Fisher cats

---

Fisher cats are Mustelidae, like weasels and minks. They are the size of small dogs, and they have sharp vicious teeth. They are loners except in the spring, when they form packs.

 

 

And they are, apparently, all over Rhode Island.

 

 

The east side of Providence is now on Fisher Cat Alert. Here’s an email I received from a local source:

 

 

A neighbor just told me that there was a small pack of Fisher Cats out on our street (Everett Avenue) last night around 10 pm. They hissed at her. Also she saw a larger pack of them outside Waterman Grille a few nights ago. The manager has to go out to get them so people could get to their cars. She told me she heard that a woman walking her dog after dark on the blvd recently was approached by the pack and when they approached her dog she kicked at them. She ended up getting her foot mangled. I don’t know if the police are aware of this but these animals are dangerous to small pets and their owners.

 

 

 

Before now, I was wary of skunks (which you can smell a mile away), and possums (one hissed at me once, a few years ago, from a neighbor’s doorstep, in the twilight), and raccoons.

 

 

But fisher cats?

 

 

What next? Siberian tigers?

---

 

How lovely the violin

---

My father played the violin!

 

 

Yes, indeed: farmboy though he was, he had a violin, and he took mail-order lessons. I inherited Dad’s violin, and the stack of 1920s mail-order lesson plans he learned from.

 

 

I never heard my father play. But I went through his old lessons, and I learned basic fingering at least. I never learned to play well, but I could probably still scratch out Frere Jacques or My Country ‘Tis of Thee.

 

 

Charming!

 

 

I should really take it up again.

 

 

On the other hand: there is nothing in the world worse than a beginner violinist. No, strike that: there’s nothing in the world worse than living in the vicinity of a beginner violinist. The screeching and squawking, if you’ve never heard it, is unearthly. And it just goes on and on.

 

 

Maybe, for Partner’s sake and the sake of all our neighbors, I will leave the violin alone, and take up something quieter.

 

 

Maybe needlework.

---

 

For Sunday: Cab Calloway sings “Minnie the Moocher”

---

Here’s another Fleischer cartoon from the Betty Boop collection: the great Cab Calloway as Koko the Clown, singing “Minnie the Moocher.”

 

 

She was the roughest toughest frail

But Minnie had a heart ‘bout as big as a whale.

Hi-de hi-de hi-de hi!

 

 

---

 

What makes me not a Buddhist

---

Alfred North Whitehead said that Buddhism is not so much a religion as a philosophy. Here is its root teaching, the Four Noble Truths:

 

 

-         Life is suffering.

-         Suffering is caused by desire.

-         To stop suffering, you must cut off desire.

-         Desire can be cut off by following Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path: right intention, right resolve, right speech, right livelihood, right action, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation.

 

 

Notice there’s nothing about god here, or creation, or the fate of the soul, or life after death. There is only the nature of our life here, now.

 

 

Different schools of Buddhism have emphasized different aspects of the path. The Theravada emphasizes individual renunciation and monasticism. Mahayana believers say that we all need to help one another toward enlightenment. There is the Vajrayana of Tibet and Mongolia, which invokes the aid of spirits and gods, which are – after all – manifestations of our own minds. There is also Zen, whose practitioners defeat their own minds and end by living in the moment perfectly.

 

 

I love reading about Buddhism. I have a large collection of Buddhist texts: the Sutras, ancient and modern explanatory texts, collections of koans, translations of Tibetan scriptures. I can quote them endlessly, and I sound very wise and mysterious when I do.

 

 

But I’m a fraud.

 

 

A Bhutanese monk named Dzongsar Jamyang Khentse wrote a book a few years ago entitled “What Makes You Not A Buddhist.” He explains in great detail that Buddhism is not vegetarianism, or non-violence, or a method of interior decoration or flower arrangement. It is a way of life, a way of thought.

 

 

Well, sometimes I’m a Buddhist and sometimes I’m not.

 

 

I am sincerely sick and tired of the Wheel of Life and Death. I long for Nirvana, which is not extinction, and which is not not extinction. (See, I’ve read the Heart Sutra.)

 

 

But there is a special Buddhist condemnation for people like me, who read and quote, but who don’t follow the path. I paraphrase the following story (which I believe I read in “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones”:

 

 

In a monastery there was a monk named Bright Star. He was the most learned, and had read the most books of study and teaching, and the other monks were in awe of his erudition.

 

 

One day suddenly he died.

 

 

A few weeks later, the abbot saw a stirring in the garden outside his window. It was the spirit of Bright Star, moaning and suffering, begging for release from his punishment.

 

 

I understand. Reading is not Buddhism. Learning is not Buddhism.

 

 

But I’ve had glimmerings of understanding – what the Japanese call “kensho,” the lesser enlightenment. You know? Those quick moments in which you almost understand how the universe really works.

 

 

So maybe there is still hope for me.

---

 

Eat like your ancestors

---

I received a coupon recently for a product called “Suzie’s Puff Cakes.” They look like rice cakes, but they’re made of spelt.

 

 

Yes, spelt.

 

 

There’s been a vogue for rare and unusual grains recently. If they’re “ancient” – some primitive holdover from the pre-wheat era – so much the better. Spelt is one of these: not a parent or grandparent of modern wheat, but more like its maiden aunt. It’s still grown in Central Europe, and there’s a growing market for it.

 

 

As there is for teff (a cereal grass grown in Ethiopia) and quinoa (the seed of a goosefoot relative, from South America), and amaranth (the seeds of a lovely Mexican plant), and Khorasan wheat (which has been patented as “Kamut”).

 

 

What do they taste like? Well, try them. They’re all pretty much okay, they won’t shock you. (Quinoa disappoints me a little; it has an odd flavor which, frankly, needs to be covered up.)

 

 

But they have the charm of being uncommon and a little strange.

 

 

And isn’t it fun to eat something your ancestors might have eaten?

 

 

Coming soon: cooking with samphire!

 

---

 

Reading the signs

---

Sometimes I mock superstitious people for their credulity. It’s all very silly, isn’t it, all this hokum?

Oh dear. I’m such a hypocrite.

I myself have about a million little superstitions. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I used to walk to work, and I always noticed playing cards in the streets. (I never see these anymore. What’s happened? Don’t people play cards anymore?) Playing cards match up with Tarot cards, and I used to tell my dailyfortune by the cards I saw. The nine of hearts foretold a very good day; the ten of spades meant a very bad day. And so on.

Now it’s finding change in the street. I’ve decided that finding money is a good omen. A penny will do; a nickel is better, or a dime, naturally. Some days I find handfuls of change (Providence is installing more parking meters, and people seem to throw change around in all directions). Once in a while I find folding money. Those are special days.

(Why do I do this? Why do any of us do this? Simple: we look for meaning in the world. We believe instinctively that everything is linked to everything else.)

(Not very logical, right? But very human.)

Not long ago, I was anticipating a pretty awful day. I walked to work as normal, hoping to find (at least) a penny in the street. But I found nothing.

Then, suddenly, on a wire fence, I saw a huge crow. It cawed, and suddenly something dark moved in the tree above, and I saw another.

Two crows.

Ah.

 

 

One crow sorrow, two crows joy;

Three crows a girl, and four crows a boy.

Five crows silver, six crows gold;

Seven crows a secret never to be told.

I can’t even remember where I learned that rhyme, but it cheered me. Two crows joy. An omen!

And then, a few moments later, I found a nickel in the street.

And you know what? The day turned out to be pretty good after all.

(The world is a mysterious place. Anything is possible.)

---

Neanderthal DNA

---

23andMe.com, the online DNA-analysis company, came back to us with information on our Neanderthal descent. Mine is 2.6 percent; Partner’s is 2.8 percent.

There’s been lots of disagreement about our Neanderthal cousins. They were shorter than us and almost certainly stronger, with heavy brow ridges, and maybe larger brains. But Homo sapiens sapiens somehow swamped them, and now they’re gone.

Except that our H. sapiens sapiens ancestors (evidently) interbred with them.

The Neanderthal genome has been recovered from fossils and compared to the modern human genome. Result: most people of European and Asian descent have at least one percent Neanderthal DNA; some have as much as four percent. (People of pure African descent have none at all, or nearly none.)

It’s fun to think about our caveman ancestry. I even bought the t-shirts that 23andMe offered, with a cute Fred Flintstone-type caveman depicted on them, and Partner’s and my respective percentages printed alongside.

But maybe I’m proud of my Homo sapiens sapiens ancestry too. Maybe I’m proud of all my ancestors, unicellular and multicellular, mammalian and primate. They all had one thing in common: they reproduced, and their offspring lived long enough to reproduce also.

I have not had children in my lifetime, and almost certainly never will. My genome (such as it is) will be lost. But hopefully my nephews and nieces will manage to carry on the odd and unique messages in our family DNA.

I feel like a caveman, thinking about a future I won’t share.

But maybe – just maybe – some fragment of my family inheritance will survive in that future.

Here’s hoping.

---