Spring Break

Hi. I am on spring break. I am taking a few days off in NYC. I was going nuts. I had tons of errands to do and mail to open and stuff like that and I am never home and I took some vacation days to get through it all.

So far I've worked out every day, unpacked my suitcase, done laundry, gotten a haircut, filed all my 2008 mail and made a mid-week visit to the animal shelter. This is my dream vacation.

Speaking of the shelter. The very place where I volunteer was on TV on the Today Show. Check it out:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/30009467#30009467

There is a guy that they show at the 40 second mark or so that I work near pretty regularly.

Just today, he saved my skin when I lost control of a 50 pound Pitt. None of them want to get back in their cage. I can understand this. I wouldn't either. I had been walking this dog, Bingo for 20 minutes. He was great out of the cage, great walking around on his leash, when it was time for me to put him back in he freaked out and started biting my jeans and took hold of the leash. The worst thing that can happen is if a dog gets loose. (They wreak havoc and mess with other dogs or people and maybe cats). I lost my cool and quickly shut his cage to control the situation and get myself away from the dog. However, now I have an angry freaking out Pitt with his leash on (chocking hazard) in his cage thrashing around. I had to come find Larry and he saved the day by deftly showing Bingo another leash for a bait and switch and reneging on the trade after my leash had been extracted. It was a skilled move and not one I could have executed. He's a pro.

There were so many adorable dogs today. There was a 10 month old beautiful yellow lab baby girl that is so sweet and won't even walk on her leash, she just flops on her back and shows you her belly and wiggles.

Here's two pictures of my favorite animals today:

The dog is Frankie, a chow/lab mix. He is such a sweet dog, walks great on a leash, very friendly. He is on his 8th day and I am worried for him.



I know you are all on the edge of your seat for this one: Shit Mountain Update is that there are now two baby squabs (a hatched swan is a cygnet, a hatched pigeon is a squab) on the upper right nest of the duplex. The lower nest still holds the pigeon corpse I've been watching decompose for months now. It's a matter of time before someone moves in right on top of Bernie.





Here's another pic of my namesake: Courtney Kelly the baby girl Jack who lives with my Aunt Vicky:

She is a real character.

Fruit Monday persists. I was surprised there were no comments, but you, dear reader are lazy. Let me know if you give it a try, or if you think it is dumb. Whatever.

This weekend I'm off to Delaware for a coed tournament. Should be fun(ish). Next week I am back to Minneapolis, looks like at least through June. Boo.

I am reading Philip Roth's Exit Ghost. A review of that should be coming up soon. Stay tuned.

Roosting With the Dead

Update for you on Shit Mountain. It seems that either the NYC pigeon housing market is just as tight as the human one, or pigeons are not all that fussed about ritual burial. This isn’t the greatest picture, but if you look closely you can see the pigeon that has been ‘napping’ on the right side, unmoved for over 11 days now, and a new SM resident on the upper left.
In an unrelated story, I made it back to NYC after 5 days in Raleigh. I am glad to be home. I saw my parents, sister, brother-in-law and two nieces. This year I gave the girls a Wii and many rounds of Wii bowling and Hanna Montana World Tour were subsequently played. I am happy to report that low-tech is still alive and well. Santa brought the girls each a Slinky and I think those coils were the hit of Christmas. Certainly no toy garnered more attention. I gave my parents and sister & brother-in-law a Flip video camera so look for them all up on You Tube any minute.

Everyone else got a Kiva gift certificate. Kiva is a micro-loan organization that allows members to lend directly to small opportunities in the developing world. The entrepreneur then pays back the loan and you can relend to another opportunity. I think this supports growth and is more likely to make a long term difference than traditional aid, which often begets the need for more aid. Check it out.

I’m presently reading the Elegance of the Hedgehog. So far I would give it just an *okay* rating. It’s a bit of a slow starter with tons of allusions to Japanese films I haven’t seen and Russian novels I haven’t read. In short, it seems to be a bit culturally snobby and I’m more of a Philistine, so maybe I’m just not the target audience. I’ll finish it out just the same and let you know if it picks up.

I’m 23 days into 31 days with no alcohol. It has been pretty easy, though I did really want a glass of red wine when I went to Frankie’s recently with Keri and being around my family was a bit of a struggle. Still, so far I would say that 31 days without alcohol has been much easier than the times recently I’ve tried to go a month with no meat (one success, one failure), but New Year’s Eve tomorrow may present a special challenge. Maybe I’ll take my flask (Blomus) full of water to seem like I’m participating.

Given that not drinking for a month was pretty easy so far, and looking for more of a test, I think I’ll try this 100 push up challenge that Jesse told me about. I'm just getting started and so far I’ve only taken the first test (30) but you if you really have an unnatural level of interest in the details of my life you can track my progress here . Sorry about that, but it’s only through public scrutiny that I’ll motivate myself to complete this. Lynn & Robbie have a friend named Andre that is performing a similar challenge, but with Chin-ups. I think he is a mad man. I am envious of his drive and I will not be picking any fights with him.

I have declared off season cross training offically underway. I've been running again and getting back into 7 minute abs. Some of Ambush is meeting on Saturday for a run, pushups, abs, throwing session and it will be good to shaek off some cobwebs.

Any and all theories on why I’ve had a splitting headache for the past week or so are welcome. I thought it was a gas leak in 29, but my head also hurt the whole time I was in Raleigh and I think they have an electric stove so there must be some other reason. I am trying to cut out caffeine to see if that helps. (No Makers Mark, No Coffee, No Meat? What else is there...? I hardly recognize myself.)

Last night my headache was super bad (railroad spike in the forehead bad) after the viewing of Slumdog Millionaire, which, conversely, was super good. GO SEE IT. It’s an impossible love story and a comment on urban slums. It reminded me a bit of The Usual Suspects and the child actors are incredible.

Speaking of 29 (scroll up, I was. Transitions are hard), no one told Stefan Slywotzky about the economic downturn. He’s raising my rent 8%. I love 29 but in this market rents should be stable or perhaps giving back some of the gains of recent years, (like everyone else) so perhaps it is finally time to move. We’ll see. The thought of packing and getting a truck makes my stomach turn.

It seems my Eagles were just waiting for me to disown them again, to prove to me that they deserved my love. It worked. I am so excited to be in the playoffs. I can’t really explain how we lost to Dallas in week 2 and scored only 3 points against the hapless Redskins in week 16 and then somehow laid 44 points on a Cowboys team that had everything to play for in week 17, but I don’t really care. This weekend takes the Eagles to the dome in Minnesota and I will be yelling at my TV all game.

Here’s another one of those stories that I think helps to answer the question, “Why do the terrorist hate us?”

Today’s Fun fact: 12 – The number of shirts I own with 55 on the back.

This is a bit dated, but here's a pic I took in the Fiji airport and meant to show you back in July but I lost track of it.

Keep that in mind. Happy New Year.

I could be the Jane Goodall of pigeons…

So much more happens in my life when I get to work in town for a few days. It is great to be home in NYC.

I went to see The Wrestler (Aronofsky's new film) last night. Though it seems to draw its inspiration from the 1999 documentary, Beyond the Mat it somehow makes the story more real, by turning it into fiction. The film is intense. I had to watch several scenes through parted fingers with my hands pressed over my eyes. I would strongly recommend the film. The set and so many tiny costume details nail the desperate mood perfectly. Look for the duct tape patches on his vest to increase throughout the film. The van and trailer are depressing enough in a single shot to capture the mood of the entire film. (Todd Berry, who I once accidentally bought a beer for and subsequently, took said beer away from, turns in a spot-on performance of a prick supervisor.) I think you pretty much know the plot if you’ve seen a single trailer, and I won’t give anything more away, but I found Randy/Robin to be everyman, struggling to make our way in the world as who we wish we were, while being confronted at every turn with who we actually are, and while we wait for whatever means we use of earning a living to destroy us and leave us broken and hopeless. Merry Christmas.

In other news, I gave blood yesterday. Don’t forget to make an appointment as blood banks need you this time of year more than any other. I wanted to ask the Phlebotomist about the training course he’d had taken to be certified to draw blood in New York State (It’s a three week course that you can complete in 3 consecutive weekends and I’m considering as a test to gather some input about myself as to whether I could survive nursing school) but I thought he might mistake my curiosity about the course as concerns about his proficiency and I didn’t want to pry or seem rude while he had a huge needle in my arm.

Also draining my very lifeblood these days: the Philadelphia Eagles. I am actually jealous of Detroit Lions fans. At least they knew what was happening early on and didn’t waste all season to have their heart broken by a team that could only muster 3 points in a game against the anemic Redskins with the entire season on the line. The game made me sick. I guess we just don’t deserve to go the playoffs. I don’t know what my second team will be; I’ll hope the playoffs are just cancelled, like the year baseball went on strike. If that doesn’t workout, it’s likely that I’ll throw my support behind anyone playing the New York Gnats.
After that terrible Eagle loss, where they teased out hope until the very last second, I did not drown my sorrows, as would typically be my custom. I’m conducting a little experiment to take 31 days off from drinking. A search of this blog for the keyword ‘hangover’ yields 10 hits, and there are certainly others I haven’t even felt well enough to whine about, which is probably a bit more than recommended. To see if things are better sans hangover, I’m taking a 31 day hiatus from alcohol. I’m 16 days in and so far, so good. No major revelations or changes. One thing I have learned is that what I thought was being ‘hungover’ is actually the sensation of ‘waking up’. I wake up with a headache and a stomach ache every day. I think my body has an adverse reaction to morning. And to beeping. I hate beeping.

Not sure if this is a side effect from the ‘break’ or if I was briefly possessed by an alien life form, but I made soup the other day. A whole pot of it. Celery. Tomatoes. Carrots. Corn. Garlic. Pasta. Oregano. It was good. I don’t expect it to happen again.


Those of you who know me, know one of my favorite features of my beloved apartment is ‘Shit Mountain’. Two pigeon nests outside a window near my apartment that appear to have been built up out of decades of piled up pigeon waste. No other nesting material is visible. What an innovative use of materials to build a safe place to rear your young! I check the nests every day when I go in and out of the apartment. I’ve seen many generations hatch. I have never before seen what is happening now. There seems to be a perished pigeon on the right side of the ‘duplex’. He’s been slumped over, head hanging down low for days now. Maybe he got into some rat baited food and flew home before the poison kicked in. What I find so strange is that other pigeons seem to come and go from the ‘nest’ with little regard of this apparent detail. You would think they might find settling in next to a corpse, well... unsettling, but they don’t seem bothered at all. I’m excited about seeing this other end of the life cycle, since I’ve seen the beginning of the story so many times. I’m curious what will become of the dead pigeon. From where he is, wind wouldn’t blow him out, so it’s fairly likely he’ll just be absorbed into the nest and the next generation will hatch literally on top of him!

A quick check of the New York City weather tells me this: It’s presently 30 degrees and the High for today is 29, the Low is 26. Tomorrow’s projected low is 40, with a projected high of 49. Can anyone tell me how this is possible? If it’s 30 now, shouldn’t the high for today be at least 30? And if the high for today is 30 and the low for tomorrow is 40, then is the temperature going to jump from 30 to 40 at 12:01 AM? This infuriates me. Get it straight meteorologist!

Tomorrow I fly to Raleigh to see the nieces, my parents, sister and brother-in-law. Here’s hoping we have an ambulance free holiday (for once). Deck the Halls.