Think of the Trees!

I enjoy houseplants. I use that verb, "enjoy," because I appreciate the interactions they offer. These are often something that the individual must actively seek out. They are plants, after all. But these moments, like watching our philodendron furl open a new and glossy leaf, can be very rewarding. I even enjoy my aquarium plants and how the Amazonian Sword has burst from the gravel so that its emerald leaves mimic the arch of an oil strike.

I have blogged about house plants before, so I feel this holiday PSA is both very helpful and pertinent.

Please, if you are tempted to buy a Norfolk Island Pine this Christmas, then do some research. Walgreen's sells six inch saplings by the checkout counter and they are decked out for Christmas with foiled line plastic pots and a half dozen tiny ornaments. And all for $6.99! Home Depot has two foot tall trees spray painted with glitter (Just like Britney Spears!) for just $9.99!

Yes, it is Christmas time. Yes, it has pine its name. But the thing hates the cold. I found that out the hard way after I killed my first Norfolk Island Pine after hauling it across the IC campus in the late December chill. And at night. I thought it could handle the cold for just those few minutes because it was a "pine." Why should it have a harder time than a Douglas Fir? Well...it did and the person who babysat it for me over winter break reported those early signs of atrophy and eventual death.

I really want to have a big Norfolk Island Pine like the ones you see in a waiting room. As a tropical plant, it has been exported around the world as an ornamental. I am still unsure about their ecological impact on a non-native ecosystem, but on a personal level they left vivid images of watching our neighbor's sixty foot pine tower over their cement bungalow. The prickly leaves of the younger trees tighten up as they get older and each long leaf becomes a braided green strand with the luster of snake skin.

Unfortunately, I have had horrible luck with my various Norfolks. We have had so many plants that we have brought back from the edge. We saved a coffee tree that someone left over night during the first Cleveland frost! But, I, and only I, often kill Norfolks in a few years. The leaves begin to calcify at the stem and convert from a bright green to a mineral green the color of chalkboards. This hardening spreads up the leaf, leaving the tips still glossy as the disease spreads up the leaf. Too much light? Too little? Too much water? Too little? I do not know as I have tried everything and combed the Internet. Maybe one day I will succeed, but I am taking it easy for now.

The Norfolks you see marketed along with the rest of the holiday merchandise are long lived trees that represent decades of nursery growth. You see that dirt they come in? That means they are supposed to live for a while and not end up on the curb on January 2nd. Indeed, you can use them as an alternative Christmas tree, but remember that you are going to keep it.

Peace!

Earth Rise Anniversary

Forty years ago on this Christmas Eve, there was another celestial entity orbiting the Earth at thousand miles a minute. The Apollo 8 astronauts were in the best position to view Santa Claus, but they were also in the best place to capture this image:

Even more incredible than the image itself is that it all happened by accident and that the astronauts did no expect to see such an event. I could only compare it to watching an eclipse in ancient times, maybe over a Mayan temple, and wondering what the gods were up to. We were so bound and defined by our terrestrial origins that we could not imagine our own planet rising. Imagine the earth rise from a planet like Mars. A tiny blue sphere arises over the red horizon and it is full of life! Earth with a singular and stunning abundance of life engages in the same cosmic dance the entire Milky Way.

Happy Earth Rise 40th Anniversary! Oh, and Merry Christmas, too.

Peace!

A Deer

At the end of this week, it will be four months since we moved to Lakewood from Ithaca. We have everything unpacked, but only a few days ago did I find a final spot for this one throw rug we dragged around the living room. This also means that the summer is ending. Where the hell did that go?

I am a nester. An emotional nester as opposed to a physical one. I used to sleep on a tapestry that I substituted for bed sheets proper and made maximum use of a dutch oven pot as bowl and deep frying pan. By nester, I mean that I tend to settle into a situation quickly. In all of my jobs I imagine the rest of my life as if it were my last job. What can I do with a career as a janitor? After twenty years of making copies as a law office assistant. I would hope for a raise or promotion, but I tried to make my peace as early as possible. This helps when dealing with horrible jobs and it does not stifle any desire for upward mobility. That is the whole reason why we moved.

I got used to the move quickly. Ithaca and New York state were the only places I ever lived in after my move from Puerto Rico. So, I accept that everyone says "pop" here even though you will never catch me saying that. Did we go through a time warp here and start saying pop, shopping at Woolworth's, and getting our food from car hops? I have already spoken about the cadence of the Cleveland, OH metro area and how it is refreshing after the Ithaca scene.

However, there is one aspect of Cleveland living that I have yet to acclimatize myself to.

People tend to freak out here when they see a deer. We were driving though the Metroparks (A lovely set of urban parks in Cuyahoga County) and suddenly hit a four car long crawl. People take the Metroparks' roads for both the scenery and lack of traffic lights. Why were people going so slow?

There was a deer. A pretty ho-hum doe. However, there was also a fawn and this must have flipped people's lids. It was a late summer fawn and the speckled white pattern faded underneath he adolescent chestnut coat. Cute, but considering that our old house in Ithaca had three to four fawns living on the lawn we reacted with "Get the hell going!" as opposed to "Oh, honey go get your camera!"

Anyone living on Ithaca's hills shares an intimate relationship with deer. Deer are so common place that they end up becoming defacto neighbors with their own patterns and preferences. I used to whiz surplus apples into the hedges and one resident put our entire heads of Romaine lettuce for the deer. This might seem excessive, but these are sacrificial gestures designed to protect mums and lily bulbs. We just had too many apples and I swear those deer knew me as the "Crazy Apple Guy." When you stare at their black mirror eyes you begin to imagine and legitimize anything in that void. All the deer need to do is ask to borrow a cup of sugar and they can become full fledged neighborhood citizens!* If deer were ever to evolve into a new species, it would happen in Ithaca.

Everything is relative. While people here might scream out, "Holy shit! Look at that deer!" an average Ithaca resident visiting the Cleveland area might remark, "Damn! Synchronized stop lights!"

Peace!

They do exist!

*If there isn't already someone advocating for deer rights in Ithaca then they are to come. Whatever happened to the dog park people? TCDEER, much?

First Snow 2007

We all awoke to this on the West Hill.

The first snow of the season. Earlier this week, some of the higher elevations around here got a decent first snow, but the valley where the city lays makes for noticeable differences.

Don't expect me to blog all lyrical and Romantic about snow. I don't like winter at all. In the closing chapters of Watership Down, Richard Adams inserts a brief narration on winter. I don't know the exact text , but it goes something like this: "Some men say they like winter, but what they really are saying is they like the ability to combat it. With their coats, fireplaces, and woodlots, they can endure the season and find some enjoyment. But for animals, as for poor men, it is a harsh season when existence is the act of just surviving."

Sorry that I don't have the direct quote, but that thought sums up why I don't enjoy the winter season.

However, winter presents me with an interesting Catch-22. While I dislike winter as much as others longingly await the crunch of hoar frost under their new boots, I love the shovel snow.

Seriously, I LOVE TO SHOVEL SNOW. Just decimate the crap out of it! Carve out islands of non-slippery safety amongst all the white the neighbors have let accumulate. I make games out of it, dreaming up scenarios Walter Mitty or, better yet, Snoopy* style. Imagine it:

First Panel: "Here comes the world-famous snow shoveler."

Second Panel: Digging into the snow, a mound of the stuff already piled behind him, "He has to clear the path for the Colonial Militia! They need those cannons to take Fort Ticonderoga!"

Third Panel: Exasperated and leaning against the handle of the shovel. "It's just practice for Valley Forge!"

I worked for about a year and a half during college as a janitor. Well, Facilities Attendant, actually. It is a neat little euphemism that means you just don't clean toilets, you shovel snow! The sidewalk is a part of the facility, you see. Because it was a residential college, the administration wanted to make sure that every sidewalk and road was plowed. Last thing they wanted was for some kid to slip on the umpteen stairwells on the IC campus and have his or her parents sue the school. There was a joke that circulated amongst all the Physical Plant staff that went, "On the campus you really don't drive through snow, but through slush." Well, that sounds like a motto to live by! I had this "scorched earth" policy to clearing away snow. I used a lot of salt and pulled a muscle the first time I cleared the little dip between Terrace 3 and Terrace 4. When I worked as a barista, we had to clear the snow from the front of the store while on shift. The customers appreciate the plowed strip of sidewalk welcoming them for espresso and brewed coffee. Of course, I, once again, went nuts with the salt to the boss's and our petty cash fund's, dismay. One of these days, I will match when snow shoveling zeal with the appropriate amount of salt. Until then, I appreciated your patience, guys.

Why do I enjoy it so much? Everyone else hates it. It's a chore. Why love a chore!?

Maybe it's because I never grew up with snow, being from PR . Or because I am "selectively compulsive" freaking about having to get that snowed cleared. I do feel a nice sense of accomplishment after I am done with the snow and it does make me feel good. People appreciate plowed sidewalks and roads, and I appreciate their silent thanks. If you need some snow shoveling in and around the West Hill then contact me or look for the cleanest patch of asphalt in town!

Peace!

*I just finished reading a wonderful book called Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis. Hence, the Snoopy reference. Amazing book about the iconic strip and the conflicted man behind it. I'm also reading Jimmy Carter's The Hornet's Nest which is about the American Revolutionary in the South. Hence, the Ticonderoga reference. Hey, it's a liberal arts blog.

Low-Impact Hike

Last Sunday, Amanda and I went for a sort of walk in the woods at Sapsucker Woods. Most people know Sapsucker woods as the site of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I had an internship there once and I was not very good at all. But, I can still enjoy the woods. This whole Finger Lakes area rocks for hiking and we hope that we can do some more before winter comes. Here are some pictures we took and then some musings.
Pollination continues life. We eat pollination and I like to think of the whole process as a sort of visual photosynthesis. There are no complex organelles to understand and formulas to memorize. In fact, the whole process is so inspiring that people condense it into trite little sayings and snippets

"The birds and the bees." and, "The pollen count is high."

I, like anyone who eats, appreciates pollination. However, I can't help but think of it as something much more visceral than sharing. Without knowing about convergent evolution and symbiosis, one might classify it as outright theft. Even rape! You can't see it well in that picture of the honeybee on the golden rod, but those insects often appear covered in the stuff. Their six legs and striped bodies sprinkled with pollen after they have raved in the flowers. Imagine Scrooge McDuck swimming in his money pit and you can see what I am saying.

We like to anthropomorphize bees. We label them busy, industrious, and productive. They are little workers in a factory working for the rarely-seen big boss. We admire their biological work ethic, but does anyone ever think that maybe they outstrip the flowers they harvest. Is their a federal department of pollen conservation amongst hives. A Bee Bureau of Pollen Management? A Bee National Flower Service? Anything?! Vicious little bees! Outstripping the pollen!

Lovely little butterfly. Maybe it's a Monarch, but it could also be a Viceroy Butterfly. We didn't get close enough to see it as it feed on this Joe-Pye Weed flower. Nice blend of colors in this one. The pink-purple of the flower. The living Halloween scheme on the butterfly's wings. And the golden rod nestled in the greenery. I anthropomorphize butterflies to be flitting samplers. The kind of people that go to the mega-supermarket on Saturday afternoon because that is when they give out all the free samples. If they outstrip the pollen then it is more a "tragedy of the commons" situation. One butterfly taking as much because the other one did. Lacking a hive situation, I don't imagine they talk much. They don't have that little "figure eight" dance the bees do to continue their pollen manifest destiny.

Wow, my voice changed a lot during that little set. I write these musings posts in real-time so what starts off serious goes into fable-like characterizations. There might be more of these if we stick to that hiking promise. Peace!

Moving Water

Here is a little something something I imagined while reading a biography of Mark Twain entitled, well, Mark Twain. I have gone on about water before, and here is some more of it.

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Trying to decipher the language of moving water, I lost my watch. The frayed nylon strap seemed to react at the slightest moisture and snapped off. It fell to the river bottom in a falling leaf motion. First through the shallow layer of blue and then into the sooty auburn of the middle layer. It slid into a cloudier shade of brown, lost into the bottom even though it had not hit the end.
I cursed. "Well, Goddammit!" My tongue pressed against the back of my teeth. I gritted through another noise, a whirring grunt.
"Hey!" said Captain Dale from behind the plexiglass at the wheel. "Language, OK?" He turned his head back and smiled to the passengers behind him. He shrugged and they smiled.
Dale gives the throttle a tiny push and inches the boat further down river. The soft eddies around the hull spun faster until the spun themselves into mild jets of foamy water. They squeezed out from underneath the hull, down the side of the boat, and back into the river.
"OK, folks," said Dale into the scratchy microphone. "We are almost near the ocean, so look for those changes in scenery and life. Look for the mangrove trees with the spider legs."
Everyone turns their heads around, except for Dale who keeps looking forward to the horizon. I look towards the bottom, hoping moving water swirls my watch to the surface.

_____________________________

Peace!

Underneath

The past few days in Ithaca have ranged in the mid-90's and everyone, everything, is seeking relief. A young white-tail deer doe has taken refuge under our porch. Well, actually, under the house's porch. Amanda and I live in the bottom half of a house split into two apartments. The porch belongs to the upstairs tenant, but we get the best view of everything under the weathered planks.

Living in a converted basement isn't bad at all. During the summer, that first blast of air from the apartment feels good. Compared to the outside temperature, for a few minutes, it feels like we have air-conditioning. My skin gets that same tingling feeling I remember from sitting next to an air-conditioner after getting wet in the rain. In this heat, it feels wonderful.

Of course, then there is the deer. It comes and goes throughout the day, even though the few plants that grow around the porch's edge show plenty of deer damage. She would never have to leave, it seems, except for the necessary exercise. In our sheltered suburban environment, she has found another layer of security. Imagine the ecological equivalent of tucking the end of your blanket under your feet.

As environmental studies majors, we were taught to hate deer. They are pesky generalist species that over-graze the few ecosystems left around development. They endanger people (and themselves) by blasting through roadways and backyards. They munch away on hobbies and livelihoods. I called a u-pick strawberry farm last Sunday and the outgoing message on the lady's answering machine went, "I had a lot of deer damage this year. They took most of the fruit." She suggested going to another farm.
Deer, however, are native animals, which we first decimated and now brought back. All those flowers are not. Like the rabbit, we share a love-hate relationship with them. A creature we venerate though movies and Romantic imagery, but still hunt.
Observing the porch deer, I understand how people can fall in love with the creatures. She twitches her ears, searching for sounds in the neighborhood. I studied her snout from the kitchen window. She appears equine from my angle and whoever challenged the nobility of a horse? Her fur there starts bristly white and then changes into the warm browns of her body. Reminds me of my dog's own nose. Her own snout looked snowy around her wet nose. The deer's mouth lines run clean across her entire face and up towards the eyes.

I have never looked much into a deer's eyes. Folks say plenty about human eyes, and even cat and hawk's eyes. All those eyes have nice layers of pupil and iris, each with its own colors. and while deer certainly have a pupil and iris, all one sees is black.

How expressive those black eyes can be! The eyes shine with different lusters and inkiness, giving the entire surface a slick surface and mottled underside. I have observed the same wonder in my pet's eyes. How the rabbit will expand or shut his eyes or the guinea pig will bat the reflective sheen of his. In the scientific sense, black absorbs all colors, but does not reflect them. It keeps all those molecules and dancing photons, letting the deer express that energy through muscle and movement.

Peace!

Surf and Turf

One of my favorite books, and favorite writers, is J. Robert Lennon's Pieces for the Left Hand*. It is a neat little read, made up of snippets focusing on life in one medium Upstate town. Lennon has a few books out chronicling several fake little towns in New York. They are all based on places right here in CNY. The first book I ever read by him, Mailman, featured the town of Nestor, NY. Nestor is pretty much a carbon-copy of Ithaca. And a nice scintillating copy of it! Filled with all the zanniness that gives you enough material to both love and hate the place. He was recently in the news for creating a fictonal Aurora, NY and writing about how one famous resident has bought up much of the local real estate, in an attempt to create an ideal "dollhouse" look.

I find Lennon's work gorgeous and find it invigorating that he lives in the area. He is a wonderful satirist, cutting, yet never sardonic. You don't need to take a step back and say, "Well, he is being satirical, right there," with Lennon. It all just makes sense.

Anyway, I mentioned Lennon, because the following piece is something in the spirit of Pieces for the Left Hand. Just a quick little anecdote that could be a part of something big. I don't have the patience for writing full lenght fiction. I just realized that. But maybe I can whip up a nice little chap book with a dozen or so interconnected stories. Here is my story in the same vein as Pieces and with a little of those quick George Saunders sentences. I just finished In Persuasion Nation. Amazing book, and another amazing local resource.

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After Vacation

By Garik Charneco

I saw it in the paper after we got home. The lobster story. In the "Odds and Ends" section. I was in the kitchen catching up on all the back papers the delivery boy had stacked on our porch. I gave Ryan, my son, the little subscription hold slip to drop off before we left. I enjoyed a nice week at the beach, knowing all the stove elements were off, the windows were locked, and the paper wouldn't come. But, the papers came.
I found it fun. To read through all those papers and catch up on the past week's news. I stacked them into a neat little pile on the kitchen table, a little dossier for me on our town.
And there was the story. The lobster story.

The headline read, "Park officials baffled by lobster release."

I had seen the exodus! I had seen the story! Ryan and I were throwing around the Frisbee and he heaved it over the dune grass. My first fears were that it landed in the water or bonked some poor person laying behind the grass. However, I heard no splashes or curses.
"Hey," I said to the boy. "Go get it. The one that lost it has to get it!" Those were the rules between me and my father and they would be the same between Ryan and I. But, Ryan, just shrugged.
"You got get it," he said pulling his cap down over his eyes. "You're closer."
I should had said something. I should have made a lecture, right there. About responsibility and Frisbee tradition, hut, it was vacation. I let it slide, and what a wonderful thing, because I had seen the news!

Ryan had heaved the Frisbee well beyond the dune grass and almost to the edge of a low cliff! There I saw it, the story. Below the cliff, I saw a dozen people squatting in the water next to boxes. All the boxes looked like coolers, made of styrofoam and thick. And there were some beach towels thrown around the sheltered beach. Looked like a picnic to me, at first. But, then, I saw all those lobsters coming out! I almost dropped the Frisbee, I was so surprised. Even from up on the cliff, I made out the lobsters. They looked black and mottled, especially in the shallows, but their spindly legs still kicked. The people there lured them out of the boxes. I heard lots of "C'mon's!" and "Yay's!" I didn't know what to make of the whole thing, so I just left.

I must had left before the lifeguards got there, accompanied by a ranger. The paper read, "When initially confronted, the liberators, as they referred to themselves, all produced receipts indicating they had bought the lobsters from local markets and restaurants."
Then a quote from a meat counter man and another from a restaurant manager. All their lobsters had disappeared into the sea.

The paper went on. "Dozens of live lobsters milled around the shallows at the east end, exploring the warm waters with their antennas. Park officials felt the freed lobsters would have a good chance at surviving in the wild due to existing fishing spots in the area. However, they discouraged others from copying the liberators actions, citing safety concerns."

I had only seen, maybe, seven black shapes in the water when I got the Frisbee. But the paper said over forty lobsters were freed. I imagined all those lobsters, pouring over one another in the same waters my family splashed. All their legs and eyes whirring through the sand and out into the sea. I should have gone down. Called Ryan and Marie, and even the baby for it would be irresponsible to leave her in her beach travel crib. Would have made even more of the vacation.

_______________________________

Any thoughts? I find the image of a dozen freed lobsters just clawing their way out to sea very moving and colorful**. I would be much more comfortable with it through a creative non-fiction lens. You know, pretend I am actually there. I'll try that for a final piece. Peace!



* Unfortunately, Pieces for the Left Hand, is only for sale in the UK. Makes no friggin' sense. If interested, you can buy it through Amazon UK or, if you live in Ithaca, can snag a copy at the Bookery 2 book store.

** While the ethics of freeing lobsters that one legally purchased are pretty clear, I am still fuzzy about how the animals will really take it. Releasing a domesticated cow into the wild, might not be the smartest thing, because that animal is no wild bovine. No bison, yak, or musk ox. I might not know anything but the feed lot! However, can a lobster go back to the wild? Some folks think so. In any case, makes for fascinating imagery, no? And for a crazy fish tale. Might try it sometime, if I lived by the sea.

Hello, Charlotte

Speaking of nature...

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A Spider

By Garik Charneco

We live in the bottom half of a house split in two. We live in a basement. And every summer it fills up with creatures, mostly small. I caught a spider the other day, while getting the apartment ready for my sister's arrival. The nieces and nephew would not find the spider pleasing, probably even terrifying. Maybe the boy would delight in it, as little boys are supposed to, but I was never drawn to creepy crawlies. I imagined my nephew to be the same.

I pressed a plastic container against the ceiling and scooped her into the bowl. I didn't seal the lid, but left it haphazardly over the container. Too heavy for her to lift, but loose enough for me to watch.

I referred to the spider as a "her," because the back end, the thorax, glistened in a gray marble. It has a gelatinous shimmer to it and a purple veiny lattice work all around it. I envisioned her being pregnant, it being spring and all. Her legs were long, daddy-long legs long, but the field guide left over from college did not differentiate much in long-legged spiders. I had to pick from Eastern Daddy-Long Legs or Brown Daddy-Long Legs. All the other spiders in that section were woolly monsters with barbels and sharp hairs. Spider nothing like I have ever encountered, or would like to, in the apartment. Spiders nothing like her

She didn't seem like any of the long legs. From her midsection, her legs came away in neat little segments. Each joint between the segments had a pair of black bands around it, like old tube socks from gym class. She had a single black dot on the top of her midsection and nibbly thimble shaped head with a mess of shiny eyes. She performed tricks in the plastic, almost seemingly hanging from nothing in the middle of the bowl. Other times she pogoed on one leg, but, mostly, she probed at the sides and the lid.

I let her go into the container garden we keep outside the front door. I dropped her into some basil that had been gnawed on by insects unknown. As she scampered away, eight legs over one another, a moth flew into the house as if it knew the predator was gone.

________________________________

Peace!

Backyard Naturalist

I just finished reading a wonderful book. It's Suburban Safari by Hannah Holmes and it chronicles Holmes year spent detailing and recording everything in her backyard. She chronicles a wonderfully wild quasi-ecosystem in a quirky humor full of pleasant anthropomorphizing. As compared to saccharine anthropomorphizing, which is what I do with my bunny Carson.

"Carson-warson-darson! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! My sweet prince!"

Like that. The guinea pig gets it too...

Anyway, I enjoyed the book for several reasons. I mentioned this earlier in the blog, but during the summer I enter my naturalist phase. My first summers here I spent lounging by the scrappy rock islands in Six Mile Creek, reading God Emperor of Dune on a fallen oak log over a divot cut in the stream bank. I can't help but enjoy a good piece of nature writing, particularly during the summer when I can see all the life mentioned. Holmes demonstrates a greater understanding of the impacts of lawns and suburbia on the environment. The American Dream tells us to isolate ourselves in the big house with the big lawn. But the big lawn; with its Kentucky Bluegrass monoculture, lawn mower fumes, and pesticides, brings the problems right to the castle.

OK, that's a bit melodramatic. Most of the lawns I see are the types of "Freedom Lawns" that Holmes describes. Not just perfectly manicured grass, but little patches of dandelions, clover, and plantains also making up the greenery. The whole book made me wish I owned the land I lived on, so I could run about creating edge space and planting natives all summer long.

I also enjoyed the book because it demonstrated how nature is all around us, not just in wild lands and mile-long hikes. Nothing beats a John Muir style hike through the sequoias or musing about taking on the Appalachian Trail, but I guess I am just too much of a Romantic. Even the pesky Ailanthus tree, can inspire me to wax poetically. Not very well, mind you me, but waxing nonetheless!

In The End of Nature, author Bill McKibben, describes just that-- the end of nature. But McKibben does not talk about total apocalypse. He means the end of nature as something completely separate from humanity. There is no wilderness, at all. Climate change and global pollution took care of that. But there is still wonder and awe in nature. It will always be gorgeous and violent. Holmes even describes the micro-fauna of her living room carpet in documentary terms. A carpeted Serengeti where mites and pseudoscorpions, all microscopic, fight for life. Holmes describes another scenes where a native plants enthusiasts does a survey of her lawn. It does not go well.

Everything is from somewhere else. The common garden slug, common earthworm, iris, lily, and those loathsome English Sparrows are all imports. Our nature isn't old. It's just a different kind of new.

However, it is still something. Something "natural." And for that it inspires me, while it also bothers me.

Peace.

Bird Watching

In the summer, I enter a sort of naturalist phase of writing. All the life around me just makes me want to write about it and how folks relate to it. I can't let go of my environmentalist roots while writing and always try to use natural imagery as a throughline. Here is something short.

________________

I now have air superiority. I adopted a grey-black zig-zag tiger from the SPCA last week and let him loose in the back yard. The tall cedar planks keep him confined to the yard and he decimates the House Sparrows and Starlings. He pounces from bush to bush, shooing away the invaders. On the other side of the house, I create my own air force. Swapping the sticky mess of fat left in the suet feeder out for fresh food, I slide in oranges to attract orioles. Sunflower seeds for all manner of birds, but I hope they attract chickadees. Their soft fee-bees will ring over the liquid twitter-twat of the starlings. A bundle of brown and white down appears under the forsythia. The tiger pokes out, whiskers against the ground and claws kneading the feather mound. I enjoy air superiority.

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I am going to stop with the whole title sequence for these little blurbs. They are all untitled and, of course, you know it is me writing them. Seem a bit pretentious. Peace!

In the same spirit as the previous post, the weather is something that always inspires me.

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Untitled

By Garik Charneco

I once told my father, "Weekends always look so nice. Why are the weekends always so nice looking, dad?"

I was a kid. Maybe seven or eight. I don't remember his exact reaction, his mannerisms. I must have been on the terrace above our garage, both of us hugging the concrete railing and looking out on the street along with the suburbs of San Juan.

I do remember his exact words. He said, "Everyday is beautiful."

I didn't understand. What a silly thing to say. Everyday isn't beautiful because I saw that weekends were always sunny and blue while weekdays always began dew-soaked and gray. I later, many years later and only after my father had passed away, that he was right. My observations were scant and biased. Weekdays meant rising early for school, around the same time that the morning was still recovering from the dawn. Weekdays were the days that soaked your pant legs with dew as you ran through the grass and splattered the streets with the watery effluent from the trash truck because that was any early morning. On weekends, we all awoke just a little bit later or, like myself, watched TV, never noticing the major shifts between early morning and late. Saturday morning cartoons always ended around 12noon, when I would go out to the terrace and see the tropical sun all over unbroken strips of green. A noon sun is the most gorgeous of illumination, the ultimate manifestation of what makes our planet. I only knew the noon sun of weekends, hence my observation.

A sunny day also meant a warm day. I recently experienced one of those deceiving late March days, up here, far away from home. It was gorgeous out; the noon sun is beautiful everywhere. Liquid shimmers of melting ice peppered the sidewalk and the fuzz of budding trees invited people to touch. It was the same kind of sun that I always imagined baked the deep grooves of of the "roble*" tree outside our house. However, it was still chilly out with the wind defiling the radiance. It was a sun-dog spring with everything illuminated and the melting piles of dirty snow exhaling their last chills. From inside, it was still beautiful and a Wednesday too.

When my father said everyday is beautiful he wasn't being saccharine or reflective. He was being practical. Every day is beautiful because everyday has a noon and a high sun. I looked for a metaphysical answer to my father's observation when all I had to do was remember our planet's own rotations and orbits.

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Peace!


*Roble is the Spanish word for oak. When someone in PR says roble they are literally saying "Puerto Rican Oak," which makes no botanical sense. I have no idea what it really is, but certainly not an oak. However, that is what we called it.

Spring Time

Today marks the official first day of spring, and I do hope that we end all this weird winter weather in CNY. I don't care too much for spring. Seeing all the snow melt is always a treat, but I feel my overall "meh" for spring comes from growing up where it is "summer" and "not so summery." The buds of colt's foot flowers popping from chocolate colored loam and the buds on forsythia bushes are all pretty, but I just want the entire place to get to summer already. I enjoy a good July, with sticky heat that shucks your clothes onto your skin.

Below, is a little snippet that combines some images of spring and summer. It has a rabbit in it. I have a things for rabbits. I actually have a very big thing for rabbits.

I FRIGGIN' ADORE THEM!

I think this is another "where I grew up thing," but I can't get enough rabbits. Real rabbits I mean. None of this kitschy bunny slippers stuff. I mean Eastern Cottontails nibbling on ground ivy, jackrabbits outrunning tumbleweeds, and Swamp Rabbits that attack Jimmy Carter! I have my pet rabbit Carson and while he is infinitely incorrigible, I do search for those wild traits still left in him.

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After the Storm

by Garik Charneco

It sounds like a final breath. The gulping noise the water makes when it fills a pocket in the beach house's interior. The tide brings in the water to the cubby holes along the rear of wall of the living room and the space below the refrigerator. Then the tides sucks the back water back out, leaving the soft shucking noise and a rime of silt as the only evidence.

Hurricane Danny just skirted the coast of the bay, but still knocked the beach house off the stilts that kept it ten feet into and two feet above the water. After the storm, the call went out and Sadie was the first on the scene.

Sadie pulls on the straps of her windbreaker, bringing in the nylon hood around her hair, which frizzes up in the humidity. The rental car she drove here is at the far end of the crushed gravel path from the main road. She notices the iridescent crushed oyster shells and buffed sea glass in the driveway. She wants to ask if those were always there, if they were a part of the gravel driveway or something washed up from the sea. She steps over the exposed pipes of the outdoor sink where her dad scaled the fish he caught from the porch. She remembers how tiny the fish where and how scaling them just seemed like something to impress all the kids; all the cousins, sisters, brothers, and friends that spent summers here. The spigot to the sink lies in the fronds of a cabbage palm, a little glint amongst all the fallen green.

The driveway leads to a wooden gate that never closed during the summers. Feral cats walked through it and batted at the little minnows just below the porch. Sadie's mom always called them Hemingway Cats, visitors from the Keys. Sadie pulls on the gate, but the entire piece comes off the hinges, which were held on by only one rusty screw. The storm water permeates each knot in the wood and it feels heavy in her hands. The corner of the gate butts into the gravel and leaves an exposed gash. Sadie props the entire thing against the broken urn her father always claimed he dredged from the Mediterranean. She now sees the grey breadth of a concrete lawn ornament.

The porch held up during the storm and only the emerald fronds of sea grass litter the wooden floors. Sadie turns the corner and expects the familiar folding table littered with dominoes and the skiff tied up to the railings. She sees more sea grass and hears the noise again, the sound of the sea coming in and out. The door to the actual house is open, forced open by a sea swell.

Avocado colored bowls pepper the living room and the ear-wax yellow refrigerator lies on its side. It is filled with brown seawater, that Sadie churns with broom handle. She pulls out more sea grass and the quivering body of jellyfish. She flings that back out into the bay. She keeps away from the area the jellyfish touched while sweeping everything up into a little pile. Silverware, plates, headless dolls, and a mound of Q-tips. She brings all this to the center of the room where she knows her mother would prefer the mess. "Easier to get into the bags, dear," Sadie mutters to herself. The sound of the sea beneath her becomes more rhythmic, a soundtrack to the salvage.

The living room attaches to the rest of the house by a aluminum door. The bottom of it is mottled with rust and screeches against the wood. The large bedroom is divided by a curtain that is still tied to it's hook on the wall. Every bed is a bunk bed and Sadie sits on the edge of the soaked mattress looking for the messages she left in magic marker. She traces the line of a heart, but strains to remember the letters in it. "S and I?" Enunciating every letter and scrawl fails to take her back, instead it feels like she should just get back to cleaning.

Another noise breaks the sound of tidal push and pull. It sounds like a soft oinking, a strong nasal noise followed by a pitter-patter. Sadie feels a swish against her feet, a sees a ball of cotton dive under the bed. She shoots up from the edge of the mattress and slams her head against the top bunk. She winces a curse and then sees the rabbit running around her feet.

It is a sandy brown with a few bands of white intermingling with the rest of the fur. Its ears drag against the floor, their bell shaped bottoms soaked like paint brushes. Sadie squats down and scoops in half circle. The rabbit trashes, kicking its back feet like someone kicking off a pair of flip flops. The rabbit quivers and the wet fur leaves a trail against Sadie's coat. In the corner of the room she notices a cage. Black wires and a green plastic cover. She doesn't remember a rabbit at the house or rabbits by the sea. The cage bottom is lined with wood shavings that clump together around wet spots left from the condensation against the top bars.

The rabbit stops trashing and tucks its legs into the fold of Sadie's elbow. "Did you float over here?" She asks this into one of it's ears. The rabbit continues to coo.

The rear window of the room is gone and the storm left a bare rectangle in the wooden side. The cage is below the exposed window and in the mangrove trees behind the house, Sadie sees more of the wood shavings coalescing around the roots. Sadie puts the rabbit down on the mattress where it stands on its back feet and nuzzles her forearm. The rabbit looks drowned, it's hair wet and slick to its body like an otter. It shivers while standing up, but whether from the strain or the cold, Sadie can't tell. She strips her jacket off and places it on the bottom of the cage. The rabbit allows itself to be picked up and digs its way into the folds of her coat. Sadie brings her arms to her shoulders and tried to warm itself. A sort of fog fills the room and through the window she sees another gutted beach house and imagines the line of properties further down the bay.

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Well, not every wacky combination can be chocolate and peanut butter. Peace!

Water Works

It's officially spring here in Central New York since we just has the first really nice day followed by the first really crappy day! Just two days ago, it was almost 70 degrees and sunny. And today the weather turned to a mix of puffy rain-snow. Below is a picture of Trumansburg creek which runs by the coffee shop I work at. The melting snows have turned the creek into a swollen mess and the picture does little justice to how much water was in there. Local and actually read blogger Jonathan Cook makes it a habit to blog about the status of Trumansburg Creek from time to time. Those are nice, but nice isn't what you come to this blog for anyway, eh!? Yes, that's right. You come for lengthy exposition and the ocassional Daredevil and/or Green Lantern love post. Even farther below is a little snippet I wrote while at work and staring at the creek below. Enclosed water (lakes, streams, rivers, ponds, etc.) always hypnotizes me. Back home all we had was the ocean and this immensity of that seemed understandable. The ocean just was, but freshwater seemed to have to define itself within the limits of the land around it.

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Untitled

By Garik Charneco

Enclosed water. Trapped potential. Jarred wonder. I think we can appreciate all this trapped water because something inherently malleable becomes stable. The lake's geography is just a way of containing those last bits of water too stubborn to follow their kind to the ocean. These streams, creeks, and ponds are the moisture that remains at the bottom of your cup. They remain, no matter how hard one tries to shake them free.

Growing up on an island, I never had much to see in terms of enclosed water. Any lake on the island, I just learned, is artificial, created when engineers dammed rivers. Oceans are too big. They leave giant blank spaces on the map, which my anal nature finds untidy. I realize that I am questioning random geographic formation, but I appreciate when something is defined by what influences it and not the other way around. That seems natural, like evolution applied to understanding.

Trapped water always has some land telling it where to go. An oxbow to the south. An inlet towards the fields. A marshland to blanket. It doesn't have to be freshwater per se. I spent a few summers with cousins in the Puerto Rican Riviera--La Parguera. There are no beaches there, however, instead a necklace of mangrove atolls just off the coast. My older cousins would boat us out there, to swim in the shallows created by these islands.

The gnarled roots of the mangrove trees clamber over each other. They poke into the sand below and mingle with each other. As they grow, they trap bits of sand and flotsam, creating an island. The waves sometimes lap at the weaker ends and create tiny jetties in the arching trunks. People eventually come and bore through these jetties, creating canals in the middle of the ocean.

I explored these canals during those summer breaks. I snorkeled them always aware of the three dimensions around me. I was terrified of the sea urchins that peppered the root balls. My older cousins would pick them up by their thin black needles and hold them above the water's surface. The urchins twitch and the bottom needles undulate trying to find a new grip on the roots.

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Yeah, I don't know what I meant either. Peace!

A thing about houseplants

Anyone who knows me also knows that I have a fondness for house plants. It is important to know that this does mean I am any good with houseplants. I just really like and can't say no to any offer. One of the local supermarkets here in town is having a going out of business sale and they still have some plants to sell. I think I might go on the last day and save them. I would consider this a charitable cause at a 25% discount to boot! It being close to Christmas, the store still has plenty of Christmas Cactus plants left. I already have two of the things and maybe in a few days I will have more. We shall see. I once wrote a paper about houseplants for a nature writing course I took. I didn't include Christmas Cactus in the mix becaue I didn't have one at the time, but here is a go! With pictures too!

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The phrase "emerald necklace" sounds perfect for describing the Christmas Cactus. Flat little ingots of waxy green link to each through frail tendons at the end of each segment. Is each of these segments a little leaf that make up the arm like branch? Or is the cactus freed of any sort of botanical taxonomy?

I think of it as a freak plant, the botanical equivalent of a double agent. The ovoid segments feature tiny spurs along the side, a sort of teeth to each segment. This is certainly quite cactus like, albeit less menacing than the hedgehog exterior of something like a barrel or melon cactus. They remind me of shark's skin and the way that you can get pricked if you rub them the wrong way.

So, that is one point for the cactus label. The Christmas cactus has pointy leaves. Cactus.

However, the Christmas cactus originates from the highlands of Brazil, where it lives strapped to tree branches in a rain forest. Yes, a rain forest. This cactus likes water and droops when dry, a time where all other cacti stand strong. Forget double agent, the Christmas Cactus is more like a penguin. Both defy their genera prototypes and both live in mind boggling harsh environments. And a pegnuin's feathers are like the Christmas cactus' spines. Both seem almost vestigial and tacked on. I am reminded of the dusty tweed jackets restaurants sometimes keep on hand in case some gentlemen forgot the dress code.
"I am sorry sir, but we do have rules. You will have to wear this jacket."
Did the Christmas cactus face such an embarrassing adventure. Did it take fellow Christmas plant Poinsettia out on the botanical town on night? Did it take it to the swanky Saguaro restaurant, where, a wizened Old Man Cactus maitre d' told him, "Ah...um...well...we have rules here and if you want to be with us well then you must wear the spikes. Here, we keep some ones on hand for situations like this. Yes, they are bit rudimentary, but, well, here you go."

However, like a cactus, the Christmas Cactus puts out incredible blooms worthy of the wait. My cactus is just now putting out salmon colored petals. They remind me of the pickled ginger that comes with sushi. Anyone who has ever wondered about how a child can be so stupid to put a colorful marble in their mouth must have never really looked at a flower. The way that the petals on the Christmas cactus appear so complex from afar, but prove silky thin once held only enhance the fascination. The entire plant actually looks quite alien. There is no stem or trunk to imagine. Just a tangled burst of segments coming from a divot in the soil. But the petals are appetizing, fleshy, but still botanical and leafy. The blooms always feel heavy and damp as if just showered by a drizzle. Our Christmas cacti are not ture wild ones. Maybe in the wild the flowers feel much different, because I imagine the feel of these domesticated flowers come from the cactus making up for the lack of rain inside the well-lit homes and snowy window sills of America.

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Really didn't know where I was going there. I think the antropomorphizing was a bit too much, but still just plain fun. If I was going to really go with this piece then I would pick one angle and run with it.

Wacky houseplants living in a world? Or purple prose with lots of big words? Do I want Veggie Tales or NOVA? We shall see.

Peace!