Good Neighbors

We hadn't been in our new home for an hour before the neighbors started showing up. I was lying inert in a pile of moving boxes when our next door neighbor knocked on the door with a housewarming gift in her hand. Then the retired nurse across the street introduced herself with all our neighbors' names and numbers written down on an index card. Then the couple directly across from us came over with all their small kids and pretty soon we were over in their yard, playing with their toys and climbing their tree. A few days later the nurse's husband--the one who raises South African turtles--dropped off a box of heirloom tomatoes and acorn squash. I only hope we can be as neighborly to all of them as they have already been to us.

On the day of the move I saw a gigantic black and yellow spider stretched across the back of the deck, her abdomen bloated like a snake's head. The next day I saw her in a nearby bush, smaller and clearly protective of the egg sac she had just laid:
I don't know how she got around with all those eggs, since the sac ended up being about as large as a medium-sized marble.
We thought the spectacle, being so close to the house, would freak the kids out, but a recent reading of Charlotte's Web gave the spider and her magnum opus an aura of familiarity. K. still wants me to move the sac further afield before we're knee deep in creepy babies, but I feel full of neighborly magnaminity--half the fun of owning your own yard is letting other kids play in it, right?

On the other hand, we discovered that the bushes lining our driveway are being slowly eaten alive by bagworms, and this is where my live-and-let-live philosophy gets thrown out the window. We first became acquainted with bagworms two years ago when we came to Elsewhere for a summer internship. On one of our exploratory Sunday walks we noticed two blighted bushes--no leaves, but covered with pulsing, prickly pods like the one below:
Apparently, the bagworm slowly works its way around the bush, weaving bits of leaves and bark into its silk bag so that it has some protection during the slow process of turning itself into something slightly less repulsive. Some of our bushes have had an entire side stripped bare, but even partial damage is readily discernible.
I don't know if I would feel more sympathetic to the bagworms if they looked more appealing, but we couldn't kill those things fast enough. They were surprisingly difficult to pluck off, sometimes taking the whole twig with them, but even they weren't as tenacious as Lucy once we put her and the other kids on the job. Pretty soon our driveway was the site of a bagworm massacre.

I felt a twinge of remorse for our treatment of the bagworms--some of them are probably still alive and lying in a maimed, half-formed state until a heavy rain washes them away. Under the laws of nature they can probably claim precedence since they were prospering long before we showed up. Still, we have an expensive piece of paper that says the land is ours and they were making our bushes look ugly and that is apparently enough of an intrusion to justify their complete extermination. I'm not saying it was wrong, but I wonder whether it should seem normal.

Later that day we were walking in the backyard and saw a big, bright, fuzzy caterpillar slowly feeding itself a length of pine needle. I'm not saying that looks are everything, but we let him live.

Hawaii

Hawaii proved to be too rich a subject for our camera battery--after a flurry of picture-taking the day and a half before my sister Christie's wedding, the battery went on strike and would only take a handful of shots before needing to be recharged all over again. We had to borrow my parent's camera for half the trip, which is why this post has no actual pictures of Christie the bride or Joe, her very excellent groom. (Note to the family--now would be a good time to do that photo-sharing we talked so much about.)

When you go to a well-known tourist destination like Hawaii, I'm not convinced that your photos need a lot of captions--certainly the sun, waves, and smiles can all speak for themselves, and common knowledge can fill in most of the blanks ("The kids rode a boogie board at the beach; they liked it a lot.")


Sage and Lucy met their charming little cousin Ellie for the first time on this trip--a spirited game of tag was not too far behind.

You'll notice that I'm wearing regular khaki shorts in the picture below. All beach trips with our kids follow the same pattern:
1) Yay! We're finally at the beach. Let's go to the hotel and unpack our things.
2) OK, we'll go to the beach first, but we're just going to look at the waves.
3) OK, you can walk along the beach, but don't get your shoes wet.
4) Your shoes are wet. I'll hold them while you stick your feet in the water, but roll up your pants so they don't get wet.
5) Your pants are wet. Yes, you can wade around in the water as long as I don't have to come get you.
6) Now my pants are wet.
A couple days after this picture I stepped on a sea urchin while snorkeling with K., souring somewhat my love of reef exploration. The spines pierced straight through my aqua socks--but you should see the other guy :)


Know Your Relatives: Can you spot Grandpa, Lucy the Flower Girl, Ian the Ring Bearer, and Uncle Bryce in this picture?
Sadly, this shot of everyone's backs is the only actual wedding picture our camera afforded us before lapsing into another coma.

And this is from a cool excursion we took with my Dad to 'Iao Valley State Park.
Tropical Storm Flossie brought a lot of wind and fog that day, which actually enhanced the valley's natural awesomeness.

See for yourself:

And here's some of the usual suspects (including Grandma and Grandpa, and cool uncles Bryce and Bob) overlooking a surf spot on Maui before catching our flight to Waikiki Beach. Pictured or unpictured, it was so good to see my whole family after a long time away, and you couldn't ask for a better occasion to bring us all together.

Daytrips from Elsewhere

Not much text this time--since we got our digital camera K. and I have probably taken over 1000 pictures. I've just discovered that Flickr is holding some of my better shots for ransom until I upgrade to a paying account, but here are some that managed to escape capture:























Hopefully the next post will have some pics of white sand and blue water...

My Time of Day

My time of day is the dark time
A couple of deals before dawn
When the street belongs to the cop
And the janitor with the mop
And the grocery clerks are all gone.

When the smell of the rainwashed pavement
Comes up clean, and fresh, and cold
And the streetlight lamp
Fills the gutter with gold

That's my time of day
My time of day
Any you're the only doll I've ever wanted to share it with me.

-Frank Loesser, Guys and Dolls

Since she was born, Nora and I have been taking quite a few walks in the moonlight, especially during that liminal period--not quite midnight, not quite dawn--when both the human and animal worlds are operating on a skeleton crew. At first I was too foggy-headed to do anything but count the lights in buildings throughout our apartment complex. More often than not, the same rooms would be lit up every night, some of them with the familiar blue-white flicker denoting misspent youth. After I got tired of feeling morally superior to couch potatoes, I started to venture out to the main road to listen to the low roar of distant traffic. It reminded me of the summer between college semesters when I worked the dish pit at Red Robin. Sauntering home at two in the morning, still smelling of grease and bleach, I got a childish delight in walking the dividing line between lanes, all the motorists snug in their beds for another three or four hours.

You keep strange, sparse company when you walk around after midnight. This morning, at around 3am, a man pulled up in a truck and asked me where he could find a convenience store that was still open. I really had no idea. If New York is "the city that never sleeps," Elsewhere could be called "the city that sleeps"--at 8pm even downtown is barren and ghostly. Out here in the country, I've spotted the occasional black flap of a bat or pale hop of a wild hare, but to be honest I've had more close encounters in broad daylight. In the wooded railroad tracks behind our apartment I've startled hidden deer and stared down baby raccoons, but always in the bright contrast of mid-afternoon. Now, in the early hours of morning I hear the incessant twittering of nocturnal romantics, but it wasn't until yesterday that Nora and I met a frog the size of a plum, who moved only after I brushed his hind leg with a twig.

Your thoughts can be surprisingly clear when you walk in familiar surroundings removed of people. You see the same buildings and streets uncomplicated by their daily purposes--things temporarily without motive, things as they can only be at rest. I haven't had any life-changing epiphanies, but my thoughts flow without interruption and I sing softly in the open air. Years ago, when Ian was a baby, I walked him around the church across the street, belting out the wrong words to "Danny Boy." You don't have license to do these things without a fussy baby on your shoulder. Last week I was shuffling Nora around a strip mall when we crossed paths with a street sweeper and its driver. It was an hour before sunrise, light enough to see my pajamas and disheveled hair, but the question on the driver's lips faded when he saw little Nora in my arms. I wouldn't be up this early without a newborn to coddle. Thanks, doll.

A Little More a' Nora

"A Lullaby for Nora"
Come to sleep, my dear little baby
Come to sleep, in the dark of the night
Come to sleep, for I am right with you
For this is home.
--By Ian