danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

Every summer, my neighbor Elke visits her family in Berlin.  She and Kyra left a couple weeks ago, and aren’t due back until next month.

In the meanwhile, while Elke is away, I am caring for her animals.  The menagerie includes two cats (her adorable kittens have another home for the summer), four rabbits and a chicken.  The cats require little care.  They’re sassy, but I don’t have to touch them.  The same goes for the bunnies.  They have their own large cage, and all I have to do is fill their food dispensers and make sure their water jug–which sends water to several nipples in the cage–is always full.  They don’t seem to like being molested.

The chicken, on the other hand, is the most demanding of all.  She doesn’t really like her oats as much as she likes the rabbit food.  That’s fine; I’ll give her what she wants.  But she’s always getting under my feet, and if she thinks I am holding something she can eat, she’ll jump up.  I am a six-foot-tall, 190 pound man, but it still makes me a little uncomfortable having a chicken lunge at me.  After school every day, I let her out of her cage, and she pecks around the yard for a few hours until I come by later to put her back.  Once it’s dark out, she goes to sleep near the back door, and I have to pick her up and carry her to her cage.  She doesn’t fight me, but she does lift her wings up when she knows I am about to grab her.  More troublesome is the way she knocks over her water bowls.  She tries to climb up on them, and ends up dumping the water out.  I make sure to check on her several times day because of this.

I also check for eggs every day.  I never really gave it much thought before, but eggs are completely bizarre.

Filed under: Animals, General on July 28th, 2009 | No Comments »

I was awoken this morning by extremely loud thunder, which must have originated nearby, since the flashes of lightning were nearly simultaneous.  The rain had not ceased by the time I had to leave for school, so I donned my backpack as usual, and over it a poncho I bought at Disney World, and started pedalling toward campus.  The poncho leaves most of my legs uncovered, so from about three inches above my knees my pants were saturated, down to my shoes, and into my socks.  My bicycle has no fenders, so I also sported an elegant dirt stripe on the back of my pants and the bottom of my backpack.  But, on the plus side, I barely broke a sweat over the three-and-a-half mile ride.

I did add a class about ancient Egypt to my schedule, and it is the first class I have ever taken in McCarty Hall.  It’s in an auditorium, and, in spite of the rain, it seemed nearly full.  I dropped the course about America in the 1970s.  I had reservations about the instructor, and it would require a goodly amount of writing, whereas the Egyptology class requires none.

On my bike ride home, after it had stopped raining, I encountered a small boy also on a bicycle.  He said, “What’s up, dude?  Want to race?”  He couldn’t have been more than eight years old.

Filed under: General, Meteorology, School on June 30th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

In The Nation this week, David Margolick writes about two old friends who made a hobby of writing letters to the New York Times, hoping to get published.  One met with repeated success, the other with consistent failure.  Margolick alludes to people “who have spent lifetimes trying to break into the Times”, and equates getting a letter printed as managing to “crack the code”.

I don’t know that it’s really that big a mystery.  I have written maybe six letters to the editor of the New York Times, and three of them have been published.  Two have been about classical music, and another about the expanding exurbs of the Tampa Bay metropolitan area.  I write letters when I am inspired by a topic.  Obviously, I have eschewed inflammatory rhetoric when I have written.  I know letters from crackpots don’t stand much of a chance in the Times.  The Gainesville Sun, on the other hand….

Filed under: General on June 1st, 2009 | No Comments »

I didn’t get a single haircut in 1994.  By the end of the following year I looked like a beardless hippie.  When the urge struck to shed my locks, I didn’t want to go to just anyone.  Sitting on a chair in Linda Fessenden’s bathroom, I watched my long hair fall on the floor.  From then on, if I needed a haircut, I’d go to a friend or do it myself.  The upside to this was that I saved a lot of money; the downside was that I often had bad hair.

When I first began seeing Miriam, I asked if she’d be willing to cut my hair.  I think she did once, but haircuts, in her opinion, are best left to professionals.  So, beginning in 2001 or so, she and I started seeing Amy at The Tease, which used to be in an upstairs suite on SE 1st Street.  Amy was nice, and did a good job, but The Tease was very expensive, and, if I recall correctly, Amy only got a fraction of what we paid.  Eventually she left The Tease and Miriam and I sought a new hairdresser.

I don’t remember how, but we found a girl named Danielle with her own salon called Hair Supply in an old house right behind Wise’s Drugstore.  Danielle is really talented–so much so that Miriam feels free to say, “give me whatever”–and she’s a mom who’s running her own business, so we feel good about going to her.  Plus, she’s not that expensive, and, best of all, she is glad to take a before and after picture each time I go.  Since 2005 or so, Danielle has been the only one to cut my hair.

Last month I had an appointment that I simply forgot about.  I had written it down, but by April 16 I was so busy with papers and tests that I simply spaced out.  So, today was my makeup haircut.  Miriam told me the other day she liked my hair when it was a bit longer, so I only got a little taken off the back.  And, while I didn’t get a shampoo–my favorite part of the haircut procedure–it didn’t cost me anything.

Danielle doesn’t do any advertising I know of, and her name isn’t even written on the outside of her building, but it seems like half the people I know go to her.  While I was there, I ran into one of Miriam’s roller derby teammates.

I doubt I will ever grow long hair again.

Filed under: Friends, General, Musings on May 7th, 2009 | No Comments »

This is a very busy time for me right now, with the end of the semester coinciding with the Spring pledge drive at work.  I had three long papers due last week, and four final exams this week (plus a dentist appointment tomorrow).  You’ll forgive me, therefore, if I do not write again before Friday afternoon.  I have a lot two write about, too, including school, roller derby, plumbing, television, work, friends, books, motorized bicycles, and so on.

Plus, I’ll write about writing itself.  A course I took this spring really opened my eyes about what constitutes good writing.

Also, I’m not so worried about swine flu.

Filed under: General on April 29th, 2009 | No Comments »