Friday Cat-Blogging

Lashing out at the paparrazi like Björk.

Who Dyed This Robin Black?

I watched this sweet little Common Blackbird picking berries off the tree just outside the window, feathers ruffled to keep out the chill (it's 52 degrees and raining). I'd caught glimpses of this bird before, but couldn't place it; I first thought of a starling because of the approximate size and the dark color and yellow bill tucked among the leaves, but I knew I was wrong. A closer look: my sweet, familiar American Robin, turned black! The two look so alike, down to the way the wing feathers scallop just so over the back.

It's the Common Blackbird, the bird baked into storied pies, immortalized in Beatles' song, a member of the thrush family (Turdidae) just like our American Robin. (It's not closely related to American blackbirds like the Red-Winged Blackbird, which are in another family altogether.)

Thrushes are well-known for their mellifluous song. My favorite birdsong of all is the ethereal, flute-like web of sound spun by the Hermit Thrush, which you can listen to here. (Incidentally, one of the most mind-blowing things I've ever heard is thrush song, greatly slowed-down. You would expect to hear nonsense, but instead you hear intricate jazzy melodies, so improbably in line with human jazz sensibilities. To listen, go here and click on "Slowing Down the Sounds.") Looking forward to blackbird song come springtime!

By the way, I wonder if this bird is a little old - check out the white spots around the cheek! Put those tweezers away, Sandya!

Back to It

Apologies again for the long blog silence. We moved into our new apartment about three weeks ago. Our move-in weekend was an absolute whirlwind of activity (at least by my standards): we moved on Friday, we made a day-trip to Cologne on Saturday, and we spent Sunday at a fantastic old organic farm that supplies the grains used by the bakery at the Ökomarkt. And then three days later I left for New Jersey; my grandma is making her US tour (she lives in Australia with my aunt and uncle), and I couldn't miss the opportunity to spend time with her. I got back from New Jersey about a week ago. We got our phone and internet hookup late last week, since which time I've been on the hook for a blog post or two about these positive, exciting goings-on.

But it should go without saying that I've been feeling like crap for much of the last three weeks. I picked up a cold while traveling, which lingered all through my time in New Jersey, and got worse upon flying back. Colds themselves are not a big deal, but on top of the pain and exhaustion from travel itself (the walking, the carrying heavy bags) and the usual difficult day-to-day problems, a cold really sucks. New, mysterious, disconcerting problems (which I won't enumerate here) emerge every couple of days, seems like, whether connected to my cold or not, I don't know. It's all kind of depressing, and this subject matter, more immediate by far than, say, recollections of going to Cologne, doesn't exactly send me running to the computer to blog.

On the bright side, the apartment is gorgeous and makes me happy. (This is a really good thing, because I spend very little time away from the apartment.) We still are pretty thin on furniture, but a trip to IKEA is on the docket. Here's a photo of a particularly glorious sunset, taken from our streetside balcony a few evenings ago.

For Completeness

Farewell, Ladder!

Bonus Friday catblogging: Oscar's actual last jaunt up the ladder to the loft.

Moving Tomorrow

Our mattress has arrived, so B and I say goodbye to our current sublet and move on to our new place (the one with the smelly beech floors) tomorrow. It'll be two to three weeks before we have internet (and phone, for that matter), so expect a bit of blog silence!

Oscar the... Cookie Monster?

Your Friday catblogging: there's a fabulous hazelnut-syrup-waffle-cookie in my hand, and Oscar knows it.

Photography Studio Tableau

We had to have photos taken for our ill-fated trip to the immigration office. I took this in the studio while we were waiting for someone to photograph us. Check out the assortment of props and samples behind Brian: that's right, two samples of butt photography! Alongside a "My First School Day" chalkboard. I think Germans see nothing weird about the juxtaposition.

I recommend clicking on the photo to enlarge.

update from happyland

hi all, this is b guest-blogging -- sorry for the blog silence the past week and a half (and we know, that's two episodes missed of cat blogging, tsk tsk). let's just say things haven't been going terribly well, and p hasn't really been feeling up to blogfully wallowing in our miseries. here are some of the highlights.

- last monday max planck told me that while p can still get health insurance through them, they (badly) misquoted me the premium, so what had been really great coverage at a really great price has now turned into really great coverage at a really expensive price (well, actually it's still a pretty good deal for what it does, but it's more than we need and is at the upper limit of what we were hoping to/can pay). p has looked a bit into obtaining insurance elsewhere, but neither of us is eligible for government insurance, and we have every indication that it will be impossible for her to get private insurance (besides the plan through max planck) that will cover her thyroid/chronic fatigue condition.

- on thursday we had our appointment with the immigration office to get our residence permits for the year -- this was supposed to be a breeze according to max planck, remember? well, they were wrong. p didn't get the permit. without it, sounds like she can stay for a total of six months, then she has to leave for three months, and then she can come back for another three months. i realize that in some perverse universe the situation could actually be worse, but this is a bit of an ass-kicker, what with her health and all. there appear to be only three ways she can stay the whole year: 1) we get married, 2) she gets a job (and not just some chump job -- she'd have to earn at least €700/month for it to count), or 3) a miracle. without going into detail, let's just say that 3) is probably the most likely of the lot.

- on friday we picked up the keys to our new apartment. this was supposed to be a good thing, and the place still looks great and has those fantastic balconies, but... well, when we first looked at it a couple weeks ago, we noticed that it had a funny paint smell to it -- but tenants in germany are typically required to paint their apartments either when they move in or when they move out, so we figured it must be that the guy who was leaving had just painted it. only when we opened the door on friday the smell was still there! and lest you think this would just be some minor inconvenience, any funny paint/chemical smells would surely be devasting to p's health -- so it felt like a real heartbreaker. p called up the landlord friday night to ask about it, and we met with him and this other guy saturday afternoon, and as soon as we opened the doors, they were like "it's the floors!" have you ever heard of anything like that before? i guess the scent is just coming from natural oils in the hardwood floors (for the cognoscenti, european beech, says p). at least that's what they told us, and i'm completely inclined to believe them. this is a HUGE relief, at least for now. never say never, but natural oils sure don't seem like the kind of thing that would give p problems. here's keeping our fingers crossed.

- last and most notably, p has just been feeling generally quite shitty -- lots of muscle pain and soreness, dullness in the head, all the usual good stuff, really. bonn is a wonderfully pedestrian-friendly place, but part of the package is that you end up having to walk a lot more than, say, we did in chicago. we're hopeful that things will calm down once we're in our new place, but the sad fact is that we still have lots of setting up to do, and the powers of mail order are limited.

so that's the worst of it at the moment. we were originally supposed to be in our new place by now, but after the scare on friday we decided to try to buy some time, and currently the plan is that we're getting a mattress sent sent to our old place, and once it arrives we'll take it and ourselves over to the new place for good. there should be some pictures on the way.