Sep
29
2007
Netflix description:
“Celebrate 50 years of mountaineering magic with this awe-inspiring documentary replete with sensational footage of Mount Everest. The award-winning National Geographic crew tracks the three children of mountain-climbing icons Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first two people ever to conquer the fabled peak.”
My thoughts…
This was one step below so-so. The story was shallow, the adult children of the early Everest adventurers were uninteresting, and even the scenery was bland. Much better was Everest: The Death Zone.
Sep
29
2007
I guess one of the things that makes it difficult when a person leaves your daily life—a breakup, a death, even a child’s leaving home—is having to go through things a first time without them.
This morning I had to go through my first spider without Lulu. If she’d been here she’d have appeared by my side with a camera in her hands and glee in her sadistic eyes. She seems to think it funny when I go face-first into a web. She’s happier still when I learn that the web is occupied.
But she wasn’t here this morning. I had only two choices, then: to put myself into physical and psychic danger by getting really, really close to the horrific creature just so I could take a picture for her, or to get to safety. I did what any sensible person would do.
As you can see when you look at the enlarged version of the picture, the spider—let’s call her Esther—could do with some electrolysis. She’s not unlike most other spiders of my acquaintance in that regard. But her coloring is a bit unusual: garish and unnatural, like the hair of an octogenarian who’s not quite ready to stop being a redhead. From behind, she looks demure and ladylike, four legs tucked under her as though at a tea party. It’s the front of Esther I don’t like. There’s a certain thrusting aggression in her comportment, no less fearsome when her many eyes, mandibles and fangs are hidden.
Let me show you one more picture, with an iPod Nano for scale:
Lulu: You want I should mail Esther to you?
Sep
27
2007
I really don’t get it. Why am I so distraught? It’s the natural order of things that one’s child grows up and moves on. At least we hope that’s what they choose to do. There are always people like poor old (my age) Billy P. who still lives with his mother. (Maybe if he’d just change his name to “Bill” the spell would be broken?) But we all know that those people are creepy.
Why, then, do I walk around the house all teary as though my very heart had been ripped from its socket? I knew I’d have a hard time with this, but really …
The first day Lulu was gone I washed five loads of sheets that had accumulated in dark recesses of her room. (Okay, so I haven’t washed them yet, but I did get them as far as the washing machine.) I stripped her bed and aired out the mattress. But then every time I walked past her room and saw the naked bed, I’d fall apart.
It’s not like I’ll never see her again, or that she won’t be back here for a visit. But that’s just it: it will be a visit. As the months go by, I’m guessing this’ll be less and less like home to her. I remember after I left for college when my parents would ask “When are you coming home?” The question made me cranky: “Why do they call it ‘home’? I don’t live in that stupid old place any more. My real home is New York now.”
Of course I’m still looking for my Real Home, but that’s another topic.
Anyway, after passing by Lulu’s abandoned bed one time too many, I couldn’t take it any more. I dug through the linen cabinet to find sheets that actually matched. I’ve never made a bed so neatly in my life. I smoothed every wrinkle. On her pillow I laid a shawl I made for her years ago. I cocked my head this way and that, looking for more wrinkles to smoothe.
Lulu: when you come home your bed will be waiting. I’ll have your covers turned down and a Lindor truffle on your pillow. And look: I’ve even got that cursed electric blanket plugged in for you.
