My New Best Friend

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Originally uploaded by sasadler.

Yesterday we got the great news that the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, declared officially extinct three years, has risen like a Phoenix from the clear-cut ashes and has been seen. I enjoyed telling my baby brother the big news and it made the whole day seem cheerier and all around more betterer. (Pretty daring for an iffy speller anyway.)

So, I emailed all my friends. No one replied. I called everyone I could think of whom would be remotely interested. I stopped my neighbor to the N, Sue, who said, "I thought of you when I heard the news!" So she is on my good side. I told strangers in the street. Really. I got some funny looks of people who didn't quite know how to respond.

Finally I called, my new best friend, whom I'll call Sylvia. I said, "Do you know why I am happy?" And she said, enthusiastically, "YES!" And she was, while I was talking to her, looking up pictures of the goofy looking bird.


This is really worth a look. Go to http://birds.cornell.edu/ivory/# and view the first short video called Press Release. You get to hear the amazing call and see new and old footage of the bird. Oh, go on, I know you want to.

7 Kinds of People

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Originally uploaded by sasadler.

Look at this chart closely. There are Three Major Types: We Who Sing, We who Dance and We who Steal things. Then there are the points that intersect. Those who both Sing and Dance, Sing and Steal Things, Dance and Steal. Then there are those of us, a rare breed, who can Sing, Dance and Steal Things.

Conversation

"Mama."
"yes..."
Ellie and I were driving south on I5 heading to Beacon Hill in the pickup.

"I have a really hard question."
"Ok."
"Do cells bang into eachother?"
"Well, sorta. But kinda like the ball room at Ikea. That is how blood cells work. Other cells are stacked like bricks or laid out like tiles."


Pause

"Mama"
"Yes"
"Why is this all foldy like this?" (she was looking at the stick shift cover)
"It gives it elacticity."

"Mama"
"Yes"
"What's Tisity?

"Stretchy."

Yawn, Stretch....off to bed

Well, it's been over 8 hours since I got up, so I am off to bed.

Last night, at 1am I woke up w/ my heart going pitter patter and my throat swellin' up. Hum...thought I, take an antihistemine. So I did. When I woke up this morning, ready to start my day, it was nearly 1 pm. All day I have felt like I was a bit out of chronology with the rest of the world.

Oh...but did I have dreams! Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harrison Ford and I were fooling around in order to get his credit card, and when I did, I bought myself a watch. It was $175.00.

Then I dreamed I was in a man in Brooklin in the 1940's, kissing a girl who was really a man. And the dreams just got stranger from there.

Angelina

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Originally uploaded by sasadler.

Is sucking and eating from her bottle. She is a genius. If she keeps at this, she'll be coming home soon.

Heading North

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Originally uploaded by sasadler.

I have been looking around for the return of the violet-green swallow. About the cutest things on earth. I saw them at lake washington yesterday, apparently that is still just south enough for them not not have returned to the Northern Hitherlands that is Wallingford.

Dinner

Kim and I, mostly Kim, watched our neighbor's kids today. She paid me for the privilege. Since Kim did the watching while I did the re-potting of containers, vacuuming of cars, and the like, I thought Kim should have the money. We decided to go out to dinner and blow the bucks. Gavin, Kim and I headed to the Thai Kitchen on Queen Ann.

It was one of those evenings where each of us, not just me, thought he/she funny.

The lady next to our table we had spoken to briefly because she had a dog in the front who looked like my old dog Winnie. I noticed her looking at me several times during dinner and when they were getting ready to leave, she said, "Do you mind if I ask how you three know one another?"

"Well, we all live together, though Gavin lives in an apt. at our house. Do you mind if I ask why?"

She couldn't figure out how this ancient woman would be hanging out with such neophyte hotties.

She said something about how we seemed like family but couldn't figure out how.

The man she was with, whom I recognized as a local artist, poked me in the arm and said, "She thinks you have great energy."

Not exactly sure what that means, but I am taking it as a compliment. When in doubt...

let no good deed go unpunished

Tonight, with my new husband, shoot...I think his name is Dave and I thought of a new socialist scheme. People who want gardening services pay a special tax and I just send in a weekly time sheet to the government that says I gardened so many hours. Then I wouldn't have to bill people. I HATE billing people. I added up a client's bill and it came up to 850 bucks. I was scared to leave it for her and she called be before I got home, but I am too afraid to listen to the message. I will have to pay someone to listen to it. Shit.

I got home, took a hot bath and washed my luxurious locks. My best friend, whom I'll call Jean-Jean, and I chatted on the phone. She was going to go to this thing called Girl to Girl, or Girl on Girl, or Girl for Girl or some such name that made me cringe. It is a big giant party with 800 some women. Do I want to go??? Meet us at the 6 arms pub. Baby steps. I went to the pub, went to the party. Well...technically I went to the door of the party and turned around and left.

On the way to the pub, I was at a stop sign waiting for an old timer who was trying to go somewhere in a wheel chair, using one foot as locomotion. This process was not getting him far.

I was watching what seemed to be every member of society between the age of 21 and 39 out walking Pike street...or is it Pine? None of them noticed this guy spinning his wheels, as it were. So I set my parking brake, thinking this will be faster and kinder than waiting for this fellow. Unfortunately, the guy wanted to go across the big street, and up a steep hill to some kind of hotel/social service place. No problem. I ran back down the hill and to the truck. There was an irate fellow behind my car screaming and using unfriendly gesticulation to indicate that he was not pleased to drive up and find a pickup truck unattended at a stop sign. Oh well.


PS
If you would like to check the 9 messages on my machine, just call my cell phone, hit star and put in my password. **** If the client says, "Oh Sally Anne, I knew it was a lot of work, and you did a great job, keep it up" you can call and tell me. If she is bitching about her damned honeysuckle that I hacked back in an attempt to save the garden bed and doesn't want to pay me, then just call and tell me I need to move or something like that.

Holier than Thou East o' the Mts

My friend from college, whom I'll call Nina, has been fostering (with the hope and expectations of adopting) a wee fellow since he was 5 weeks old. He is now a strapping 7 month old who looks like a bachelor farmer. The birth mother, or womb donor, wants him back. Miraculously, WD has done all she has been asked to do by the courts and it is looking like she might get him back.

A woman in Everett, who was higher than a kite, robbed a convenience store of 8 dollars. She held her hand in her pocket and said she had a gun. This was her third offence so she has gone to prison for the rest of her life. At a cost of some gagillion dollars a year to tax payers. I have no idea how much drug treatment would be, but I suspect we could have saved some money with that. Just a thought.

The womb donor has lost two other children to the state because of abuse of said children. But there is no three-strikes law when babies are concerned, only drug addicted women with a finger for a gun stealing 8 dollars.

New Gang Member

Angelina is going to be fine. DD, called yesterday in tears to say that my Grandniece has a normal brain. How I am old enough to have a grandniece is beyond me. So, as far as anyone knows, she will develop into an as normal of a Sadler baby as we can expect. One of my brothers who isn't the grandfather, who has ties with Chicago and the underworld, suggested we call her, Angelina Nine-Fingers. Jason, who refuses to date Laurie, says it is because of her excessive number of fingers. That being 10.

Our family is practically giddy with the news that our newest gang member is fine.

Angelina

A roller coaster of a day. Last night, Nancy, otherwise known as Mama, called to say my neice Amber was in labor. This morning Mama called to say the baby was born. Not all is as we expected, though. She is missing part of her mandible, her eyes roll back, she is missing her thumb she can only breathe on her side or her belly. There is a lot we don't know. There are a few things we do know. We love Amber and we will adore Angelina.