bryus’ Neighborhood

Are you fucking KIDDING me?

After all my adventures last night, I get up this morning, and go out on the screen porch to enjoy my coffee.  From the window well I hear an all too familiar dry leaf rustling sound.  I look and over, yes, there's a teeny bun in the window well.  Only I know it ain't my teeny bun, because he's still in the bathtub, enjoying his breakfast in bed:

bun_buffet

Please meet Not-So-Teeny Bun.  He's more like Teenage Bun and just as wily.  Capturing him to remove from the window well was a bit more exciting, because he actually jumped in the window and ran around the basement.

big_little

Oy.  Now I've got to figure out what to do with them, because if I just put them back outside, I envision having to fish them out of the window well every other day.  Suggestions?

You'll notice that this was posted at the bizarre hour of 4:00 am.  Normally I would be asleep at this hour, but about 30 minutes ago, I was woken by a strange thumping noise.  I rolled over, felt around myself and found both the cats sleeping.  Not a cat.  I got up and checked on Teeny Bun.  To my relief I found him asleep, having eaten his fill of the Redzilla Guest House Salad Bar--fresh picked dandelion greens, clover, and lettuce.  So I walked the house for a while until I heard a suspicious scuttling, scraping sound outside my office window. 

Suddenly I remembered a possible source for the thumping: the brick I had placed on top of the sump pump well cover to block the raccoon-made hole and to weight it down.  I grabbed a flashlight and ran outside.  Around back, at the east* sump pump, what did I find?

A fucking raccoon, trying to get the cover off the sump pump well.  Yes, a raccoon who wanted to make the eleven foot fall to NOTHING but the bottom of a pit.  Grendel's mother?  Another daredevil moron?  Or the same?  No way to know. 

At any rate, I yelled at her and after a few moments of hesitation, she darted up the stairwell roof, over the garage, and away.  I put the cover more firmly on the sump well and piled two big limestone rocks on top of it. 

Jumping Christ on a Pogo Stick, what the fuck do those raccoons think is in the bottom of my sump well?  There is, as far as I know, and according to my plumber, nothing at the bottom of the well except mud, a ceramic tile, a brand new sump pump, and about three inches of water.  Did Grendel's grandpa leave a treasure map showing where all the loot from his days of banditry is buried and it's under my sump well?  Did Grendel's mother accidentally drop her wedding ring down there?  Does the sump well contain an entrance to Raccoon Paradise?

All I know is--I'm done.  This weekend I am building an elaborate, heavy, critter-proof cover for my sump pump wells, possibly with a raccoon trap/alarm/deterrent that is not a rudely awakened me, shouting and waving a flashlight.  Because I've had it with that shit.  Another raccoon falls into my sump pump well and I'm going to go all Tony Montana on his ass.

Raccoon_solution

1 comment

Or, the Dumbest Little Bunny in Kansas.  Yup, guess who was in my window well when I got home from work.  Not Angelina Jolie.

Teeny Bun strikes again.  The good news: I'm getting better at wrangling him into a cardboard box.  The bad news: I am tired of this shit.

Dumb bunny

2 comments

This is an aftershock from my earlier effort to write an authentic Nashville country song. I know it is not typical, not trite enough, not accessible enough, too thoughtful, and too long. But I'm learning.

Used to Be

I come from a town called Used to Be
came from an old country with old ways
where what's bad goes and what's good stays
this town you can't recognize any more
I come from right here.

My grandma had a garden and my dad too
good for the back and good for the table
I used to have a garden then something happened
working two jobs I wasn't able
to keep track.

I grew up on a bike not a bus
my teachers knew my mom and dad
and called home if I was bad
my baseball coach lived next door
now there is a stranger there.

I came from a city not big not small
where we knew something but didn't know it all
where one of your chores was care for the small
where a stop light meant stop
and a handshake meant something.

I came from a friendly place where
you knew all your neighbors' names
and their accomplishments and crimes
they knew all your kids and you knew theirs
and what they all knew about you. 

I come from all around the country
from every village every city
where you look around and you can see
people you know will do what they say
and expect the same.

Now I can't say it's like that
for my kids and their kids and friends
I hope I can't see how it ends
keep it up and the world will be flattened
in a mushroom cloud of "me me me".

I come from a town called Used to Be
came from an old country with old ways
where what's bad goes and what's good stays
this town you can't recognize any more
I come from right here.
 

Yet another report from the Department of Symbolism Means More Than Action.

The U.S. Mint, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, is issuing a silver dollar with Braille on it.  Ooooh!  Aaaaah!  "This is going to put Braille in front of people in a very dramatic way," according to Chris Danielson, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind. 

No offense, Mr. Danielson, but how?  This is a silver dollar and as such, it will only be purchased by coin collectors who are NEVER GOING TO TOUCH IT.  It's not going to put Braille in front of anyone but numismatic nerds. 

Useless_guesture

According to Associated Press: On the back of the coin, the Braille code for the word Braille -- or "Brl" -- is inscribed, above a depiction of a school-age boy reading a Braille book with a cane resting on his arm. Behind him is a bookshelf bearing the word "Independence."

"It really expresses the hopes, the dreams and the independent spirit," NFB Executive Director Mark Riccobono said of the design.

What would put Braille and the concerns of the blind in front of the American public is an actual dollar coin in circulation with Braille on it.  Oh, and how about changing all the fricking paper money so that the bills are readily distinguishable by a blind person?  All the spiffy colors and patterns, guess what?  No help to a blind person. 

To help the blind gain more independence, America could do what most countries do and manufacture bills of different sizes to allow the sightless to tell which bill is which.  That way they don't have to depend on someone else to tell them--truthfully, one hopes--that this is a twenty, this is a ten, this is a five.

Grendels_mom

1 comment

It's a dark and stormy night.  I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and I heard a creepy, scrippity-scuttling sound.  I looked up, and through the bathroom window, I saw...a fricking raccoon.  It was standing on the basement stairwell roof, glaring at me.  All I could think was, "Oh, crap, it's the mom of that raccoon I had arrested after he fell in my sump pump well.  She's come for revenge.  It's Grendel's mother."

Let me just say, it didn't look anything like Angelina Jolie.

In the hopes of being a good role model for my son and students, I have switched my blog to private settings.  I am more than happy to add you to my friends and family listing- just ask! :)  Thank you for understanding!

I only feel sorry for Americans while listening to the BBC's.  We're so far away and the announcers talk in cultured voices about the "bleak situation in the United States."  The weak dollar.  Rising gas prices.  The mortgage crisis.  Home foreclosures.  They sound so kind and sympathetic for "middle class Americans feeling the pressure of a sagging economy."  I actually start to feel bad, momentarily forgetting that in my part of the country those poor suckers are the same dumb saps who drive around with "God Bless America" bumperstickers and ever thought invading Iraq was a good idea, and by and large voted twice for the Worst President Ever.

Imagine two boats: one a big ocean liner with double hulls and one a rickety little overcrowded fishing boat.  That seems to be the new model of America.  On the big boat, rich folks stand on the upper decks drinking cocktails, and whenever there's trouble, they get the first handout.  Big boat springs a leak, all hands to the bilge pump.  Little boat springs a leak, well, let's just say the little boat has had a leak all along.  This is how the government has reacted to the mortgage loan crisis: rushing to bail out the very banks who made the irresponsible decisions that led to the crisis.  Don't even bother blaming the people who took out loans they had no hope of repaying--it's the banks' job to evaluate borrowers to establish their worthiness.  The borrowers are being held responsible for their mistakes--they're losing their houses.  The banks, not so much.

Worse, bailing the banks out isn't going to solve the problem, which currently is a wasteland of foreclosed houses. In Detroit alone, 73,000 houses were repossessed in 2007.  73,000 houses sitting empty, abandoned, or gone to auction to the highest bidder.  Neighborhoods blighted, property values down, tax revenue plummeting.   How is this going to help the economy?

Of course, the people in the big boat don't get all the blame, because the people in the little boat aren't rowing.  No, I take that back.  They're rowing, but they're rowing in the wrong direction.  They're rowing towards an impossible future, where everything gets better every year.  How can people think that's possible?  Really, we really think that forever and ever and ever and ever, the "next generation" is going to be "better off" than their parents?  How the fuck would that work?  We're already consuming our natural resources at an insupportable rate and the planet's population keeps going up. 

The fact is, we need to turn this boat around and row ourselves closer to shore.  We need to seriously work towards contracting our lifestyles to one that's sustainable.  Use less energy, consume fewer goods, be content with less.  Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without--remember that?

Denmark once again this year rates as the "happiest country."  Ronald Inglehart, who oversees the study into national levels of happiness, believes that happiness has a direct correlation to: peace, democracy, and a sense of freedom to choose how to live your life.  Of course, Denmark is prosperous, but note that doesn't seem to be the big element in happiness.  It's not how much stuff the Danes have or how much they can buy or how quickly their economy is growing.  The United States, still the world's richest economy, only ranks 16th on the national happiness scale.   

Choose your own synonym for pleasure:
 - New activities
 - Old activities with new twists
 - New friends
 - Old friends
 - Making progress

Pick a word for pain:
 - Pointless training
 - Training with a purpose that happens to be boring
 - Demos that are 7 minutes long
 - Rich text formatting

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