Firelight

Firelight - a reading (on YouTube)

We keep the blinds mostly drawn in the dining room at night, just high enough for the cats to sit in the front window and look out. We lower them at dusk just enough to block the streetlight on the corner and the other lights our neighbor's burn throughout the night.

When I awoke this morning, the sun was still low and near the horizon. There was a haze to the east which was lit up in the softest shade of pink, like a rose petal fog that partially obscured the dawn. The sun slanting through the gap in the front window was flame orange, like you only see at dawn or dusk. It struck the legs of our furniture and lit them up as though drawing the fire hidden within the wood. The oak of the barstools glowed like amber beneath a polished finish, the cherry wood in the living room more like garnets. All from a narrow beam of light, maybe a foot high, walking its way from the back of the living room toward the base of the front window as each minute passed.

Ten minutes later, all of it was gone, the haze, the light, the fire. One day soon, it will no longer reappear. Some mornings it pays to rise with the first light of dawn.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III

Trash Migration

Trash Migration - a reading (on YouTube)

Here at the house, our trash gets collected twice each week, Monday and Thursday. While we're lucky if we put out one barrel once a week, our neighbors are much more prolific in their trash generation. Every Sunday and Wednesday, we are privileged to witness the rare trash migration that occurs next door.

It starts before dawn with us waking to find one trash can perched like a pillar at the edge of the curb. It stands as a lone sentry for most of the morning, a kind of bellwether guardian to ensure the remainder of the herd will be safe as they approach. One by one over the course of the next several hours, individual cans cluster around their leader until, by evening, three to four well-stuffed barrels have colonized the banks of the asphalt stream. Only then does the young, less contained trash of the herd, the miscellaneous boxes, bags and household detritus, feel safe enough to emerge from hiding and cling to the handles of their elders. Once weekly, they are joined by their low, squat cousins, the recycling bins, always arriving in pairs, usually after a heavy feeding. Some days, they bring snacks of bundled yard waste to see them through the long, dark night until collection the next morning.

Each week, they remain quite cautious. In my twenty years of observation, I've never seen the herd rush the curb en masse. Perhaps the subtropical heat holds them to a slower pace. Perhaps it's their natural shyness or an instinct for self-preservation against the packs of salvage scavengers and rogue recyclers that circle the neighborhood. Perhaps only one or two ever make the migration at all and breed at the curb in some unwitnessed mating ritual or asexual budding. I'm not sure we'll know unless we set up a scent-masked blind with a motion-sensing, night-vision camera to monitor their diurnal rhythms in this their natural habitat.

But we must be quick or by morning all we'll find are their empty carcasses. The grunting, grinding predator that roams the asphalt river is large and its appetite nearly insatiable.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III

Squirrel Conclave

Squirrel Conclave - a reading (on YouTube)

Yesterday, as I was looking out the office window, I saw the neighbor's cat go tearing across the front yard, chasing after something out of sight. One of our cats, on the bookshelf behind me, was suddenly very interested. So I went to another window, and sure enough, there was the neighbor's cat with a squirrel in his mouth. I headed for the door, hoping for a rescue, but by the time I got outside, the cat and squirrel were nowhere in sight. I looked around, but saw no sign. Once I got back to the driveway, I heard a squirrel in one of the front oaks screeching a warning like they do, only somewhat off-key. To me, it sounded mournful.

This morning, I look out the office window and see three small squirrels playing in the grass. Tentatively, they chase one another up one of the front oaks. Two more join them. The five of them run down and across the street. Another two cross from the neighbor's yard. Ok, that's seven squirrels. They chase each other up the neighbor's palm tree, and back down, still friendly. Then they sit in a three-by-three foot area, most up on their hind legs as if posing for a picture. Another crosses the street to join them, and, finally, two more. That makes a total of ten squirrels that I can see.

Uh, oh, this doesn't look good. I've never seen this many squirrels in one small space before. Maybe there's some sort of conclave going on. Maybe it's a mass migration. Maybe they think the neighborhood has gone downhill. Or maybe they're plotting revenge against the neighbor's cat. I'd better keep our own off the porch today, just in case.

Now, without ever seeing any squirrels cross back, I've got a normal compliment in the front yard again, eating the hibiscus flowers, drinking from the birdbath, romping in the oaks. All the ones across the street have vanished. One or two more cross, but by then the congregation has dispersed. The conclave is over. Maybe they've selected a new leader. Or elected a new pope. I don't see any white smoke. Just gray tails swishing in the breeze.

Ok, maybe I should go lie down. It's been a rather strange morning.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III

Der Panzer Toaster

Der Panzer Toaster - a reading (on YouTube)

On Saturday we went shopping for a new microwave to replace our 21 year-old model which had started to emit more and more of ozone each time we turned it on. While in Bed, Bath & Beyond, I contracted a serious case of techno-lust and felt compelled to check in on an old friend in the small appliance section, Der Panzer Toaster.

I spotted this beast a few years ago. It's a toaster-oven made by Krups, a name reminiscent of the German arms manufacturer during WWII, though an entirely different company as I understand it. This is one serious device. It has solid, German construction, blocky and heavy. It has digital controls, the high-tech communications package of toaster ovens. It has an ultra-modern, matte black, baked on stealth-style enamel coating. Behind the door it has six quartz heating elements, three top, three bottom, that draw more power than the average microwave oven, a whopping 1.6 kW. It has a Teflon coated drip-pan liner. It has enough room inside to swallow a frozen pizza or a house a bevy of Cornish game hens.

If you were to put this machine on treads, it would roam the counter at night and demand the surrender of other kitchen electronics, forcing the small appliances into forming alliances to oppose it. First, it would incorporate the coffee maker into its empire, which the Braun bean grinder would likely betray. Then, the crock pot, the bread machine and the blender would dig in, forming a ceramic, glass and steel Maginot Line. But they, too, would fall when it outflanked their defenses through the forest of oregano and basil in the spice countries. The garbage disposal would resist valiantly but soon shut down, leaving the dishwasher in an untenable position.

Emboldened, Der Panzer Toaster would cross the sink unopposed. One by one, it would conquer the mini-chopper, the hand mixer, and finally the stick blender. With the digital scale and the kitchen timer under siege, only the microwave could hold out on its own for long, and only because it occupies a separate island on a separate circuit breaker. Ultimately, even it would fail unless the refrigerator revoked its neutrality and brought its technological prowess to bear quickly, first by exploiting Der Panzer Toaster's one known weakness and coating the linoleum in a frozen, arctic tundra, followed by opening a second front across the channel to the butcher-block that houses the kitchen knives. Even then, it would be a long, hard slog to liberate the appliances that had fallen under Der Panzer Toaster's shadow. And who knows what cold war might ensue should the conventional oven decide to pursue an independent strategy and occupy its own client states.

As much as I admire that kind of innovative technological initiative, that's not the behavior I'm looking for in a small kitchen appliance. So I left it on the shelf, purring like a Bengal tiger as it dreamed of stainless steel, gourmet glory in someone else's kitchen.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III

Morgans 2, Ginger 1

Morgans 2, Ginger 1 - a reading (on YouTube)

And now, your sports update: In the final round of the best-of-three competition, the wild ginger in the Morgans' backyard has been eliminated from the tournament on aggregate, 2-1.

You may remember the quick growing vegetation scored an easy win in the first round of play by deploying an often seen but difficult to counter surprise "mold defense" effectively neutralizing half the Morgan team. With no substitutes available, they were forced to play shorthanded the remainder of the match. Wild ginger took a bit of a mauling, but nothing it couldn't recover from given time.

In round two the Morgans came in prepared and dug out the invasive weed's visible defense in a hard day's hacking and sawing. Though team Morgan tried to soften up team Ginger for the next match with their newly acquired striker, Roundup, the weedy herb shrugged off his spray of shots. But the Morgans held onto their early goal for an eventual, but not decisive victory.

In the weeks leading up to this final confrontation, both sides rested their key players. Team Ginger's training regimen included digging in under the six-inch gap between the chainlink and wood fencing bordering the pitch, possibly thinking it had found a home-field advantage having detected a weakness in the Morgans' previous attacks.

In round three both teams pulled out all the stops. Team Ginger hunkered down in a bunker defense, while team Morgan pondered their best strategy for an attack. The wild root deployed mildly effective carpenter ant midfield formation, followed by a quick counterattack from a ringer on loan from team Wolf Spider, sending half of team Morgan into her screaming wiggly dance (sometimes confused with her victory celebration). She toppled into the remaining Roundup, effectively sidelining him for the remainder of the game. By halftime, team Ginger had once again fended of countless shots from the Morgans' heavy-handed, ax-wielding strikers. Team Morgan seemed on the brink of collapse from exhaustion and the heat.

After what can only be described as an amazing motivational speech from their coach, team Morgan returned to the pitch reinvigorated and with a novel new strategy. Dropping back some 6000 years, they employed a formation that at first team Ginger didn't recognize but soon realized it couldn't counter unless team Morgan's fitness gave out once again in the noontime heat. But that was not to be. Hamstrung in its earlier attempt at digging in by the groundskeeper's overnight undercutting, the wild ginger could find little purchase on the pitch in the second half. Just before penalty kicks would have decided the final outcome, the Morgans' rediscovered formation (nicknamed "The Lever") finally carried the day.

Next up for team Morgan: a classic matchup with their cross-yard rival, team Sprinkler. This one promises to be a long, muddy slog of a campaign.

And that's your sports update.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III

Silver Retriever

Silver Retriever - a reading (on YouTube)

Sarajevo and I have taken to playing a new game just before I go to sleep, fetch. Cats don't play fetch, you say? Well, not in the same way as dogs, that's for sure.

One of her favorite toys is a small, wadded up piece of note paper, about the size of a large marble. She'll bat it around the bathroom or kitchen for hours, enjoying its erratic bounces and the sound it makes ricocheting off the baseboards. She's very jealous of "her" toy, so when Pristina comes to investigate the
noise, Sara picks up her ball and carries it elsewhere to play. It's hilarious watching this miniature cat clutching a little, dingy wad of paper in her mouth like a pedigreed prize from a recent hunt.

So, how did this evolve into a game of fetch? Both Sara and Tina are young enough that they still like to play near Karen and I, like we're surrogate "mom" (or "dad."). The past few nights while I was reading in bed, Sara has jumped up with her paper ball in her mouth, dropped it beside me and started batting it. We're trying to train them not to play on the bed, so I picked up the wad and tossed it toward the bathroom doorway. She immediately went tearing after the sound of the paper bouncing off the door frame. I figured that was the end of it. Until she came back carrying her toy, dropped it beside me again and looked up expectantly.

Since then, I've found it's not the motion of the throw that she follows, it's the sound of the paper hitting something across the room. I can't fool her like I could almost every dog I've known with a fake throw. When I try, she just looks at my hand, and cocks her head. I know she can see the paper leave my hand, as
I've watched her eyes follow it. But she waits to hear an impact before she sprints off the bed. Her ears track where it hits with amazing accuracy. She always finds it quickly, even though she can't always see where it lands.

Now, she jumps up on the bed just before the lights go out and deposits her "prey" beside me. If I ignore it, she plays with it on the bed. So, I toss it toward the bathroom and she tears off after it like a cheetah, banking off the Karen's legs, the footboard, the wastebasket, Tina and anything else between her and her quarry. She stuns it with a swat or two, then clutches in her teeth and returns to start the hunt again, always depositing it right beside me, then waiting, though not always patiently. If I'm not fast enough, she self-starts playing on the bed again.

This game of fetch goes on for a good twenty minutes. Last night she quit only when she was winded from too much sprinting, tough to do with a kitten. None of the older cats know what to think of this canine-esque behavior, except how undignified and unbecoming of a young queen the whole sordid thing really is. They stalk from the room indignantly as soon as we start the hunt. But she never seems to notice. She's too intent on where I might toss her prey.

I wonder what other tricks she will teach me.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III