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frozen pizzas and a sore dog
Monday, September 19 2016
Originally I'd plan to span a cable between the two collar ties in the living room and hang Benjamin, the big steel flying bird sculpture, from the middle of that cable. Yesterday, though, I went with a simpler suspension plan, simply hanging him vertically from one of the collar ties via a swivel hook so he could be position in any direction. It then occurred to me I could easily make him little bird feet from steel wire and attach them to his undercarriage with magnets. When I jokingly suggested this to Gretchen, she seemed annoyed and horrified. But I went and made those feet exactly as I'd imagined them and stuck them to Benjamin without Gretchen ever knowing what I was up to. I expected her to be angry, at which point I'd pluck them off and say "see, no damage done." But no, when she saw them, she thought they were adorable. She also thought I'd somehow soldered them there, something I definitely wouldn't've done.
Benjamin with his stick-on magnetic feet. You can clearly see a painting of Noah the Cat (1997-2003) in the background.
Susan and David came over this evening to check in on Neville, his first visitors since his run-in with an automobile. The original plan had been for them to bring pizza from Catskill Mountain Pizza, but they were out of soy cheese, so instead they picked up three different frozen vegan pizzas from the Sunflower health food store in Woodstock. It doesn't often happen that my initial delight on learning that pizzas are on the way is dashed by subsequent news that those pizzas are frozen. But we made the best of the situation, and the pizzas weren't terrible. Susan and David participated in our frequent (though, since I work California hours, less frequent) ritual of eating while watching Jeopardy. Gretchen and I are great at Jeopardy, particularly as a couple, since the Venn diagram of our respective knowledge bases do not overlap much (that overlap is mostly art history, classical music, and pop music from 1964 to 1986). It all went by so fast for Susan and David, who rarely got a chance to respond before the next question was being asked. "Wow, that succeeded in making me feel even more stupid than usual," David groaned. Then he said (in full seriousness) that he'd recently taken an online IQ test and had only scored a 60, which I happen to know is in the low-high end of the category that used to be known as "retarded" back before that word became freighted with too much social baggage. "It was the end of the day and I was tired," David qualified.
Later we watched an episode of Cleveland Hustles, the new reality show wherein small-time entrepreneurs vie for investment in business plans designed to revitalize Cleveland. David wanted to know what Cleveland is like as a city (since we both attended Oberlin, a little over thirty miles away). We hadn't remembered it being anything special. But, then again, as I noted, "It was the 80s, and all cities kinda sucked back then."
Meanwhile Neville was down in the living room, sleeping on the couch. Ramona the Dog and Clarence and Sylvia the Cats, on the other hand, were being very social. Clarence made a point of snuggling with both Susan and David, and Ramona and Sylvia were even snuggling for a time.
The skin soreness of Neville's lower abdomen has been getting worse with every passing day. Tonight he reacted so badly to Gretchen trying to apply some silver sulfadiazine cream that he actually bit her on the hand, leaving a mark. That's very unlike Neville, and gives an indication of how tender his road rash has become. Gretchen won't try to apply anything directly if he's going to be like that; instead, she'll see if she can find some sort of spray topical antibiotic.
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