A good gauge of your general mental attitude is how you respond to something that happens regularly. When you drive your car, are you happy to see the flowers alongside the road, or are you mad because traffic makes your car go so slow that there's little to do but look at flowers?
In my case, it hasn't been driving (I take the bus) but another experience that's had me saying, "I've had enough!" Specifically, it's been people informing me that I'm tall. (As any tall person will tell you, this is about as helpful as being told your head is attached to your neck.)
If I have a good attitude, my response is to answer their questions about height and try turning it into a more meaningful conversation about family and hobbies. If I'm in a bad mood, I mutter, "I'm 6 foot 9," and I wander off.
Recently, though, I've had a couple of obnoxious inquirers who felt it necessary to use three or four swear words when talking about me and my feet. My response has been a sudden, "Watch your language!" in my best how'd-you-like-to-go-to-the-office tone. It's been fun, watching their faces go from "smart aleck" to "survival instinct is kicking in." It's been something of a sadistic pleasure, making these guys know that something bigger than they is ticked at them, but it's really how I've felt. I've had enough.
This story is meant to illustrate a wider feeling of time-to-move-on-edness, which I think is a literary device known as a metaphorical anecdote. Or would that be allegorical?
I think that Miri, too, has had close to enough of the zoo where she's working, as she's on schedule to be working there four days a week but still manages to clock 60 hours there every week. (The internship advertisements said that students worked 32 hours a week, which would give them time to do things like study.) On the bright side, though, when Miri does get in to a 40-hour job, it'll be like a second honeymoon. (I'll have my wife back!)
This isn't to say that I'm annoyed about everything -- by no means -- it's simply that there are a number of things in my life that I used to endure with fake cheerfulness and now I'm just telling people to knock it off.
I have discovered, however, there is one fellow at the zoo who lets it be known he finds my height interesting, and getting snippy is not the best policy with him. It's also difficult to casually ignore him. His name is Zeus, and he's a 500-pound white Bengal tiger. Every time I walk past his exhibit, he holds still and looks at me intently. As soon as I turn my back to walk away, that's when the fun starts. He walks toward me, keeping his body low and sleek, speeding up until... he gets to the fence. Oh, darn, the fence! Then he paces quickly to the left and right, keeping up speed just in case the fence suddenly dematerializes and then he can chase me. From that moment forward, Zeus continues following me, finding the best point in his exhibit to keep an eye on me. Sometimes he rears up non his hind legs so he can get taller.
On Thursday, when we had this interaction, there were twelve other humans around his exhibit, and he was uninterested in them, staring at the wall until I came by. Then he came out, pacing and stalking me.
I know that it's my height because when Jeffrey and Patrick, my two tall brothers, came to visit a few months ago, the zookeepers noticed Zeus stalking them, too, through the whole zoo, and his exhibit does have a line-of-sight view of the entire zoo. This makes his exhibit an odd one -- for a human viewing most exhibits in museums or zoos, it is a transitory experience to see it, like listening to a portion of a song. You observe it for a little while, and then it's gone. This particular exhibit, however, continues observing you.
I've been trying to understand this behavior, and I don't think it's aggressive because Zeus makes this sound known as chuffling while he does it. Chuffling is sort of halfway between a sneeze and a purr, and it's a social behavior. If you want to know how it sounds, say chuffle" five times quickly while poofing out your cheeks like Louis Armstrong. Zeus' brother, Apollo, on the other hand, makes it very clear he does not like me by putting his ears back, growling and getting ready to pounce.
So, what other explanations are there? It could be that I look like a small elephant (food) or that he wants to come out and play, like he did in this video with the zoo director.
This leads me to believe that Zeus is not really that aggressive of a cat. Rather, I think maybe he just enjoys seeing a small person's face go from "happy-go-lucky" to "survival instinct." Sigh. Comeuppances are such a difficult justice to accept.
I will miss this tiger, and I think Miri will miss all of the cats when she leaves Cat Tales, although we both know it is time to leave. When we came to Spokane, we thought that if one of us landed a really good job, either Miri at the zoo as an instructor, or me at a company here, we would stay a while longer. She might get offered a job as a manager at Cat Tales, but we know that the pay is $100 a day with no benefits, long hours and no comp time or overtime, sort of like being a substitute teacher. Now, Miri is going to graduate on Sept. 21, and we are going to blow town like fugitives fleeing outstanding warrants.
We have a minor problem, though, and it is that we don't have a destination picked out yet. Miri has job applications out to zoos and aquaria in the following cities:
- Tacoma
- Seattle
- Las Vegas
- West Yellowstone, Mont.
- Colorado Springs, Colo.
- Pueblo, Colo.
- Garden City, Kan.
- Chicago
- Boston
- Norristown, Pa.
- Baltimore, Md.
- Washington, DC
I'm still trying to decide what my great vocation should be in these fair cities. I took an aptitude test recently, and the testing agency suggested I think about urban planning, which would be kind of cool. One of my happiest memories from being 4 was building a system of irrigation ditches in the backyard of our house in Virginia with my sister. It was the only game we ever played with water that did not involve ambushes and soakings (usually me being the victim). . . maybe it means something.
I have, however, been able to find some other work than just working for the quirky non-profit. I wrote an article about huckleberries, and the local weekly paper published it. Click here:
http://www.inlander.com/localnews/305513576761415.php
Researching this article made me happy because I learned about how huckleberries might be possible to be grown commercially in a few years. Invest in mountain property with trees!
I got to ride my bike through quite a bit of huckleberry country recently, which was a great deal of fun. I went on the 2008 Ride Around Washington, a Cascade Bike Club event. It started in Packwood, and did a six day loop around the east side of Mt. St. Helens, down to the Columbia River Gorge, up to Trout Lake (which, by the way, I highly recommend as a getaway location), then to Goldendale, Naches (where we saw a cantaloupe cannon) and finally back over White Pass to Packwood. Five Ruthfords made the trip, and I took some pictures you can look at here:
http://www.pbase.com/allears/volcanoes_bike_ride_2008
The ride was a lot of fun, except for the fact that my poor wife had to work all the time I was gone and didn't get to do anything fun. But our dog made her go out and play a few times.
Anyway, that's the news from Spokane. We'd love to hear from you!
In Christ,
Thomas Eric Ruthford
1 comment:
Thomas, something I learned long ago is that people make unimaginative stupid comments. For you it is your height, for me my hair. Pregnant people and people with a cast also get the same treatment, though for shorter duration. It is annoying but all you can do is control yourself, and try not to do the same thing to other people.
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