Napoleon Halcyon Alfmeier

I would like to introduce someone very special to me, Napoleon Halcyon Alfmeier.



Much like his days on St. Helena Island, the emperor spends most of his time surveying his tiny domain in silent contemplation. In comparison to his former days, his majesty leads a difficult life. The rational visciousness often displayed in his heyday during the capture of Venice and the Eygptian campaign are revealed only in moments of amusement, but still thrive.



One day he will again have an army and he will lead it in glorious victory. But at the moment, there are squirrels to be chased from the kingdom, after a nap.

Quiet

Chris has started class again (for her master's degree) so its very quiet here Wednesday nights. She's also joined a choir, so its pretty quiet at home on Thursday nights too. I encourange anyone to come over and hang with me on Wednesdays and Thursdays. We can order pizza and drink beer and play video games. Perhaps I will hire strippers if I'm feeling cheeky.

The Flu

I rose from sleep early this morning to the dulcet tones of my wife vomiting angry gobs of dinner into the toilet. Ah yes, flu season is upon us. I asked her if she was going to be OK and received a soft and pathetic response, "uuuh-hunh."

Satisfied that I had done my husbandly duty, I made a move back to bed. That was when I first noticed the funny feeling in my guts.

So from about 2 AM onward to sunrise, I took to the other bathroom (thank fortune for having two bathrooms) and began to imitate the sounds of my wife, chord for butyric-acid-smelling chord.

I just now have finished sipping about two teaspoons of ginger ale, marking the first moment in this eventful night when liquid has actually gone into one of my body holes.

I think we are going to live.

I, Goose Hunter

I went goose hunting for the first time in my life yesterday. It was wicked fun.

I had to wake up around 3:45 AM so I could make it over the Bay Bridge to Kent County, MD by 5:45 AM. I was pretty tired as I simply could not force myself to sleep before 10 PM the previous night. Anyway, I got to my friend Mike's house and we immediately set out for the farm we were hunting. We arrived at a little pond on the farm property where two side-by-side blinds had been built. Several hunters in high-quality, full-camo gear were setting up dozens of goose decoys in and around the water. In addition to the yellow lab owned by Mike's friend Chuck, there was going to be 9 or 10 of us hunting, of which three were part of a family that had driven down from north of Philly. A goose hunting license permits 2 geese per person, so if it turned out to be a good day, we'd have maybe 20 geese to bring home.

Sunrise came up soon after we all got settled in the blinds. Three of the guys were designated spotters and goose callers. Once someone saw some geese flying towards us, eveyone who wasn't a spotter was supposed to hunker down in the blind, cover up with a ceiling of straw and evergreen branches, keep our heads down to prevent the geese from seeing our pale faces, and wait. Once the geese got close enough, the spotters would start going off on thier goose calls like nuts. Actual geese sound pretty ridiculous all on thier own really, but grown men blowing goose-call horns are hilarous. I had to supress my laughter most of this time while I tried instead to focus on the cue for us to shoot. The birds would circle in for a landing as they became more interested in this apparent flock gathered about the pond below. Once the birds were comitted to land in the pond, and were within shotgun range, someone would shout, "Now!" and we'd all pop up through our roofs of straw and spruce and start BLAM BLAM BLAMing away, all in one hopefully fluid motion. Most or all of the geese would fall from the sky and into the pond. As soon as Chuck let her, Stormy the labrador would jump out and fetch the birds from the water. This really great kid named Clinton had some chest waders, so he would walk out into the pond to help Stormy when needed.

The first group of birds to come in were right over our heads and I didn't see them soon enough to aim in for a shot before three or four other guys did. However the second group to come in was just a pair of birds, which landed in the water far to our right. Since I was in the right-hand most blind, me and the guy next to me took a shot at each of them. The one I hit is featured below.


note: the "birds" in the background are actually the decoys

As the day went on, the groups of geese coming in became larger and more frequent. I think I shot one more bird but it was harder to be sure as we were all shooting at the same time and often at the same bird, or at least at the same tight cluster of birds. It was noon by the time we met our limit, so we gathered up the decoys, took some pictures and left. Mike took me to a local game butcher. This in itself was actually very cool. It was basically just a garage with four people working inside. I walked in and put my birds in a bin and made a tag for each, the short guy at the first station grabbed the birds, chopped off thier heads, feet, and wings with an axe, and then rubbed the bodies all over this giant spinning wheel of rubber fingers - the feather-plucking machine. The bruises and scabs all over his popeye forearms gave me the impression he did this all day long. The woman at next station gutted and cleaned the birds in a big sink and I think the guy at the third station was the owner. He did all the fine trimming and packaging all while maintaining a clever stream of chit-chat with everyone waiting for their birds. A fourth guy ran the register and helped out at each station that ran slow. From start to finish, it only took these guys about 5 minutes to transform my dead birds into a cut of meat like you'd see in the supermarket. Defintely worth four bucks each considering it probably would have taken me about an hour or more to just pluck a single bird.

Anyway, one of the geese has been sitting in a pot of salt water and galic in the fridge overnight. I intend to roast it today. I'll let you all know how well it turns out later.

Update: Roasted goose is delicious. It is entirely unlike the dark meat of a turkey like I expected. It is much more like really tender red steak, like filet mignon. I now have a new favorite cut of meat.

Syriana

I just came back from a showing of Syriana. It was very good, I strongly suggest you see it as well. I can't say that it taught me anything I didn't already know, but it did an excellent job of highlighting some of the sharpest points of the GlobalWarOnTerror/Oil/Capitalism/Beaurocracy/Culture nexus. Remember boys and girls, if the supply of a vital resource is in jeopardy, its price rises, they might even call it an "instability premium." Its just the same for oranges during hurricaine seasons as it is for oil from liberated countries. War makes things expensive, peace makes things cheaper.

My favorite quote from the movie, "A country that has 5% of the world's population and 50% of the world's military spending, is a country whose persuasive powers have declined." The implication I extracted from that statement is that such a country needs to be threatening, because it can no longer successfully negotiate fairly.

I should stop there before I get too fired up.

Sydney: Techno-Parrot

So we seem to be getting the anti-biting thing pretty good now. If Sydney bites me enough to hurt while he's perched on my finger, I wobble it around just enough so he becomes unbalanced and raises his head to concentrate on steadying himself. This maneuver seemed intuitive to me, but all the same, I was pleased to later find it described in some parrot books as "the little earthquake."

Sydney and I are warming up to each other well enough, and he seems to like techno, which is a very good development indeed. He seems particularly fond of Garrett James' "Melodies and Memories" mix, which is beginning to grow on me as well (I used to be indifferent towards it). In fact, as I write this, I am listening to Garrett's mix and Sydney is perched contentedly on my shoulder. A moment ago, when I did not have Garrett's mix playing, Sydney was desperately roaming around my body, loooking for some entertainment; burrowing into my collar, nibbling my ears, lips and nose, squawking, etc. I think I prefer birds sedated with minimal techno.

How cool would it be if I could get this parrot to sing techno?

Sydney

This bird seems to think that my ears are made of fudge or gummy-bears or something equally delicious. No blood has been drawn yet, I think he's just working up to it though.

Happy New Year

I have to say, 2006 is shaping up to be a pretty darn good year so far.

Chris and I started the last day of the new year by driving up to exit 3 on the New Jersey Turnpike where we met a Senegal Parrot breeder from which Chris had arranged to buy a bird. New Jersey was horrible as always but this particular spot was chosen only as a geographic half-way point. The exchange took place in the parking lot of a run-down Howard Johnsons. After an extended conversation, Chris hands this woman a large sum of cash in exchange for a shoebox. Unwitting observers were probably waiting for the DEA to jump out of the bushes at any moment. Once in the car, we opened the box to get our first real look at Sydney, the newest member of our family.



We made the trip back home without incident, and in time to get a good nap before Joe and Robin came over for dinner. Robin cooked this amazing apple-cider chicken dish which we all enjoyed. After dinner I got the chance to give Joe a gift I found for him on eBay. Before I go into the gift itself, I need to give you a few disparate facts about my buddy Joe. He's about as white as a caucasian can get and perhaps as a consequence, he has a serious envy of black people. For example, he's said he wishes he were Lawrence Fishburn. For unrelated reasons, he uses the name Septimus for several internet accounts. Lastly, his girlfriend Robin is Jewish, and so I thought that on this 7th night of Hanukkah, I would give Joe the gift of gelt in the form of a Septimus Severus Provincial coin, minted sometime around 200 AD. For those of you who don't know, Septimus Severus happened to be the only black Roman Emperor (originally a General from the conquered lands of North Africa). The multiple irony and significance of giving Joe this gift, in this particular week, made my head swim. Think of it, a coin minted by a black Roman emperor which will appreciate in value, given as gelt on Jewish holiday of Hanukkah to a man with a Jewish girlfriend who also coincientally adopted the same name as the emperor featured on the coin. How cool is that?



PS: I will give a dollar to anyone who can tell me who is featured on the "tails" side of this coin (click on the image to follow the link)

Ok. After dinner it was time to head out to the New Year's Eve Party.

Tom's traditional New Year's Eve party was really fun, in fact, it may have been the best one I can remember. Everyone was drinking the communal spirits and nobody said or did anything regretable, yet the atmosphere stayed edgy and energetic. Chris and I made two new friends, David and Amy, with whom we made a date to go Salsa dancing. Anyway, we left at around 2 AM with Joe and Robin, who crashed in our guest room. I made a big corned beef hash and eggs breakfast for myself and Joe, while Robin made something lighter for herself and Chris. Chatting about the night before, the consensus was that indeed, the party was a hit. The rest of the day has been all about Chris and I playing with our new bird, chatting with friends and family and just relaxing.

Good Times.