear as a present for his birthday, which we celebrated last night.

I bought the polar bear in Montreal. It has one foot on the ground and one reaching toward heaven. I thought it was appropriate because with Iggy I’m always reaching one foot toward heaven.

However, I think Iggy may have liked my cheapest present best. It is a pen topped by orange feathers and a white bunny with a red heart. My tough husband has a weakness for the cute things in life.

Iggy and I leave next week for Amsterdam!

It’ll be our fourth trip to Amsterdam, but I expect that the highlight of our trip will be our bike and barge trip from Amsterdam to Brussels.

Aside from that, we’ll spend two nights in Bruges and a few in Amsterdam. Do you have any great suggestions for us?

I just finished reading Marley & Me, the bestselling book about a misbehaving mutt and his owner. I’m reading animal books occasionally to try to find a hook for a book about my squirrels.

The preface sets up the idea dog-owner relationship in the author’s youth. The opening lines of Chapter One immediately clued me in that Marley wouldn’t live up to that ideal.

We were young. We were in love. We were rollicking in those sublime early days of marriage when life seems about as good as life can get.
We could not leave well enough alone.

Great writing, huh?

I guess I could compare/contrast my relationship with the squirrels to my relationship with Tiger, the oversized, aloof cat I loved as a child.

But I still don’t think I have an angle that I can work for an entire book-length manuscript.

For years now, I’ve been slathering peanut butter on corn cobs for the squirrels. They repay me by swinging wildly from the corn cob suspended from a shepherd’s hook. I smile.

Last year, a crop of babies was born in our newly hung chickadee house. With more chickadees hanging around, some of them discovered the corn, perhaps by watching the squirrels feed on it. They’d buzz the corn periodically, landing on it after the squirrels had removed all visible traces of peanut butter. The little birds still scavenged something out of the holes in which corn kernels had originally nested. Sometimes three of them eat in rotation. While one feeds, the other two lurk in the hedge.

This year, the chickadees became regulars. And just this month, I’ve noticed woodpeckers — at least two of them — feeding on the peanut butter. They must have followed the chickadees.

I try to find out something new about my aunt every time I see her.

We met for an early lunch at a mall’s food court today. Over my grilled chicken salad, I learned that when she was a girl, she had wanted to go into medicine. It always fascinated her, she said.

Instead, she stayed at home with her parents and worked in the family business. It was fine. “I could do whatever I wanted to do,” she insisted.

Yeah, whatever she wanted other than to go into medicine. I said that to myself. Didn’t want to rub it in.

I wonder how she felt about her brother (my father), the hotshot surgeon. I never heard them discuss medicine.

Thanks to Fat Charlatan and Writer Bug, I can show you this picture of the most common words on this blog.

Do you want to get a similar picture for your blog or website? You’ll find Word Cloud on the Snapshirts.com website.