Journal of a Sabbatical

July 4, 2001

acrid vegetable soul

Today's Reading: Return of the Osprey by David Gessner

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Tim Wakefield

2001 Book List
2001 Plum Island Bird List
Plum Island Life List

Photos:

Buka

Montreal

Raven

Streetlights on Albemarle Road through Prism Glasses

Fireworks

Fireworks through Prism Glasses

Roy decided to reorganize the junk, I mean vital cleaning supplies, under the sink this morning. When I came in all I saw was his butt sticking out from underneath. This is a relatively safe day to do it because most of the cats are still in their cages because we're too shorthanded for a full roundup at the end of the shift. Of course no amount of organization can fit 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag even if it's cans waiting to be recycled, two vacuum cleaners (wait a sec, do we have two vacuum cleaners?), dish liquid, bleach, the galvanized bucket under the trap, the giant wrench we're not supposed to use to tighten the lid on the trap, plastic buckets, and mysterious things we can't figure out the usage of. And that's all without Bianca hiding, Savannah waiting in ambush, Sandy looking for donuts, and Seamus looking for Sandy! Word issues from under the sink that this stuff should all be reorganized into Roy's garage and forgotten about. Well, at least now we can get near enough to the sink to wash the dishes.

Someone has thrown caution to the winds and left the cover off the big yellow bucket. This proves an overwhelming temptation to Seamus who takes a flying leap and lands in the bucket. Louise tips it over to try to get him out but it's too late. As Louise put it "he's doing". When he finishes, Bob cleans it up and thankfully we don't have to dump the entire remaining litter supply. I'm truly surprised this has never happened before. We have had cats leap into the bucket but they've always leapt out again without using it as a litter box. Seamus had to be the first I guess.

The only other cats out are Patches and Blue. Blue is highly visible hanging around Sid's cage wanting him to come out and play. Patches is nowhere to be seen. In fact, for once the community litter box where Patches usually hides has been used and needs cleaning. I think that's the first time that particular box has been used since Patches came here.

Roy is threatening to come to my office at The Knocking Opportunity and spray me with water and diluted bleach for old times' sake. Bob says he'll email me recipes for macaroni and cheese for 2000 or brownies for 3000 and such from Navy Times or Tin Can Sailor. Maybe Seamus would like to be a startup office cat, knocking things off desks and spilling coffee all over the place. But he might not have nearly as much fun doing it if it's not in the cause of harassing Sandy.

Louise takes off for a 4th of July cookout. Bob finishes mopping the floor and takes off. That leaves me and Roy finishing up washing the dishes and litter boxes. Louise put Seamus back in his cage before she left. That leaves Blue and Patches for us to roundup. This would be somewhat easier if we knew where Patches was.

I check every community litter box. No sign of Patches. Roy checks the tops of the cages. No sign of Patches. No Patches under the sink or in the conference room or any of the kitty condos. No Patches anywhere.

Blue goes into his cage on his own and I close the door.

I drop something and bend over to pick it up near the end of the credenza. Patches is wedged in between the credenza, the cat gym, and the cages that back up to the credenza. Patches realizes he's been found out and takes off. I chase him in circles around the room wondering exactly what I'll do if I catch him. I get close and reach to scruff him, but he gets away again. Roy comes at him from one direction and I from another and miraculously, he leaps through the open door of his cage to escape us. Quickly, I close the door. Phew!

All this without breakfast, though I did have coffee. I fell upon my Angelina's veggie sub like a Survivor contestant or something. No time for drive-by birding today as I need to pick Nancy up at the bus station so we can go to the 4th of July/Barb's Birthday party at Philosophy Larry's. I managed to squeeze in a shower and several phone calls -- including one in which I was asked to rule on whether Jell-O qualifies as a baked good for purposes of the family bake-off. The kids want me to go to the fireworks with them tonight after their bake-off at La Madre's house. I say maybe. All that and I still made it to the bus station on time. We missed the volleyball game but arrived as badminton was in full swing.

Nancy talks with Philosophy Larry as he grills hot dogs. I talk with Tom & Julie about the Jell-O eligibility question. Julie upholds my opinion that Elizabeth's red and blue Jell-O with white Cool Whip, although extremely patriotic, does not qualify as baked.

Somehow the subject of Rhode Island came up in Nancy's conversation with Philosophy Larry. Since all matters in his universe relate to philosophy, he immediately brings up that George Berkeley lived and philosophized in Newport. Larry claims that Berkeley ended up in Newport sort of by mistake when he headed for Bermuda but it's more complicated than that. Berkeley's plan to train missionaries and "convert the savage Americans to Christianity" at a college in Bermuda did get many expressions of sympathy in England but the government support he'd planned on never materialized.

In September 1728, Berkeley sailed for America without the government funding for his Bermuda project. He landed at Newport, Rhode Island and bought a farm. He built a house there, which he called "Whitehall" after the English palace. Whitehall still exists and some kind of Berkeley appreciation society is headquartered there. He lived there for three years awaiting funding for the Bermuda project. In February 1732 he gave up and returned to London.

So I'm sitting on a bench bringing Nancy up to date on the results of my Jell-O as baked good polling and eating Julie's remarkable artichoke dip. Philosophy Larry appears with two books on Berkeley. There's nothing quite like balancing paper plates full of potato salad, artichoke dip, fruit salad, rice salad, and the odd hot dog with philosophical tomes on Berkeley. In one of them he describes the shoreline, about a mile from Whitehall with a cleft in the rocks, which became a retreat for writing and reflection. He calls it Sachnest Beach, which gets us wondering if that's Sachuest Point. Even more interesting than his Rhode Island connection is his obsession with tar-water as a panacea.

Berkeley describes making the tar-water with sap (tar) from the pitch pine and sings the praises of how the curative properties come from consuming the pine tree's vegetable soul. I should have written down the actual quote but it was something like the "acid and vegetable soul" or the "acrid vegetable soul" - definitely vegetable soul. That he should attribute the healing power to consumption of the vegetable soul makes sense when you realize that according to the concept of the levels of reason going back to Aristotle, the Sufis, and all kinds of other thinkers, we humans as well as plants, and animals possess a Vegetable Soul whose functions are reproduction, nourishment, and growth. So the idea that starving or sick humans could be nourished by consuming the pitch pine's vegetable soul isn't all that far fetched.

There is, however, no evidence that Berkeley had any opinion on the eligibility of Jell-O for the bake-off. Too bad Elizabeth didn't think of entering tar-water.

With the huge quantity of sparklers awaiting dusk, and the ritual singing of Happy Birthday to Barbara completed, we took skipped the second round of the volleyball tournament and zipped over to my house to search the Internet for a book about Berkeley's time in Rhode Island, which Larry claimed was called Berkeley in Rhode Island by somebody Tipton. We had no luck with that (it turns out it's Berkeley in America and the author is not Tipton but something like Maudet - should've book marked the page). Then Nancy convinced me that despite the headache that's been plaguing me all day, I should join the kids and La Madre for the fireworks. After all, I have to go to Boston to take Nancy to the bus station and it's only 10 minutes from the bus station to La Madre's house if there's no traffic.

Andrea informs me that thanks to my anti Jell-O ruling, she won the bake-off. The polls are closed but I am suddenly informed I have to vote. This means I have to eat cake and brownies. Didn't I just eat birthday cake at Philosophy Larry & Barbara's? Andrea insists, so La Madre cuts me a sliver of Andrea's 4th of July cake - a flag pattern complete with stars, and of Elizabeth's brownies. The cake comes complete with a detailed and illustrated manual on how to make it. Not just a recipe, a manual. I vote for the cake. Andrea still wins. The brownies were perfectly good, I just don't particularly care for chocolate and they were very chocolate.

Then it was off to the fireworks at Albemarle field through the grounds of the Fessenden School and to the hill that used to be part of the Albemarle golf course (of which Kevin was club champion at least once). We used to coast down this hill in winter before it was dug out to build a skating rink for the school. It was possible on a really good snow cover to get up enough speed to cross over Albemarle Road and Cheesecake Brook and end up on the field by where the swimming pool is. I only got up that much speed once. Anyway, I had not been on the former golf course in at least 15 years. There are houses there now on the part that doesn't belong to Fessenden. It felt totally weird to be sitting where the 4th hole was and watching this huge crowd milling around below us. I don't remember Newton having fireworks when I was a kid. If they did, they were nowhere near Albemarle field or Fessenden. We always used to go to the ones in Waltham.

They handed out these weird prism glasses that turn light into rainbows. It was a trip watching some of the fireworks through them. The white whistling ones looked particularly spectacular with the glasses. Others were spectacular without the glasses. I could feel the shock waves from the explosions too. Every time I'd think surely that must be the finale, a bigger display would go off. Andrea informed me that's the way they always do it to fool you. It was quite a lavish display.

I managed not to get bitten by any mosquitoes, and though I brought my sweatshirt I didn't need it. The kids all bought those glow sticks so I demanded one too. I pointed out that I'm still "unmature". Andrea corrected me: "it's immature". Gee and it was only last year that she wrote unmature on my birthday card. They learn so fast!

Back at La Madre's everyone is having more cake while we wait for the gridlock to clear. I can't stand the thought of more cake so have to refuse. When did the 4th of July become a big cake-eating holiday? I showed them the cat pictures from this morning and the fireworks pictures from moments ago. They're impressed with the one I took of the streetlights through the prism glasses. They're also impressed with one of the pictures of Grant, a tiny kitten at the shelter. It's really not that good a picture but the kitten is cute. Anyway, this leads Christopher to ask if the kitten is in a store ('cause it's in a cage) and Andrea explains that I am a hero because I take care of abandoned cats. Now the kids want to visit the cat shelter again to see the tiny kittens. So somehow I have to figure out how to fit that in with everything else I have to do in my last week of freedom before gainful employment. Yikes!

Elizabeth wants me to buy her an expensive birthday present now that I have a real job. I am clueless about what exactly this means to her. I already refused to buy her a laptop for Christmas. If I'm gonna be buying any laptops they're gonna be for me or the Hungarians (tax deductible). Andrea says she thinks what Elizabeth wants is a phone. How expensive can a phone be? I have that annoying tiny purple one that cost less than $10.

But I digress. This is what happens when I am exhausted. And exhausted doesn't even begin to cover it. Maybe I need some of that there tar-water to nourish my vegetable soul.