roadkill

A shovel scrapes the pavement. It apparently doesn't get it all. As I walk on I hear schkoop, schkoop, schkoop as the shovel digs into the asphalt. Then, a thud and a grinding sound as the Waste Management truck revs ups its compactor.

On the way home from lunch I was startled by the dead possum in the road. Its trunk was smeared into the pavement. Its head, off to one side, hadn't yet been crushed by tires and its mouth gaped, baring a row of white teeth. Good God Almighty, I think, is this how we value life? Is this what we have to show for our $3.50/gallon gasoline consumption?

Then, you think, by some tidy process this will all be cleaned up so you don't have to look at it anymore. But let me tell you the process isn't one bit tidy. It's a metal shovel scraping blood, bone, and muscle off of the asphalt.

Rockumentary

As you know, many cubicle dwellers have a heightened appreciation for the outdoors, especially those of us who dwell hours a day in a basement cube lighted only by fluorescence. So, a few weeks ago, I had the urge to plant a vegetable garden in my yard. The weather still quite cool, lettuce seemed the appropriate start. I had decided to do the garden in rectangles separated by paths, rather than one big chunk. So, I got out the tiller and dug up a small rectangular plot and seeded it.

Two weeks later, it was time to turn on the pool pump. The GCFI switch in the basement tripped and would not be reset. We called in an electrician, who speculated that my little lettuce plot had probably damaged the underground wire to the pump. I don't think I tilled more than four inches down, so this seemed incredible to me. Once we dug up the yard to find the buried wire, however, it was clear that the spot I had chosen to till was not only directly above the wire, but directly above the one spot where the wire lie right beneath the earth's surface.

The electrician patched the spot. And then a big rain came and the switch tripped again. My brother, the ultimate handyman, decided that we shouldn't mess around trying to fix the damaged wire, but should dig a deeper trench and splice in a new one.

He came last weekend and we dug, put a new wire in conduit, put in a new and more stable switch at the pump site, and covered in the trench. The splice, however, he decided, should remain above ground, as burying it could be tricky. He spliced it, wrapped it in a glass jar, and then proceeded to Menard's, where he and my husband found the most fake fake rock I have ever seen!

Yeah, it looks like that glacier just left it here by the driveway. And that plastic sheen, that's just years of sun.

Well, I can't complain, the pump is now working, and I've found another area of the yard - way in the back - to till for beans, tomatoes, and peppers. Of course, our new neighbor, a fat groundhog, lives in that quadrant of the yard, so I'll have to find fencing to keep him out of the produce.

Yes, life is good.

PS

I don't remember receiving assignments as grade-schooler that required parental help. How could a 5-year old, on his own, be expected to compile a report on "anything French?"

I love computers ; } and anything French

My sister moved last weekend. I personally packed her old PowerMac G3 with loving care. I put it in the back of my car so it wouldn't be jostled in the big van of furniture. I unpacked it myself, with a wonderfully satisfied feeling that all would be well. I had to leave before we had time to set it up.

The next day she called to report that the machine wouldn't even hum or blink - it was DOA. I offered a few suggestions, none of which worked. Now, their Internet connection isn't working, so the laptop is pretty much out of commission also.

She called in a panic: her kindergartener has a report due tomorrow "on anything French." She had some French lavender soap. Maybe he could report on France and lavender, if I could fax some information (from my Internet connection) about lavender. "I don't have a fax machine," I said. "And I'm too tired to trudge back to the cubicle to use the office fax machine."

Luckily, I had heard a report in the car yesterday about all the excitement in France over the election of the new president. "Walk to the corner, buy a paper, and he can probably get enough from the photos and cutlines to suffice for a kindergarten report." Problem solved.

But the computer and Internet connection failures? Oh, that's for another day!!

walk, work, walk, eat, walk, work, walk

Coworkers have been trying to walk on their lunch hour and have invited me to join them. I usually go home at lunch to let out the dogs. Yesterday, they said, they walked past my house and saw the dogs sitting on the porch (waiting to get back in and share my sandwich, no doubt). More interesting, they said the walk to my house and back to campus was almost a mile, according to a pedometer. OK, that's it. I have to start walking to work. Walk, work, walk home, share a sandwich with the dogs, walk back, work, walk back home, work in the yard. I got out of the habit with the awful dark winter, but now there's no excuses. Get off my butt, save gas, and get in nearly 2 miles per day.

A new cubicle desk

I am excitedly awaiting the arrival of my new cubicle desk. I changed cubicles over a year ago and didn't bring with me my convenient U-shaped desk with the curved corner for working at the computer, which, by the way, is what I do most all of the day. The new cube has two parallel desks, both of which were left over from other people's moves. One holds the computer, the other is for proofreading and writing. I have to turn 180 degrees to switch between the two.

We've been rearranging office spaces again, and, in the process, the subject of my inconvenient desk came up. So, I'm getting a new U-shaped configuration that will let me spin at 90 degree angles between work surfaces and be able to talk on the phone and access my computer at the same time.

I am thrilled. When you are a cube dweller, spatial reality become your reality!

10 things I hate

(A local publication has a "10 things I crave" column in each issue. I have a different take on the genre.)

10 Things I Hate

1. Packing Peanuts
Free with any purchase in the Pottery section of Ebay.

2. Rats
Under your bird feeder, Peoria

3. Music with no soul - Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, George Michael, et al.
Borders, Barnes & Noble, Co-op.

4. Free-with-Chicken-McNuggets big plastic toys meant to entertain kids for several minutes and then be thrown in the landfill.
McDonald's.

5. All those horrible plastic objects made by slave lablor and meant to entertain us for 2 minutes and then be thrown in the landfill.
Wal-mart.

6. Cell phones.
Sprint stores, Cellular Connection, etc.

7. Broken bottles on sidewalks.
Moss Ave., Peoria

8. Coffee that tastes like dirt.
Restaurants and cafeteria's throughout central Illinois.

9. Super high-heeled, razor-point shoes that prohibit women from running if assaulted.
Macy's, Bergner's et al.

10. I"m still thinking.