Pam's Tall Tales

Spring Sunday In New York

Every New Yorker has cabin fever. The endless snow has made us hanker for spring, and for the most part, like everything else, we have to buy it in. Branches of quince and tulips have arrived in the corner delis and  crocuses are bursting forth and shivering behind their plastic awnings.  

The snow is still melting in piles across the city and more is forecast for next week. But today the sun came out to warm us and for the first day we could shed our feather coats and pretend that spring is here. The squirrels were out foraging at the UN and the birds were making a racket and nesting inside the hollow pipes that hold each street lamp.  

It was Graham's second birthday. Being biologists where else would we take him but to Central Park Zoo. We arrived in time for the penguin feeding and caught a glimpse of the cities current pride and joy, a pair of snow leopard cubs.

 

Then we meandered around to see the red pandas and of course to feed the sheep and goats. 

 

The carousel was closed until March so we trekked back across the snowy park and snuggled into a booth in a child freindly Irish bar, P.J. Clarkes, on the upper west side for steak followed by and ice cream for the birthday boy. It was a lovely day...... 

 

Minimalism versus the Messy Life: My own take on Chaos Theory

When I was twenty or so I read an article on life-work balance that recommended, “ditch the curtains and tablecloths because when you buy one item to cover another this means there will be two things you will have to clean.” Sage advice - I have been curtain-less ever since.

However competing with this desire for minimalism is an equally intense drive to save, preserve and repurpose everything.  Inevitably, over time, it becomes increasingly difficult not to accumulate a goodly amount of paraphernalia. A move certainly helps to clear house, but, after a quarter of a century in one place, a fire would be better. Periodically, I am driven, by some vain fantasy of “getting ones life in order”.  Inevitably this means a trip to IKEA, where it is statistically impossible to leave without acquiring another $300 worth of stuff, purchased in some futile attempt to organize the existing detritus.

Here’s how stuff leads to more stuff. Take the dogs for example. One dog leads to a second dog to keep the first one happy. Together they produce 2X bales of dog hair that blow around the living room like tumbleweeds.  A new fangled robotic vacuum is purchased to back up to the conventional one so that friends can visit us without dying of asphyxiation. By the time the second dog is successfully housetrained the floors need renovating.  This involves moving thousands of books twice and on the second move our thirty-year old IKEA bookshelves disintegrate.

The book problem

The first dog promptly chews the piles of books while the other develops an insane desire to wrestle requiring the purchase of rugs to protect the newly refurbished wood floor from its claws. The robot cannot cope, throws a hissy fit, and shreds the rugs. The dogs join in chewing and regurgitating the remains, generally on cue, under the table, just as guests are sitting down for dinner. 

When I was younger and a single parent struggling to hold together family and a job with a workaholic supervisor - an old flame suggested I consider a second career in crisis management since I dealt with it (on reflection he probably meant created it) on a daily basis. If he’s reading this now he’ll be laughing and thinking “lucky escape - people don’t change” and, alas, he would be right.  But mercifully with age the concept of “getting ones life in order” becomes moot since three quarters of it is already over. Moreover, somewhere along the way you make your peace with the fact that life does not take place in some minimalist Calvin Klein Home showroom and begin to embrace its glorious riot of messiness. So I am now considering built in bookcases with bulletproof glass doors because the only other solution is to burn the books or shoot the dogs.