[This article about La Jolla's rat problem won the $500 first prize in a local San Diego writing contest. It is rumored that the La Jolla Real Estate Broker's Association still has a contract out on me. Alas, seasonal rat offensives are still a too-regular part of my life.] © 2009
Several years ago, as part of a kitchen remodel, we opted to add skylights around the house as a way of reducing the mildew that appears to be the karmic revenge toward those who live near the ocean. As soon as construction began, however, the contractor pointed out that we had termites. So we got the termite guy out who wanted to tent us, except that first, he said, we had to get rid of the rats.
That we might have attic occupants of the rodent persuasion was no surprise. It wasn’t long after we moved here that I learned that while the little furry fauna are prevalent all over our county (like the rest of us, they came for the weather), they are happiest to eschew the slimmer pickings of less landscaped areas of the city for the dense protective foliage and abundant food supply in places like La Jolla. Our personal rat population prefers to summer in close proximity to our orange tree, inconsiderately leaving orange rinds on the grass, but worse, having the poor manners to skitter across the patio just as we and our guests are sitting down to an elegant outdoor dinner. One can only glare at them and hiss, Do you mind????? We’re trying to have a classy meal here! (Lobbing a few cans of Rat-Be-Gone into the ivy in retaliation the next morning is not unheard of.)
Rats fortunately don’t want to come into the living quarters of your house (well, most of the time, anyway), but once the harsh California winter temperatures plummet into the 60’s, a rat family – Mom, Dad, the kids – moves in to winter in one’s toasty attic making comfy nests out of your insulation and dining on escargot (a.k.a the snails that feed on your daisies). The La Jolla Chamber of Commerce never ever mentions the “R” word.
Even the county of San Diego carefully disguises its e-rat-ication campaign on your tax bill under the heading of Vector Control. Of course, the vectors are disease vectors - in the case of rodentia, typhus and bubonic plague and most recently, hantavirus. Nothing you want to get. Let us be clear that the county isn’t going to come out and bag them for you. But they excel at showing you how you can smite the little furballs yourself.
In fairness, and in anticipation of becoming a persona non rat-a with my fellow La Jollans, let me state that while virtually all homes in La Jolla have at least a modest exterior rat presence, some houses are more prone to be rat havens than others. My 1947 built-by-the-lowest-bidder-after-the-war cottage is one of them. And some years are much worse rat years than others for reasons I’ve never been able to ascertain. One such year, in my single parent days, I heard the familiar scurrying in my attic and worse, the gnawing. If there’s one sound I hate, it’s gnawing. Lying awake at 3 a.m., I was consumed with curiosity. “What are they eating up there?” Of course, what I feared was that it was my wiring but it definitely had more of a beam-ish sound. Maybe it was actually the termites having a giant orgy? (In addition to being a rat Xanadu, my tiny cedar house with its ancient wood shake roof is the termite equivalent of Islam’s 72 virgins.) But that winter, listening to the relentless overhead chewing that I feared was devouring the investment I had sold myself into perpetual penury to buy during my divorce, I decided it was time to bring in the professionals.
A very nice gentlemen from a local pest control firm duly arrived at my home the next afternoon and installed live-capture traps throughout my attic, and in the abundant foliage around the house, with promises that he would be back daily to check on them. It was all very humane, he explained.
“So what do you do with them after you catch them?” I asked, immediately regretting the question.
“Oh,” he said, “we drive them out to the country and let them go.” He actually said this with a straight face. Unfortunately, he looked like he’d had a supporting role in The Terminator and that the back of his truck was filled with devices I didn’t want to know about. I was starting to feel bad for the rats.
Well, until about five of them were captured in the yard in four days, never mind a few in the attic. I had to be home every day for the pest control guy to get into my attic crawl space which wasn’t easy with work and carpool schedules. Plus, daily rat service was seriously costing me. Being newly re-entered to the work force and earning just above minimum wage, it became clear this was going to have to be a Kill-It-Yourself project.
There wasn’t much internet to speak of eighteen years ago when my local hardware gave me a hot tip about the county Vector Control program. But, happy to see My Tax Dollars at Work, I gave them a call, expecting some big burly rodent-hating club-wielding guy to show up. So you can imagine my surprise when this sweet young very petite long-blond-haired thing named Liz appeared at my door. A more fearless human I have never met. Climbing up her ladder to the cover of my attic crawl space, she gave the cover several sharp knocks. “I always like to alert them I’m coming in” she smiled.“Simple courtesy.” Adding, “I also don’t like rats falling on my head.” This was a concept on which we could agree. We systematically walked around my house, she showing me all the places that rats could get in and ways I could thwart them. An Amazing But True Rat Fact is that they can squish their little bodies through a half-inch high space.
Outside, Liz explained that my wood pile and the dense ivy over my fence were Ratopias, my prolific orange tree a veritable rat Whole Foods. She instructed me to go to the hardware and get them to cut a number of pieces of 3-4 inch diameter PVC pipe into 18-24 inch lengths into the middle of which I would insert rat poison so it would not be accessible to any neighborhood cats. These were duly placed around the property.
But the tricky part was the attic. I didn’t really want to trap live rats since I had no idea what I’d then do with them. (Well, there was that one neighbor…) I didn’t really want to trap dead rats either but that appeared to be the only other alternative. For those who’ve never seen a rat trap, think mouse trap on steroids. And with a snap bar that will easily break every one of your fingers. My livelihood as a clerical at the time was dependent on those fingers. Liz suggested that I bait the traps and set the springs in the hallway bathroom below and then tiptoe up my rickety ladder ever so carefully and set them very very gently just inside my attic crawl space. Trust me, I would never have attempted this without her cheerleader support.
For the record, a rat’s cuisine of choice is not cheese, as one might suspect, but peanut butter - a little known fact that you might use the next time you’re at a dinner party and the conversation lags. In fact, for years after Liz’s visit, our refrigerator featured two jars of peanut butter, one labeled “For Kids” and the other “For Rats”. Normally I wouldn’t confess that there were times I was so irked at the kids for one transgression or another that I was tempted to put the rat trap knife in their jar. But the statute of limitations is passed. Anyway, by the time Liz was done, I was, as my engineer second husband would say, “fully rat capable”.
Ultimately, however, I wearied of climbing up and down my ladder with my peanut butter-baited traps, and even more so, of removing dead rat carci before breakfast. (It’s actually no better after breakfast.) There is just nothing worse than starting your day off with a dead rat, other than the knowledge that it is guaranteed to get better. But the second husband wasn’t on the scene yet (where are men when you need them????), so what to do? I had always remembered the words of the pest control guy that one should never put rat poison in the attic; should a rat may die up there, one’s home would soon be wafting of Eau de Rodent Morte. I was lamenting this with my cleaning-fanatic neighbor Karen who has always been openly, if affectionately, critical of my housekeeping skills. “But in your house,” she reasoned, “who could tell?”
She was just funning, of course. But by nightfall, the spring-loaded rat traps were in the trash, and liberal quantities of rat poison packets had found their way into my attic crawl space. I never smelled anything amiss, but when a roofing guy was up there not long ago, he mentioned that he had come upon not one but two rat skeletons. I should mention that we were on a foreign work assignment in 2005-2006 and I can only assume that the aforementioned decedents had succumbed during our absence. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
I know that there are going to be folks who will blast me as a heartless rodent slayer with no regard for the pain and suffering I have caused countless small furry animals who, like the rest of us, are just trying to make a living. And I will admit that I have had moments of actual compassion for the little guys, most notably while watching the film Ratatouille on an airline flight. At one point there’s a scene where the old woman, annoyed at the scurrying of little feet above, bangs on her ceiling with a broom handle only to have a rodent colony the size of Leisure World come crashing down into her kitchen. I realized at that moment why I have never dared bang on my ceilings. Clearly the Rats Rights League was involved in this film as there were no scenes of the adorable protagonist chewing on computer cables or leaving droppings on the guest bed pillow. Our rats are grievously ignorant of boundary issues.
Now, of course, much of the info my fellow afflictees here in Ratopolis er, La Jolla, would need for successful containment of their rodent guests can be done from the privacy of their own homes via www.DIEFILTHYRODENTS.com, er, no, http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/deh/pests/rat.html. They even have Rat Control Starter Kits and a Rat Control CD, which I genuinely recommend. But in my heart of hearts, I’m glad I had Liz.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
The Draconian Diet Of Dr. No
["Let Inga Tell You", The Jolla Light, published May 6, 2010] © 2010
Olof and I are not sure how much longer we can bear up under the draconian dietary restrictions of our primary care physician, Dr. No*. (*Not her real name.)
We inherited Dr. No from our former primary care physician, Dr. Fabulous, who retired and hand-picked Dr. No as her replacement. In retrospect, we think that this was Dr. Fab’s parting revenge on all the patients who were a tad lax in following her directives. Olof and I might have been among them.
Dr. No (as in no alcohol, no sugar, no coffee, no starches, no fun) is one tough task master. If it’s a white carb (rice, potatoes, bread, pasta), we can’t have it. If it’s a non-white carb (brown rice, sweet potatoes, whole grain bread or pasta), we can have a teeny bit. She’s not too big on fats either. In fact, Dr. No has a personal vendetta against anything human beings actually like to eat.
Let me be clear that Olof and I aren’t rigidly adhering to this regimen. But we feel really bad about it. If dietary guilt lowered triglycerides, we would be the healthiest people in America. But since we aren’t, we’ve directed that when the time comes, we’d like our ashes spread over a vat of cheese enchiladas.
I have to confess that Olof has done a lot better job in the deprivation department than I have. I would never have thought Olof, a ten cup a day coffee drinker, could subsist without coffee. Initially, his co-workers were sending me worried messages. They feared the real Olof had been kidnapped by aliens and a non-coffee-drinking facsimile had been substituted in his place. They do classified work so this could have been a problem.
But the bigger issue for Olof was potatoes. Actually, even Dr. Fabulous wanted us to restrict our potato consumption which was just crushing to Olof who is a serious potato guy. For years, I’d been limiting potatoes to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners just so I could assure Dr. Fab we were really trying. Fortunately for Olof, he had frequent business trips to Dallas which I suspected became frenzied potato orgies. He’ll deny this, but I always thought he came home smelling like sour cream and chives.
For me, it’s always been about sugar, and even more about the rich sensuous divinely gooey chocolate that is rapturously enrobing it. You’ve probably heard that Lindor Truffles commercial: “Do you dream in chocolate?” You betcha. I personally attribute this to my inability to lose weight - all that chocolate I consume in my sleep. The ever-skeptical Dr. No suggested I should consider eating less chocolate in my sleep and while I’m at it, start exercising in my sleep as well. She just never lets up.
Olof and I like to lie in bed at night watching Emeril, a throwback to the days when we were allowed actual food. As Emeril whips up a chicken Cordon Bleu, we will both sigh in almost eerie unison, “Dr. No would never let us have that.”
Other times we’ll brainstorm about how we might tweak it to make it less Dr. No-Way. “Well,” Olof will muse, “if we used olive oil instead of butter, non-fat milk instead of cream, left out the pasta and the parmesan…”
“We’d have minced shallots Alfredo,” I said. “This was supposed to be fettuccini.”
Somewhere in Sun City, Dr. Fab is sipping pina coladas and laughing maniacally.
Olof and I are not sure how much longer we can bear up under the draconian dietary restrictions of our primary care physician, Dr. No*. (*Not her real name.)
We inherited Dr. No from our former primary care physician, Dr. Fabulous, who retired and hand-picked Dr. No as her replacement. In retrospect, we think that this was Dr. Fab’s parting revenge on all the patients who were a tad lax in following her directives. Olof and I might have been among them.
Dr. No (as in no alcohol, no sugar, no coffee, no starches, no fun) is one tough task master. If it’s a white carb (rice, potatoes, bread, pasta), we can’t have it. If it’s a non-white carb (brown rice, sweet potatoes, whole grain bread or pasta), we can have a teeny bit. She’s not too big on fats either. In fact, Dr. No has a personal vendetta against anything human beings actually like to eat.
Let me be clear that Olof and I aren’t rigidly adhering to this regimen. But we feel really bad about it. If dietary guilt lowered triglycerides, we would be the healthiest people in America. But since we aren’t, we’ve directed that when the time comes, we’d like our ashes spread over a vat of cheese enchiladas.
I have to confess that Olof has done a lot better job in the deprivation department than I have. I would never have thought Olof, a ten cup a day coffee drinker, could subsist without coffee. Initially, his co-workers were sending me worried messages. They feared the real Olof had been kidnapped by aliens and a non-coffee-drinking facsimile had been substituted in his place. They do classified work so this could have been a problem.
But the bigger issue for Olof was potatoes. Actually, even Dr. Fabulous wanted us to restrict our potato consumption which was just crushing to Olof who is a serious potato guy. For years, I’d been limiting potatoes to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners just so I could assure Dr. Fab we were really trying. Fortunately for Olof, he had frequent business trips to Dallas which I suspected became frenzied potato orgies. He’ll deny this, but I always thought he came home smelling like sour cream and chives.
For me, it’s always been about sugar, and even more about the rich sensuous divinely gooey chocolate that is rapturously enrobing it. You’ve probably heard that Lindor Truffles commercial: “Do you dream in chocolate?” You betcha. I personally attribute this to my inability to lose weight - all that chocolate I consume in my sleep. The ever-skeptical Dr. No suggested I should consider eating less chocolate in my sleep and while I’m at it, start exercising in my sleep as well. She just never lets up.
Olof and I like to lie in bed at night watching Emeril, a throwback to the days when we were allowed actual food. As Emeril whips up a chicken Cordon Bleu, we will both sigh in almost eerie unison, “Dr. No would never let us have that.”
Other times we’ll brainstorm about how we might tweak it to make it less Dr. No-Way. “Well,” Olof will muse, “if we used olive oil instead of butter, non-fat milk instead of cream, left out the pasta and the parmesan…”
“We’d have minced shallots Alfredo,” I said. “This was supposed to be fettuccini.”
Somewhere in Sun City, Dr. Fab is sipping pina coladas and laughing maniacally.
When An Appliance Gives You Grief
["Let Inga Tell You", La Jolla Light, published April 22, 2010] © 2010
Most of us are familiar with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of dealing with death, but I think they work equally well with appliance repair.
Not long ago, the electronic control panel on our stove went south, mid-meatloaf. Where moments before had been a glittery display panel reminiscent of the Star Ship Enterprise was now the Black Screen of Death. An ominous notation appeared: “Error F5”.
Instantly, I went into Denial. As in, this can’t be happening to me! This range is practically new! It had great ratings! I even went so far as to search online as to what Error F5 was. It was possible, I thought (see Denial, above) it could be something innocuous. But basically Error F5 is code for “This is SO going to cost you.”
Finding out that the first available repair appointment from the Authorized Dealer was going to be nine days away made an easy segue into Stage 2: Anger. Loads of anger. One teensy weensy component goes bad and the entire control board has to be replaced? This is felony design abuse! What was so wrong (caution: Luddite alert) with the old two knob ranges, bake knob on the right, temp knob on the left? It is immoral! It’s un-American! It’s – no, no, I’m not turning down the appointment. But – and here we glide seamlessly into Stage 3, Bargaining - are you sure you can’t get me in any sooner? The kids and grandchild are going to be visiting next weekend and having no way to cook except a microwave is going to be really, really hard. Maybe you have a cancellation list I could put my name on? (Please?)
Like dying, it only gets worse from there, because eventually the Authorized Dealer actually shows up. The kids had been very nice about it all when they came. It wouldn’t be their last visit, they said, consolingly. And it never hurts to remind oneself from time to time how wonderful warm food tastes on a cold rainy evening especially since they didn’t get any. But by this time, Olof and I are ready for some serious bakables. So it was with total shock when the Authorized Dealer mentions that control panels are a special order, usually thirty days. Stage 4, complete and total Depression, slams you right between the taste buds.
But during that long month, a funny thing happens - Stage 5: Acceptance. You develop an inner peace, not to mention an intimate relationship with the pizza guy. Cooking is over-rated. Vast technological improvements have been made in microwavables. You can now often recognize the animal they were made from.
So when the Authorized Dealer calls to install the new panel, you’re almost not sure you want him to come out. Especially when he tells you that the control board is $590 and labor to install $150. More, of course, than a whole stove used to cost. But then you think about your mother’s wonderful cassoulet and about the grandkids coming to refer to you as Grammy Nuke. So you fork over the money and fix the range, assuming this was just a fluke and you’ll have many more years of life out of this appliance.
Talk about Denial.
Most of us are familiar with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of dealing with death, but I think they work equally well with appliance repair.
Not long ago, the electronic control panel on our stove went south, mid-meatloaf. Where moments before had been a glittery display panel reminiscent of the Star Ship Enterprise was now the Black Screen of Death. An ominous notation appeared: “Error F5”.
Instantly, I went into Denial. As in, this can’t be happening to me! This range is practically new! It had great ratings! I even went so far as to search online as to what Error F5 was. It was possible, I thought (see Denial, above) it could be something innocuous. But basically Error F5 is code for “This is SO going to cost you.”
Finding out that the first available repair appointment from the Authorized Dealer was going to be nine days away made an easy segue into Stage 2: Anger. Loads of anger. One teensy weensy component goes bad and the entire control board has to be replaced? This is felony design abuse! What was so wrong (caution: Luddite alert) with the old two knob ranges, bake knob on the right, temp knob on the left? It is immoral! It’s un-American! It’s – no, no, I’m not turning down the appointment. But – and here we glide seamlessly into Stage 3, Bargaining - are you sure you can’t get me in any sooner? The kids and grandchild are going to be visiting next weekend and having no way to cook except a microwave is going to be really, really hard. Maybe you have a cancellation list I could put my name on? (Please?)
Like dying, it only gets worse from there, because eventually the Authorized Dealer actually shows up. The kids had been very nice about it all when they came. It wouldn’t be their last visit, they said, consolingly. And it never hurts to remind oneself from time to time how wonderful warm food tastes on a cold rainy evening especially since they didn’t get any. But by this time, Olof and I are ready for some serious bakables. So it was with total shock when the Authorized Dealer mentions that control panels are a special order, usually thirty days. Stage 4, complete and total Depression, slams you right between the taste buds.
But during that long month, a funny thing happens - Stage 5: Acceptance. You develop an inner peace, not to mention an intimate relationship with the pizza guy. Cooking is over-rated. Vast technological improvements have been made in microwavables. You can now often recognize the animal they were made from.
So when the Authorized Dealer calls to install the new panel, you’re almost not sure you want him to come out. Especially when he tells you that the control board is $590 and labor to install $150. More, of course, than a whole stove used to cost. But then you think about your mother’s wonderful cassoulet and about the grandkids coming to refer to you as Grammy Nuke. So you fork over the money and fix the range, assuming this was just a fluke and you’ll have many more years of life out of this appliance.
Talk about Denial.
I Was A Mistress Of Both Tiger AND Jesse
[This column was submitted for the April 8, 2010 issue of the La Jolla Light but was rejected as being inappropriate for a family newspaper. Further, it would be coming out the week after Easter when there would be lots of coverage of "chicks and bunnies" - a bad fit, in their view. A more bunny-friendly column about family pets was submitted in its place.] © 2010
You cannot begin to know the minutes of anguish with which I have struggled with this decision, but the public has a right to know. I have been a mistress of both Tiger AND Jesse.
Yes, it’s true. My reasons for coming forward are varied, but they mostly include a hope for my 2.5 seconds of fame and, of course, one-upping all those other bimbos.
I tried to get Gloria Allred to represent me but alas, I didn’t save any of my text messages. Gloria says you should ALWAYS save your text messages as you never know when you might want to blackmail someone. So you’re just going to have to take my word for it.
Mistressing to the rich and famous has, alas, become a hugely competitive field and frankly, all sorts of tattooed trailer trash have been littering it up. I am not like them. All of my tats are of the Virgin Mary.
What really hurts my feelings about all this is that Tiger and Jesse and the entire defensive line of the San Diego Chargers and I really had something special. So when I saw that they were involved with so many other women, I was shocked. And I demand a personal apology. Because even though I have more artificial parts than Artoo-Detoo, I still have feelings.
And yes, I knew that all twenty-seven of them were married. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a girl to expect a celebrity to leave his beautiful successful wife for someone with a third grade education and sporadically-treated STDs.
I know that now that I have admitted to carnital relations with Tiger and Jesse that the paparazzi will be camped outside my door. Fortunately, I have my publicity stills ready to hand out, including the modeling shots I did for the Hooters “Silicon Vallies” calendar. Since Gloria won’t represent me, my sister’s husband/cousin Clive who runs a restaurant fry-oil disposal business has agreed to be my manager. All offers pre-accepted.
I also want to reply in advance to all those nasty people who will post cruel things about me on radaronline. I’m a person just like you, only with no standards whatsoever. And even though I’m currently mad at Tiger and Jesse, they are just like you and me too, except with more money than Croesus and egos the size of the Grand Canyon. Not to mention stratospherically stupid that they think that in this electronic age, they can have affairs and send text messages and not get outed. Maybe too much sex kills brain cells. The AMA should investigate this.
So, that’s my story. Look for my distraught-looking photo on the front page of your nearest tabloid. And if you’ve got a reality show in the works, I’m in.
You cannot begin to know the minutes of anguish with which I have struggled with this decision, but the public has a right to know. I have been a mistress of both Tiger AND Jesse.
Yes, it’s true. My reasons for coming forward are varied, but they mostly include a hope for my 2.5 seconds of fame and, of course, one-upping all those other bimbos.
I tried to get Gloria Allred to represent me but alas, I didn’t save any of my text messages. Gloria says you should ALWAYS save your text messages as you never know when you might want to blackmail someone. So you’re just going to have to take my word for it.
Mistressing to the rich and famous has, alas, become a hugely competitive field and frankly, all sorts of tattooed trailer trash have been littering it up. I am not like them. All of my tats are of the Virgin Mary.
What really hurts my feelings about all this is that Tiger and Jesse and the entire defensive line of the San Diego Chargers and I really had something special. So when I saw that they were involved with so many other women, I was shocked. And I demand a personal apology. Because even though I have more artificial parts than Artoo-Detoo, I still have feelings.
And yes, I knew that all twenty-seven of them were married. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a girl to expect a celebrity to leave his beautiful successful wife for someone with a third grade education and sporadically-treated STDs.
I know that now that I have admitted to carnital relations with Tiger and Jesse that the paparazzi will be camped outside my door. Fortunately, I have my publicity stills ready to hand out, including the modeling shots I did for the Hooters “Silicon Vallies” calendar. Since Gloria won’t represent me, my sister’s husband/cousin Clive who runs a restaurant fry-oil disposal business has agreed to be my manager. All offers pre-accepted.
I also want to reply in advance to all those nasty people who will post cruel things about me on radaronline. I’m a person just like you, only with no standards whatsoever. And even though I’m currently mad at Tiger and Jesse, they are just like you and me too, except with more money than Croesus and egos the size of the Grand Canyon. Not to mention stratospherically stupid that they think that in this electronic age, they can have affairs and send text messages and not get outed. Maybe too much sex kills brain cells. The AMA should investigate this.
So, that’s my story. Look for my distraught-looking photo on the front page of your nearest tabloid. And if you’ve got a reality show in the works, I’m in.
It's For The Birds - Really
["Let Inga Tell You", La Jolla Light, published April 8, 2010, to replace the rejected "I Was A Mistress Of Both Tiger AND Jesse" column] © 2010
If I had one piece of advice for parents, it is to never let your kids get pets with a life expectancy greater than you.
We know of what we speak.
When our son Rory was nine, he begged for a cockatiel. Actually, he begged for a boa constrictor or a dachshund but given the Mom reptilian aversion factor and sibling’s allergies, neither of those were happening. I also wasn’t sure I trusted Rory not to try to feed his brother to the snake. Although if boas would eat goldfish, we could have had a negotiation.
Shortly after my first husband and I separated, the kids arrived home from a weekend visit holding a plastic bag with three goldfish.
“Look, Mommy! Daddy bought us pets! This one is Lucky, that one is Tucky, and the little one is Ducky!”
“How nice of Daddy!” I exclaimed, sending psycho-radioactive darts in Dad’s direction. “But where is Lucky, Ducky, and Tucky’s bowl?”
“The pet store has lots of choose from,” said my ex, beating a hasty retreat. So he got credit for “pets” ($.39 outlay), and Mom forked out $20 for the bowl, toys, food. The kids lost interest in them in four minutes flat, but it was ten years before one of the fish finally passed away. (“I hope it wasn’t Lucky,” said my second husband, Olof, at the time.)
“So,” I said to the nice lady at the Village Pet Shop, as I arrived on Christmas Eve to pick up our first cockatiel. “How long do these birds live?”
“Oh,” she said, “twenty years. Sometimes thirty.”
THIRTY YEARS????
Dinky, the Christmas bird, was the first of many cockatiels who would come into our lives, subsequently joined by Slinky, Twinkie and a boatload of other “inkies”. Rory liked to hang out after school at the pet shop where they would have him try to tame the birds that were too unfriendly to sell. A natural bird whisperer, Rory was universally successful, and in the process developed an attachment to the bird which we would invariably end up buying. Olof mumbled about our becoming an avian social service agency. “It was an unsalable bird!” he’d gripe. Ultimately the kids outgrew perseverative “inky” and “ucky” pet names. Good thing, as we were pretty much down to Stinky and Sucky.
Just as the tame bird population flying around the house began to create a health hazard that the cleaning lady perceptively termed “too much caca”, Rory decided to expand into bird breeding which required an outdoor aviary where the birds could fly freely. That succeeded waaaaay too well. Threatened with an exponentially expanding bird population, we finally wrested the nesting box (without which they won't mate) from the cage, thus alleviating Olof’s true-life nightmare of our own personal Hitchcock movie.
Rory, now 32, left for college some fifteen years ago and is married to a cat person in Santa Cruz. We, however, still have most of the birds. Will they really live thirty years? Or will it just seem that way? In truth, we’re pretty attached to them. They recognize our car engines, they whistle with Olof, they chirp with joy when we come out to feed them in the morning . A suggestion last week to our younger son in L.A. that the birds might wish to relocate to the nice sunny back yard of their newly purchased home brought an almost instantaneous reply from our daughter- in- law: DO NOT EVEN THINK IT. Um, OK, that was pretty clear.
Looks like we’re leaving these birds a bequest in our will.
If I had one piece of advice for parents, it is to never let your kids get pets with a life expectancy greater than you.
We know of what we speak.
When our son Rory was nine, he begged for a cockatiel. Actually, he begged for a boa constrictor or a dachshund but given the Mom reptilian aversion factor and sibling’s allergies, neither of those were happening. I also wasn’t sure I trusted Rory not to try to feed his brother to the snake. Although if boas would eat goldfish, we could have had a negotiation.
Shortly after my first husband and I separated, the kids arrived home from a weekend visit holding a plastic bag with three goldfish.
“Look, Mommy! Daddy bought us pets! This one is Lucky, that one is Tucky, and the little one is Ducky!”
“How nice of Daddy!” I exclaimed, sending psycho-radioactive darts in Dad’s direction. “But where is Lucky, Ducky, and Tucky’s bowl?”
“The pet store has lots of choose from,” said my ex, beating a hasty retreat. So he got credit for “pets” ($.39 outlay), and Mom forked out $20 for the bowl, toys, food. The kids lost interest in them in four minutes flat, but it was ten years before one of the fish finally passed away. (“I hope it wasn’t Lucky,” said my second husband, Olof, at the time.)
“So,” I said to the nice lady at the Village Pet Shop, as I arrived on Christmas Eve to pick up our first cockatiel. “How long do these birds live?”
“Oh,” she said, “twenty years. Sometimes thirty.”
THIRTY YEARS????
Dinky, the Christmas bird, was the first of many cockatiels who would come into our lives, subsequently joined by Slinky, Twinkie and a boatload of other “inkies”. Rory liked to hang out after school at the pet shop where they would have him try to tame the birds that were too unfriendly to sell. A natural bird whisperer, Rory was universally successful, and in the process developed an attachment to the bird which we would invariably end up buying. Olof mumbled about our becoming an avian social service agency. “It was an unsalable bird!” he’d gripe. Ultimately the kids outgrew perseverative “inky” and “ucky” pet names. Good thing, as we were pretty much down to Stinky and Sucky.
Just as the tame bird population flying around the house began to create a health hazard that the cleaning lady perceptively termed “too much caca”, Rory decided to expand into bird breeding which required an outdoor aviary where the birds could fly freely. That succeeded waaaaay too well. Threatened with an exponentially expanding bird population, we finally wrested the nesting box (without which they won't mate) from the cage, thus alleviating Olof’s true-life nightmare of our own personal Hitchcock movie.
Rory, now 32, left for college some fifteen years ago and is married to a cat person in Santa Cruz. We, however, still have most of the birds. Will they really live thirty years? Or will it just seem that way? In truth, we’re pretty attached to them. They recognize our car engines, they whistle with Olof, they chirp with joy when we come out to feed them in the morning . A suggestion last week to our younger son in L.A. that the birds might wish to relocate to the nice sunny back yard of their newly purchased home brought an almost instantaneous reply from our daughter- in- law: DO NOT EVEN THINK IT. Um, OK, that was pretty clear.
Looks like we’re leaving these birds a bequest in our will.
Fear: It's In The Heart Of The Beholder
["Let Inga Tell You", La Jolla Light, published March 25, 2010] © 2010
A few months ago, a friend and I went to see the Amelia Earhart movie where at one point, Amelia asks, “Who would want to spend their lives cocooned in safety?” Both of our hands shot up in the dark.
In my next life, I have it on my list to be more like Amelia, but in this one, I have a world class fear of fear. My older son, Rory, and I were at a theme park a while back watching one of those rides that drops people from 300 feet to the ground in about two milliseconds. I couldn’t imagine why people actually pay money to do this, but then, as I observed to Rory, “I’m already my own scary ride.” I come from a family of people whose highly over-amped nervous systems seem to be hardwired into disaster mode. People who opt for the Supreme Scream are looking for an adrenaline rush of terror. I get that from leaving my house in the morning.
Yes, I said to Rory, who grows ever more grateful he is adopted, there is definitely a genetic element to Mom’s aversion to scary movies, scary rides, scary freeways, and even just plain life. As for the freeways, it probably didn’t help that my father drove like a maniac, happily careening in and out of five freeway lanes at stunt driver speeds, passing on blind curves, and generally making any family car trip a bid for a land speed record. The kids, meanwhile, peered through fingers covering their terrified little faces whimpering, “Are we dead yet?” Dad was quick to point out that he had never had an accident. He was less quick to point out that he had his license revoked for speeding in almost every state in the northeast.
But, as I also pointed out to Rory, that while I’ll never stop coveting that elusive cocoon of safety, fear - like life - works in curious ways. Some years ago, four friends and I had gone out to the desert for a rare weekend off, leaving five unhappy husbands home to cope with ten weepy toddlers. Our bliss was short-lived, however, as we settled in for our first round of margaritas only to discover that our rented casita was also inhabited by small straw-colored scorpions, the deadly kind, and even the odd tarantula. Mentioning this at the resort’s front desk moments later, the clerk could only express ennui. Really hard to keep the little guys out, he said. It’s the DESERT. Just shake out your shoes before you put them on. Worst case, the Life Flight helicopter could have you at the hospital in El Cajon in fifteen minutes.
This was not the answer my compatriots wished to hear.
We’d already paid for our pricey accommodations. The logistics had been formidable. What to do? For some reason, I’d never gotten around to being afraid of bugs (so much to fear, so little time) hence I volunteered to do a search-and-destroy mission. While my quaking friends huddled atop the safety of the dining room table, I tipped back each piece of rattan furniture and squashed anything that moved. (The one baby tarantula, I shooed gently out with a broom.) Finally, one of the friends observed from her perch, “Gee, Inga, you won’t drive on freeways but you’re willing to take on deadly scorpions?” I could only shrug. “It’s not my fault you guys don’t know what’s scary in life.”
A few months ago, a friend and I went to see the Amelia Earhart movie where at one point, Amelia asks, “Who would want to spend their lives cocooned in safety?” Both of our hands shot up in the dark.
In my next life, I have it on my list to be more like Amelia, but in this one, I have a world class fear of fear. My older son, Rory, and I were at a theme park a while back watching one of those rides that drops people from 300 feet to the ground in about two milliseconds. I couldn’t imagine why people actually pay money to do this, but then, as I observed to Rory, “I’m already my own scary ride.” I come from a family of people whose highly over-amped nervous systems seem to be hardwired into disaster mode. People who opt for the Supreme Scream are looking for an adrenaline rush of terror. I get that from leaving my house in the morning.
Yes, I said to Rory, who grows ever more grateful he is adopted, there is definitely a genetic element to Mom’s aversion to scary movies, scary rides, scary freeways, and even just plain life. As for the freeways, it probably didn’t help that my father drove like a maniac, happily careening in and out of five freeway lanes at stunt driver speeds, passing on blind curves, and generally making any family car trip a bid for a land speed record. The kids, meanwhile, peered through fingers covering their terrified little faces whimpering, “Are we dead yet?” Dad was quick to point out that he had never had an accident. He was less quick to point out that he had his license revoked for speeding in almost every state in the northeast.
But, as I also pointed out to Rory, that while I’ll never stop coveting that elusive cocoon of safety, fear - like life - works in curious ways. Some years ago, four friends and I had gone out to the desert for a rare weekend off, leaving five unhappy husbands home to cope with ten weepy toddlers. Our bliss was short-lived, however, as we settled in for our first round of margaritas only to discover that our rented casita was also inhabited by small straw-colored scorpions, the deadly kind, and even the odd tarantula. Mentioning this at the resort’s front desk moments later, the clerk could only express ennui. Really hard to keep the little guys out, he said. It’s the DESERT. Just shake out your shoes before you put them on. Worst case, the Life Flight helicopter could have you at the hospital in El Cajon in fifteen minutes.
This was not the answer my compatriots wished to hear.
We’d already paid for our pricey accommodations. The logistics had been formidable. What to do? For some reason, I’d never gotten around to being afraid of bugs (so much to fear, so little time) hence I volunteered to do a search-and-destroy mission. While my quaking friends huddled atop the safety of the dining room table, I tipped back each piece of rattan furniture and squashed anything that moved. (The one baby tarantula, I shooed gently out with a broom.) Finally, one of the friends observed from her perch, “Gee, Inga, you won’t drive on freeways but you’re willing to take on deadly scorpions?” I could only shrug. “It’s not my fault you guys don’t know what’s scary in life.”
*Plumbing The Depths Of Romance
["Let Inga Tell You", La Jolla Light, published March 22, 2010] © 2010
My husband has always maintained that I married him for his skills with a sewer augur, but that’s only partially true.
It wasn’t long after my first husband and I divorced in 1983 that a friend perused my 11,000 square foot lot and observed, “You need a lover who likes gardening and pool maintenance.”
Please note that I’d traded every asset of the marriage AND took out a second mortgage to buy my former husband out of the place, so I brought this on myself. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Stability for me and the kids. Nice long-term investment.
Little did I realize how fast the place would suck me dry. Every leaf in my high-maintenance yard seemed to have pressing personal problems. And as big a fan as I was of child labor, you can’t really put a three year old behind a lawn mower. (Well, without getting a visit from the nice social services people.)
Meanwhile, my gardener guy was making twice what I was per hour at my entry level job at UCSD. Although every time he brought out the chain saw, I concluded he was underpaid.
As for home repairs, if it couldn’t be fixed with picture wire, duct tape, or hair scrunchies (a grossly under-utilized tool), it remained, by financial necessity, broken.
Except, of course, for plumbing disasters, which maliciously refuse to be ignored. My 1947 built-by-the-lowest-bidder home was one chronic plumbing crisis, aided and abetted by two little boys who delighted in toy flushing contests. Oh, the chortles of glee as cascades of water overflowed the bathroom and gushed into the hallway! Even when I had the kids sedated, er, otherwise occupied, tree roots were an on-going source of backups. I pretty much had the plumber on speed dial.
Until Olof entered the picture four years later. I would like to say for the record that I did not specifically select Olof for his skills at pulling a toilet and extracting rocket parts. But this is not a quality you should overlook in a man.
Olof, who was also divorced and had been a friend since high school, maintains that it was far easier to woo women in their 30’s than it had been the first time around when they were less interested in his prowess with a pipe wrench and more interested in romance.
When you’re a thirty-five year old single women with two little kids and The House From Hell, it’s amazing how fast the definition of romance changes.
Of course, Olof had many other attributes besides plumbing skills. He was positively dazzling with wood glue. One weekend when the boys were eight and ten, we returned from a brief walk to find the louvered door between the kitchen and TV room suddenly louver-less. The kids insisted that they had been quietly watching TV when the door spontaneously disintegrated. Scared the daylights out of them, they said. Any suggestion that one kid might have been chasing the other and the first one had thrown his weight into one side of the door while the other crashed into from the other side were met with looks of stunned incredulity. But over the course of an entire weekend, Olof reconstructed it on a sawhorse on the patio, louver by back-breaking louver.
The “kids” are now 30 and 32 but I still remember the moment Olof hung the door back on its hinges. Because that’s when I knew: it was love.
My husband has always maintained that I married him for his skills with a sewer augur, but that’s only partially true.
It wasn’t long after my first husband and I divorced in 1983 that a friend perused my 11,000 square foot lot and observed, “You need a lover who likes gardening and pool maintenance.”
Please note that I’d traded every asset of the marriage AND took out a second mortgage to buy my former husband out of the place, so I brought this on myself. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Stability for me and the kids. Nice long-term investment.
Little did I realize how fast the place would suck me dry. Every leaf in my high-maintenance yard seemed to have pressing personal problems. And as big a fan as I was of child labor, you can’t really put a three year old behind a lawn mower. (Well, without getting a visit from the nice social services people.)
Meanwhile, my gardener guy was making twice what I was per hour at my entry level job at UCSD. Although every time he brought out the chain saw, I concluded he was underpaid.
As for home repairs, if it couldn’t be fixed with picture wire, duct tape, or hair scrunchies (a grossly under-utilized tool), it remained, by financial necessity, broken.
Except, of course, for plumbing disasters, which maliciously refuse to be ignored. My 1947 built-by-the-lowest-bidder home was one chronic plumbing crisis, aided and abetted by two little boys who delighted in toy flushing contests. Oh, the chortles of glee as cascades of water overflowed the bathroom and gushed into the hallway! Even when I had the kids sedated, er, otherwise occupied, tree roots were an on-going source of backups. I pretty much had the plumber on speed dial.
Until Olof entered the picture four years later. I would like to say for the record that I did not specifically select Olof for his skills at pulling a toilet and extracting rocket parts. But this is not a quality you should overlook in a man.
Olof, who was also divorced and had been a friend since high school, maintains that it was far easier to woo women in their 30’s than it had been the first time around when they were less interested in his prowess with a pipe wrench and more interested in romance.
When you’re a thirty-five year old single women with two little kids and The House From Hell, it’s amazing how fast the definition of romance changes.
Of course, Olof had many other attributes besides plumbing skills. He was positively dazzling with wood glue. One weekend when the boys were eight and ten, we returned from a brief walk to find the louvered door between the kitchen and TV room suddenly louver-less. The kids insisted that they had been quietly watching TV when the door spontaneously disintegrated. Scared the daylights out of them, they said. Any suggestion that one kid might have been chasing the other and the first one had thrown his weight into one side of the door while the other crashed into from the other side were met with looks of stunned incredulity. But over the course of an entire weekend, Olof reconstructed it on a sawhorse on the patio, louver by back-breaking louver.
The “kids” are now 30 and 32 but I still remember the moment Olof hung the door back on its hinges. Because that’s when I knew: it was love.
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