various

general: this has been a strange week, but it seems like I keep saying that. maybe june is a strange month, or maybe I am suspended in a strangeness vortex that only looks strange to me.

locale: I am sitting outside under the massively blooming mock orange tree! I just had to go get a sweatshirt, but it's not actively raining and the tree smells really good so I am counting it in the win column.

weekly baby robin drama: courtesy of the cat known informally as the Orange Menace. Once again he brought a live bird up the stairs and into my bedroom so that I could admire it. Or maybe he just likes watching me wake up and freak out. (the robin is fine, but there was a fair amount of early morning slapstick involved in getting the bird back outside and reunited with its pissed off mama.)

sears and roebuck calling: earlier this week I got a telemarketing call from 1970! I picked up the phone and got that big long telemarketer lag, but I thought it might have been work so I hung in there. I said "hello" and got nothing but irritated. Just as I was getting ready to hang the hell up, a cheerful voice comes on and says "hell-o! Sears and Roebuck calling!" He was old (grandpa-old), and sounded just like the traveling fabric salesmen from New York I knew through my old job. (I loved these guys, by the way. They enjoyed telling ridiculous shaggy dog stories that were, at best, 15% factual and I enjoyed listening to them.) I immediately started to worry that Madoff had stolen this old man's money, and now he has to work trying to sell siding from sears -- but even as I worried, sears have been calling a lot lately and what's up with that? I mentioned these frequent calls to mr. hell-o roebuck, who said "we have? I'm so sorry! Thank you for telling me, honey. I'm going to get you off the list." Which is probably also only 15% factual, but I found him strangely charming. I hope he was some soon to retire executive they pulled from the back to help out in a pinch and not a recession/retirement scam victim. Whatever the case, I hope he is able to maintain the obvious joy he takes in his work!

portland facial hair update: Abe Lincoln beards have been holding steady, but I have noticed a definite uptick in waxed mustaches. And unicycles, but that's probably unrelated.