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You know that old superstition about cats being able to see ghosts? Well, around 3 a.m., both of my cats freaked out. They came tearing into my room and bounced on my bed, waking me up. Their fur was all puffed out, and Agape hunkered down by my pillow, staring intensely at the foot my bed and alternately growling and hissing. Walter was staring at the door to my bedroom and making little squeaky growly noises.

Naturally, this freaked ME out, so I grabbed the closest weapon (a book) and turned on all the lights, quickly replacing the book with a hammer (I had been hammering things in my bedroom earlier in the day). Brandishing the hammer, I looked for an intruder, but found none. I double-checked the locks on the door and made sure that the windows were secure.

I finally calmed down enough to go back to bed, but Agape and Walter were still on red alert. Their fur had gone back to normal, Walter wasn't growling anymore, and Agape's growls had subsided to an occasional rumble. Neither one showed the slightest inclination to leave the bed or approach the edges. They both continued to stare intensely at specific points in the room; Agape at the foot of the bed, and Walter at the doorway. What freaked me out the most was when Walter's gaze began to travel slowly across the room, and as her focal point crossed Agape's focal point, Agape's stare flickered to Walter's focal point for a moment, and she growled.

Eek.

Gradually they chilled out, and I was finally able to fall asleep again around 5. This morning they acted like nothing had happened.

After a visit to Italy, Tchaikovsky wrote a piece called Souvenirs de Florence. Had he visited Chad (Tchad in French) he might have written a similar piece and we would have Tchaikovsky's Tchotchkes of Tchad.

I developed a new game with Walter this morning.
Me: Pick up kitten, deposit into still-wet-from-shower tub.
Walter: Hop out! Stare up at Andrea, say, "Mrroww."
Me: Pick up kitten, deposit into still-wet-from shower tub.
Walter: Hop out. "Mrrrow!"
Me: Pick up kitten, deposit into still-wet-from-shower tub.
Walter: Hop out. "Mmmr. Row!"

And so on and so forth, for several more iterations, until bored. Really, what are kittens for, if not this?

the world is not my oyster

So my bathtub is completely clogged. I took a cool bath the other night in an effort to fight the oppressive heat in my apartment (and it did wonders). But the water did not drain after I pulled the plug.

Having infinite faith in the power of large amounts of Drano, I went out and purchased some. I lugged the nasty chemicals up my stairs, poured them slowly over where I think the drain is, and sat back to wait. Actually, I went to see a movie, having full faith that my tub would be empty and bone dry by the time I got back. Not so. Now it's just a tub full of water and chemicals.

Thinking if I could bail out some of the water, I'd discover the problem, I started transferring water from the tub to the bathroom sink and the kitchen sink. It drained away slowly, and it seemed like I was making some headway, but then I noticed that water was bubbling back up into the tub from the drain. So, it would seem that my kitchen and bathroom sinks are connected to the tub, and that they're all clogged. Terrific.

So this morning, I had to get up extra early and go to the boyfriend's apartment to shower. This is not a convenient arrangement.

In a fit of idiocy (uncaffeinated distraction?), I left my cellphone at the boyfriend's apartment. Clearly, this thing has me frazzled. I don't know my landlord's number - I programmed it into the phone and promptly forgot it - so I can't call him. I sent him an email instead (using lots of extraneous punctuation and capitalization, to emphasize the direness of the situation), and I hope he checks his email this morning. Best-case scenario, he'll call a plumber and my tub will be empty and bone dry by tonight. But, since I'm in a glass-is-half-empty kind of mood, I'm inclined to think that the situation won't be easily resolved, and I'm going to have to shower at the boyfriend's again tomorrow morning (because I'm certainly not going to work unshowered in this heat, echh). This puts a serious crimp in my plans for the evening. Can I stay out late and get up early? I'm not Superwoman, you know.

I was just remembering the weekend when my little brother, the Coast Guard Academy cadet (now a Coast Guard officer), was visiting and helping me move to my first apartment sans roommates. We were in a black hole, news-wise. No tv, no newspapers, no radio. As far as we were concerned, the world outside of Uhauls and boxes and heavy things did not exist. So it wasn't until late that Monday evening that we found out that President Reagan died and Smarty Jones lost the Triple Crown. Anyway, earlier in the day on Monday, we stopped by a post office so that I could fill out a change-of-address form. My brother, the budding patriot that he was, was annoyed that the flag was at half-mast. "That's no way to fly a flag!" he said, clearly annoyed. While I went inside, he stayed outside and raised the flag to the top of the pole. Later when we heard the news, he was mortified and I was delighted.

Amanda, my gunshot-victim friend, was an IRS operative at the time. Whenever a former president dies, government employees get the day off. After finding that out, she started rooting for Carter to kick it.

after that the floodgates opened up, and I fell in love with everyone I saw

There's this stretch of the PA Turnpike between Pittsburgh and Breezewood that cuts through what are probably the foothills of the Appalachians. (If they have a specific name, I'm not aware of it, and a cursory Googling didn't reveal anything.)

Anyway, this particular semi-mountainous stretch of the Turnpike is surrounded by trees. It's like Babe and Paul Bunyan just tore through the forest to make a road. It would be a very beautiful part of the highway, except that the first few rows of trees bordering the Turnpike are all dead, grey things from bearing the brunt of exposure to exhaust. These trees are martyrs.

hardwired to succeed

So my trusty ol' kitchen timer, which I've been using as an alarm clock for the past four-odd years, finally died last week. Well, it didn't DIE. It can still count off minutes and hours, but it just doesn't beep when time's up anymore. This renders it rather useless as an alarm clock, unfortunately.

I haven't replaced it yet, partly because I'm too stubborn to pay $5 for an actual alarm clock, and partly because I'm in mourning for the kitchen timer (my enemy, my friend. Ah, the times we've had, negotiating an extra five minutes).

Miraculously, though, I've woken up on time every day this week. As the sun starts to come up around 6, my sleep gets lighter and lighter. By 6:30, without fail, I am awake (though in denial, since I don't have to get up until 7). This circadian rhythm thing is pretty cool.

Chalk another one up for trusting one's body.

Google in Swedish Chef.
Google in Elmer Fudd.
Google in Esperanto.
Google in Hacker.
Google in Klingon.
Google in Pig Latin.

I'm never going to get used to this coffee in a bag thing.

New York is so weird.

it's going to be a busy summer in New York...

May
26 - Saturday - Brooklyn Bridge walking tour, 1 p.m., $12
28 - Monday - Manhattanhenge, sundown, any east-west street, free

June
1 - Friday - Animal Collective, 7 p.m., South Street Seaport Pier 17, free!
1-3 - Fri-Sun - Feast of Anthony of Giovinazzo, Mulberry St. between Broome and Spring
3 - Sunday - 2nd Avenue Street fair, 2nd Ave from 66th to 86th St.
5 - Tuesday - Shakespeare in the Park starts! Romeo & Juliet, free, 7 p.m. - Rufus Wainwright @ Blender Theater at Gramcery, 8 p.m., $40 - The Pipettes & Smoosh, Highline Ballroom, $16, 9 p.m.
7 - Thursday - Basement Bhangra @ SOBs, 200 Varick St. near Houston, $5 before 8 p.m., free mojitos 7-8 p.m.
9 - Saturday - Annual Vintage Police Car Show, NYPD Museum, 100 Old Slip Rd., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., free
9-10 - Sat & Sun - Big Apple BBQ Block Party, Madison Ave. from 23rd to 26th St.
12 - Tuesday - Museum Mile Festival, 5th Ave. from 82nd to 105th St.
Stevie Nicks & Chris Isaak @ PNC Bank Arts Center, 8 p.m., $25
15 - Saturday - Apples in Stereo - Central Park - free!
18 - Monday - Annie Hall showing in Bryant Park ~ 7 p.m. - free!
20 - Wednesday - Peaches @ Highline Ballroom, 10 p.m., $30
23 - Saturday - Mermaid Parade in Coney Island - Pride Fest, 8th Ave. from 14th St. to 23rd St.
25 - Monday - (Andrea's birthday!) - The Thing From Another World playing in Bryant Park (free!) - Wilco & Low @ Hammerstein Ballroom, 311 W. 34th St., $37
30 - Saturday - Morrissey @ Madison Square Garden, $35

July
1 - Sunday - Walking Tour: Dutch New Amsterdam, 1 to 3 p.m.
2 - Monday - Paper Moon showing in Bryant Park, free!
4 - Wednesday - New Pornographers, 3:30 p.m., Battery Park, free! - Macy's 4th of July Fireworks @ South Street Seaport, 9 p.m.
5 - Thursday - Basement Bhangra, SOBs on Varick near Houston, $5 before 8 p.m.
6 - Friday - Morrissey @ PNC Bank Arts Center, $25, Holmdell NJ
9 - Monday - Wait Until Dark playing in Bryant Park; free!
11 - Wednesday - Spoon, Rockefeller Park, 7 p.m., free!
12 - Thursday - Gin Blossoms - B.B. King's Blues Club, 8 p.m., $22
16 - Monday - The Decemberists, Central Park Summerstage, 6:30 p.m. $30
18 - Wednesday - Ani DiFranco @ Prospect Park, 7:30,. $37
20 - Friday - Meatloaf @ Madison Square Garden
21 - Saturday - Siren Festival, Coney Island
23 - Monday - The Sting playing at Bryant Park
28 - Saturday - The Roots @ Randall's Island
30 - Monday - All the King's Men playing at Bryant Park

August
1 - Wednesday - The Police @ Madison Square Garden, $55
2 - Thursday - Negativland, 7 p.m., $20
3 - Friday - Billie Holiday remixes, South Street Seaport Pier 17, 7 p.m., free
4 - Monday - Bus Stop playing at Bryant Park
5 - Tuesday - Shakespeare in the Park - Midsummer Night's Dream starts! free - Al Green @ Madison Square Garden
7 - Thursday - Daft Punk, The Rapture @ Coney Island, $50
10 - Friday - Celebrate Brooklyn Festival - Bollywood in Brooklyn
11 - Saturday - Dramatic Reading and Boat Ride, 12 to 1 p.m.
12 - Sunday - Diamanda Galas
13 - Monday - Casablanca playing in Bryant Park
20 - Monday - Psycho playing in Bryant Park
24 - Friday - Camera Obscura @ South Street Seaport -free!

How to Irrigate Your Nasal Passages

...as demonstrated by Drew from Toothpaste for Dinner and Married to the Sea.

Let's talk about mantis shrimp, aka badass motherfuckers.

Called "sea locusts" by ancient Assyrians, and now sometimes referred to as "thumb splitters" by modern divers — because of the relative ease the creature has in mutilating small appendages — mantis shrimp sport powerful claws, formed like jackknives, that they use to attack and kill prey by spearing, stunning or dismemberment. Some pet mantis shrimp have managed to break through their double-paned aquarium glass with a single strike from this weapon.

Around 400 species of mantis shrimp have currently been described worldwide, which are commonly separated into two distinct groups determined by the manner of claws they possess:

• Spearers are armed with spiny appendages topped with barbed tips, used to stab and snag prey and some have a blunt, calcified club on the elbow.
• Smashers, on the other hand, possess a much more developed club and a more rudimentary spear (which is nevertheless quite sharp and still used in fights between their own kind); the club is used to bludgeon and smash their meals apart. The inner aspect of the dactyl (the terminal portion of the appendage) can also possess a sharp edge, with which the animal can cut prey while it swims.

Both types strike by rapidly unfolding and swinging their raptorial claws at the prey, and are capable of inflicting serious damage on victims significantly greater in size than themselves. In smashers, these two weapons are employed with blinding quickness, with an acceleration of 10,400 g and speeds of 23 m/s from a standing start. Because they strike so rapidly, they generate cavitation bubbles between the appendage and the striking surface. The collapse of these cavitation bubbles produce measurable forces on their prey in addition to the instantaneous forces of 1,500 N that are caused by the impact of the appendage against the striking surface, which means that the prey is hit twice by a single strike; first by the claw and then by the even bigger force from the collapsing cavitation bubbles that immediately follows. Even if the initial strike misses the prey, the resulting shock wave can be enough to kill or stun the prey.

The snap can also produce sonoluminescence from the collapsing bubble. This will produce a very small amount of light and high temperatures in the range of several thousand kelvin within the collapsing bubble, although both the light and high temperatures are too weak and short-lived to be detected without advanced scientific equipment.

Mantis shrimp appear to be highly intelligent, are long-lived and exhibit complex behavior, such as ritualized fighting. Scientists have discovered that some species use fluorescent patterns on their bodies for signaling with their own and maybe even other species, expanding their range of behavioral signals. They can learn and remember well, and are able to recognize individual neighbors with whom they frequently interact. They can recognize them by visual signs and even by individual smell. Many have developed a complex social behavior to defend their space from rivals. [link]

   

Man, am I glad these things live at the bottom of the sea and aren't scuttling around Central Park. I'd hate to come across one in a dark alley.