Monkey Business

So much dreary and depressing stuff in the news that when I came upon the story of the monkeys in Puerto Rico, my day lit up.
The story goes like this:
A bunch of monkeys escaped from a scientific research center in Puerto Rico ( I had no idea that they even had a research center there ) and started doing what monkeys and Puerto Ricans do so well,
they multiplied.
From the alleged ten escapees, they now fear they have an army of a thousand, raiding fields of produce causing the farmers no end of grief.
To alleviate this serious problem, the authorities put out eight cages, stuffed with mangoes, to lure the pesky monkeys and trap them. The monkeys got the mangoes but the authorities got no monkeys. AH But, said the authorities, this is just the beginning. We will now set out twelve cages, full of mangoes.
You guess what happened.
Smart little buggers, them monkeys.
Did it make your day too ?

Pack Rat

Pack Rat n.
1: wood rat esp. a large bushy-tailed rodent ( neotoma cinerea ) of the Rocky Mountain area that has well developed cheeks (!) pouches and hoards food and misc. objects
2: One who collects or hoards esp. unneeded items.

That's me, number two. That's me. A pack rat. I knew it when I was looking for a piece of fabric today to make some new runners for the dining room table and found a beautiful blue and white print.
This print, as I remember clearly, I bought when I was visiting Japan with First Chamber Dance Co.
It is a length of kimono fabric.( they sell them all rolled up and a certain width, all you have to do is cut and stitch ) And I bough it in 1970. So for 37 years I have been schlepping this and many, many other pieces of fabrics around from Seattle to San Diego to Puerto Vallarta.
If that is not a Pack Rat, nothing is.
The wonderful thing is that I still recognize the different pieces and it gives me no end of pleasure to look at all the fabrics and remember where I got them. Sort of like hunters and fishermen displaying their trophies and remembering the day and the fight. Only the closest I ever got to a fight was when a fellow designer wanted the same bolt of fabric that I had my grubby little hands on, and rather than a " High Noon " , we decided, being decent human beings, to split the bolt. And giggle.
Now, there is a lesson.
If you giggle you are much less likely to shoot, kill or maim some other person.
So there.
Giggle.

An old drawing

A long time ago, when FCDC was still in New York
we had a party at the loft at Union Square which was part studio and part living quarters for Chuck and me.
This is the drawing we used for the invites.
It was inspired by a girl I saw in one of the first Summer Dance Labs we did at Fort Worden.
She was over weight and had spectacles that fogged over, but her delight in being partnered was without bounds.
So many years ago.

On Dipping The Fork In The Jam Pot

We always ate the same breakfast, Chuck and I, an English muffin, poached egg and cream cheese and jam.
And Chuck was always after me for dipping the fork in the jam pot, excoriating the idea since it, according to him, was ill mannered and introduced bacteria from the fork into the jam.
Now that I eat my breakfast alone, I always dip my fork in the jam pot because there is no one to yell at me, and more important, it makes me think of Chuck every time I do.
So what is the danger of a few stray bacteria compared to that.
And as long as I still breakfast on English muffins and cream cheese and jam, I will dip my fork and relish the memory of Chuck.
And miss him.

Gateway to Paradise ?

He not him

On the television, promoting some car insurance, the announcer says with great feeling :
You don't drive like him so you should not pay the same insurance as him.

D'ohhh

I can, at a pinch, take the first part, but when the poor ( and very local ) announcer says "the same as him" I want to scream. It makes the completed sentence say: "the same as him does" and even the very local and, I am sure nice guy, wouldn't ever say that.
Or would him?

Good Old Protestant Guilt

So I have been feeling guilty about not posting. Why, I wondered, did I bother to create a blog if not for blogging ? And then I think, but what should I blog about ? What in my life at this point is worthy of finding it's way into a blog.
And I think, well now, I just found something, didn't I.
Anyway, it broke the dry spell and I shall be back soon to blog some more.