Raptor Release

Yesterday morning I went to the Carpenter Nature Center, near Hastings, for the The Raptor Center's fall release of birds that have been rehabilitated.


They had birds on display and knowledgeable docents to talk to the (really amazingly large) crowds. 3M was a sponsor of the event, and they were giving out cookies and post-it notes to celebrate 60 years since they opened their facility in Cottage Grove. I snagged a pad of green post-its.

The event was very kid-friendly, and there was a demonstration on the main stage area to talk about DDT and how it had decimated the bird population. It was entertaining for the kids, I think, but went on an awfully long time for the adults waiting for the bird releases at 11:30.


Owls are so cool.

After the release, I walked one of their trails--the Savannah, Trail, I believe. It was a mile long and was pleasantly shady and pretty. (Not that the shade mattered, as it was cloudy, but it would matter on a sunny day.) When I wandered by the stage later, they were doing a reptile demonstration. It was a really a very well-run and family friendly event, with plenty to do.

The Center has an apple orchard as well, and they had hay rides and you could pick your own apples, which didn't really interest me because I don't like apples. I toyed briefly with the idea of buying a bag of cooking apples to make pies with, but the length of the line to pay dissuaded me. But then there was this:

Pick your own raspberries. I was surprised, because my raspberry bushes produce for a week or two in midsummer and go dormant. These bushes, however, were laden with berries, and I happily puttered around until I'd picked my pint. Raspberries have a very short shelf life, though, so I plan to share them with my parents. My dad likes raspberries as much as I do.

Damn

This evening, on my way home, I passed the scene of an accident. There were two ambulances and several police cars, and they had apparently closed the highway in the other direction.

A car had hit a bicyclist. On that road, the car would have been going very fast. I sincerely hope the cyclist survived, but my pessimistic side is saying that it seems unlikely. And scenes like that make me sick. Seriously.

As a cyclist, I am aware of how vulnerable we are. And a plastic hat is not going to save you when you get hit by a car going 60 miles an hour. I don't know the details of the accident, or who was at fault. But I do know that when a car hits an adult cyclist, the motorist is usually (80+% of the time) at fault. On the flip side, I would never ride on that road myself, because the chance of catastrophe is too high for my nerves.

Doubtless there will be blowhard idiots writing letters to the editor saying that cyclists have no business riding on major roads. I can't condemn a cyclist for taking a route that I wouldn't ride. If you need to get from one side of the highway to the other, there aren't really any good routes.

I just hope he wasn't killed.

Update: he died.

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Yesterday I volunteered for a few hours at a book sale at the public library. I was very good when I was browsing, and for once didn't bring home a pile of books that I later decide I'm not interested in reading. My shelf of unread books was largely acquired at rummage sales and library book sales, when the books are cheap and I think: "I might want to read that some time," but then find I never actually do want to read it.

Anyway, I came home with one acquisition: a stack of books that were sold as a lot--nine old novels. I think they're book club editions, as the covers match but they have different publisher names on the spines. The Thirty-Nine Steps was the first of the set. It was originally published in 1915.

The Thirty-Nine Steps takes place just before the beginning of World War I. The protagonist, Richard Hannay, is originally from Scotland but spent most of his life in Rhodesia. He has moved to London, and after a few months finds that he is bored with city life. He is about to toss in the towel and leave London when he is approached just outside his apartment by an American. Hannay invites the man in for a chat, and the American--Paddock--explains that he is running for his life from shadowy figures, and has just faked his own suicide and needs a place to hide. Hannay invites him to stay. Paddock later explains that he is a journalist who has uncovered a plot to start a war, and German agents are trying to kill him. He details the whole plot to Hannay, who wasn't very interested and therefore later doesn't remember the details. That was probably the most unbelievable thing for me in the whole book.

Nevertheless, Hannay returns home one evening to discover Paddock dead in his apartment. He is afraid to call the police, because he would be the prime suspect, and who would believe a story about a conspiracy to murder the Greek Prime Minister? So he decides that he must see to it that Paddock's mission is fulfilled. Taking Paddock's little black notebook, in which everything is recorded in code, Hannay heads north, to Scotland, and spends a month living wild as he tries to avoid both the police and the murderers, who are following close behind him. He has multiple clothing changes, as miraculously every man he meet seems to be about his size; though I suspect that he didn't actually acquire fresh socks or underwear at any time during that month. He also has many instances of good luck, and a few of bad. It is all pretty ridiculous, but fun.

Anyway, he manages to get connected with the right people at the Foreign Office, and Hannay pretty much single-handedly tracks down the bad guys and catches them, with the government merely providing men to support him in his effort.

The Thirty-Nine Steps is entirely preposterous, of course, but was actually a very entertaining read. It was a quick, good, adventure novel.

Drop Dead!

On Saturday night I attended a play called Drop Dead! It's a comedy mystery about a bunch of washed up actors and a megalomaniacal director who are trying to revive their careers by staging a British mystery called Drop Dead! Unfortunately people are being killed for real, and it's a race to find out who the killer is before someone else ends up dead.

Drop Dead! is one of my favorite plays. I first saw it eight years ago, and loved it, so I was excited when I saw that it was being done again. It is laugh-out-loud funny, even the second time around. Fortunately I had forgotten enough of it that it still surprised me. Alas, they took out most of the fart jokes this time around.

Drop Dead! reminds me of Noises Off!, right down to the exclamation point in the title. Both are comedies set in British manor houses, in which the first act is the last dress rehearsal, so that the audience knows what's supposed to happen; and the second act is a live performance in which things go hilariously wrong. Both feature a good deal of physical humor, set malfunctions, and an actress running around in lingerie, though no one dies in Noises Off! that I recall.

I enjoyed Drop Dead! very much, and everyone else in the audience seemed to be enjoying it, too. As is common with community theater, the level of acting was a bit uneven. Most of the performances were very solid, though. Highly recommended, if you ever get a chance to see the play.

MN Rensaissance Fest 2008

Yesterday I went to the Renaisssance Festival, and had a lovely time. I got to hang out with my nephews, which is getting cooler now that they're getting older. We went to see the Dew Drop Jugglers, now renamed Danger Committee. We had lunch, we saw the snakes at the Herpetology display, we caught part of Tuey's act. We wandered through the Enchanted Garden, mostly because my nephew wanted to walk through the hobbit hole. And, much coolness, we saw a glassblowing display:

It was more time-consuming than I expected, but was still really neat to watch. Unfortuntely we did not stay as long as we would have liked, because the day was like this:

I was very glad I'd brought along a small folding umbrella. We kept thinking it would pass over a clear up, but it rained all day. Around midafternoon the light rain shifted to a pouring rain and the muddy patches became small ponds, and we followed the general exodus from the Festival Grounds. Despite that, it was a nice time. I just would have had a nicer time if it were dry.

New Arrivals

Today I adopted two cats from the Humane Society. They're sisters, and ten years old, and needed a home. I am looking forward to the company. Oddly, one of them is hissing and growling at the other, which is weird since they were kenelled together at the Humane Society and are presumably very used to one another. Hopefully it'll all smooth out when they get settled in.

Their names at the kennel were Aki and Brie, but I think they're going to need new names. I'm just not sure yet what I'll call them.

edit: I've decided now. They are Chloe and Matilda.
Or Margo. Or Mavis. OK, I haven't decided yet.

Hopefully final edit: Mina. Chloe and Mina.

Severance Package by Duane Swierczynski

What a godawful mess.

From the back of the book:
"Jamie DeBroux 's boss has called a special meeting for all "key personnel" at 9:00 a.m. on a hot Saturday in August.
When Jamie arrives, the conference room is stocked with cookies and champagne. His boss smiles and tells his employees, "We're a cover for a branch of the intelligence community. And we're being shut down." Jamie's boss then tells everyone to drink some champagne, and in a few seconds they'll fall asleep--for good. If they refuse, they'll be shot in the head."

The packaging of the book indicates that this is supposed to be a darkly comedic novel. From the front cover: "Ever want to kill your boss? Well guess what, the feeling is mutual," in cartoon script. The book even starts sort of humorous, but quickly degenerates into an endless, improbable fight scene in which people keep failing to kill each other, so that they can pop up for another try later. And the problem is, they obviously aren't really serious about killing one another, or they would do so. Swierczynski struggles to come up with reasons why, when you have a gun to the head of the person who's been trying to kill you, you wouldn't pull the trigger. But, repeatedly, they don't. It's like a nightmare Bond scenario that keeps repeating, and I'm sure Swierczynski did it deliberately, but it's not funny or even interesting--it's just really predictable.

There is also a side story about a couple of gay hit men living in Scotland, watching the whole thing over the surveillance cameras. That was kind of pointless, too, and did nothing to actually explain what the hell was going on.

It's also oddly jarring that the characters all keep constantly referring to 9/11. This has nothing to do with 9/11, save that they are in an office building. What's it doing there? If it were one particular character who was obsessing about it, I might have believed it. But they all seem to do it, and it's pointless and odd and totally inappropriate to the situation they're in.

The only positive thing I can say about Severance Package is that it was a quick read. If it weren't, I wouldn't have bothered to finish it. But it was certainly a waste of an afternoon.