Raccoons, Crackheads and Me (9-29-11)

What a crazy week of work it’s been! I type this knowing full well it’s only Thursday and more crazy things can occur but wow, we’ve had enough excitement to last a few months around here!

It all began with Monday morning. We came in to a workplace that was shredded. Food was all over, many boxes and garbage cans were tipped over onto their sides. The place was a mess. It looked like a crazy party happened the night before. It also looked like someone ransacked the place looking for something and then stopped to eat whatever food was around is a very messy fashion. Three possibilities were discussed; there could have been a wild party, someone broke in to rob us or an animal got loose in the place. Or possibly an animal broke in to rob our food and have a wild party. We eliminated the first two ideas after we could determine no entry point for someone to come in from the outside. Then on someone’s desk a cup of water was spilled and the wet desk provided wet, dirty footprints that identified the culprit. It was a raccoon. The print was far too big for it to be a squirrel, rat or mouse.

Our company called Orkin and they would be coming the next day. In the meantime there was a lot of cleanup to do. Crackers, pretzels, cookies and any food anyone had stored at or near their desk was on the floor in a finely grounded powder and crumbs. At my desk I had no food, but in my garbage can I had a wrapper from a sub I had on Saturday and that was shredded! The paper was everywhere and you could even see a few tiny pieces of lettuce from the previously balled up wrapper scattered about. Before we left for the day everyone had to make sure their food was secured in the fridge or in some container so we didn’t have a repeat of the night before.   

The next morning we came in and it struck again albeit on a smaller scale. This time it shredded the used tea bag in my garbage can making it look like the pot after the bag was opened and all the leaves were spread around. A co-worker lost his hot chocolate packets as those were ripped open and tossed about. The Orkin man (yes, it actually was a guy) showed up and put out these caged traps to catch the little critter lathered with food it would like as bait. I wondered what would happen to the raccoon once it was caught. Would they release it somewhere in the wild? Would it be put down? Seems like it would be cheaper (and obviously more humane) to release it somewhere but maybe I’m just naïve thinking that they would do that.

So Wednesday morning came and I went to work a little later. On my way in I wondered if we caught something. There were 2 traps inside and 2 in the parking lot. I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if we caught a stray cat or even a stray crackhead in the traps in the lot. When I arrived, I learned we did catch a raccoon in one of the traps inside the building.

When you see your desk area and workspace trashed it can make you a little upset. You’ve got to clean up and put things back in their rightful places. Depending on how much inconvenience, it can make someone very upset but when you are looking into the eyes of this captured critter you begin to feel sad. There I was looking eye to eye with the raccoon. It was the closest I’d ever been to one. It was just sitting there in the cage, looking haggard and dirty but with the same cute face they are known for. It just sat there looked resigned to it’s’ fate. Earlier that morning I was told it ran back and forth inside the cage, hissed, clawed and did everything it could to escape or keep people away from it but now it just sat there. If its eyes weren’t open and staring at me I would have thought it was asleep. There was no movement, no sound. I felt sorry for the little guy.

When the Orkin guy showed we asked what would happen to the creature and we were told it would be euthanized. I didn’t get it, why not just let it go somewhere out in the wild? It wasn’t my decision to make though and since I wasn’t going to capture the creature and transport it somewhere myself, I guess I had no say in this one. I took a picture of it and said goodbye.

It wasn’t the same feeling as when the 2 or 3 kittens were trapped in our building a year or so ago but still, I wished there was another way. The Orkin man said he’d come back in the few days just to make sure there weren’t any more and he left with the raccoon caged in the back.

I came into work late again today because I wanted to watch the Buffalo Common Council public hearing on food trucks. It went a little over 90 minutes and I was surprised that the brick and mortar restaurant side only had a lawyer present who read a 2-3 minute statement explaining that the restaurants wanted to come together and find a fair solution. The other hour and half was dialogue from each food truck proprietor currently operating, a few lawyers and a whole lot of citizens and about 95% of them were in favor of the trucks. Particularly funny was the owner of Zetti’s who came off sounding like an idiot in a short statement where he demonstrated the intelligence of a rock. Apparently restaurant owners like him have to provide things like bathrooms to customers and food trucks don’t. How profound. No bathrooms, I think we should outlaw food trucks! Anyway, the council continued to drag their feet but made incremental progress in appointing a committee with equal numbers of food truck representatives and brick and mortar to come together to hammer out an agreement on regulations for the trucks and then report back in 30 days. If both parties are satisfied and a plan is presented to the council after those 30 days, then they’ll vote on it and it could become the law that is so desperately needed here.

After the exciting public hearing I quickly made my way to work so I can put in a noon to 8pm shift and once I arrived I learned we had another overnight event and visitors. This time it was in the form of robbers who broke in and stole my bosses’ computer, printer, scanner and all her other components plus the digital camera off my desk. We’re still discovering little things they have taken like keys and the like. They smashed the front glass door and made a beeline to our area behind the store and tried to break into a file cabinet where we keep petty cash. They’d obviously been back here and knew where the money was. That’s the danger we face when we let potential customers come to our back room and check out new and overstock vinyl, CDs, books and DVDs. Sometimes they don’t really want to buy anything; sometimes I guess they are just casing the joint.

Thankfully the alarms blaring forced them to leave quickly before they could steal 4 or 5 computers or even more. They didn’t take anything from the store in front other than keys (although not the right keys for the cabinet) so they knew what they wanted and where it was. I’m also thinking they must have been pretty desperate to try something like this. Maybe it’s a stereotype but I’m thinking drugs would make someone do something so desperate and foolish.

We’ve had police here off and on today, a person to fix the door, a computer guy to hook my boss up with a new temporary setup and a lot to talk about. The police notified us that they caught one of the guys involved already as he tried to sell some of the stuff they took and got busted. So it looks like we may get some or most of the valuables back. The computer obviously has our name on it, even on the login so there can be no mistaken identity. 

Speaking of mistaken identity, the last part of this is a brief story of when the cops arrived last night. One of the store assistant managers was called and he met the cops here at around 3am as the store alarm was blaring. They came inside the store and took a preliminary look around to check on damage and what was missing when from above they heard rustling. The cops immediately told the assistant manager to be quiet and speculated that they may still be here but hiding upstairs. I don’t think the response time was that great, but it was certainly possible. The upstairs area where they were hiding was a little used old section of the store that accumulated dust more than anything else and the police slowly made their way up there to nab the perpetrators. Upon climbing up the stairs the police officer shined his light and staring back at him was 3-4 raccoons. Although raccoons do look like old-fashioned burglars with that black mask covering their eye area, these weren’t exactly the bandits we were looking for. With every morning at work this week being an adventure, all of this makes me wonder what will be on tap for tomorrow.

Getting Away From it All (9-23-11)

Okay, who here really needs a vacation? Alright, everyone put your hands down. Some people need one more than others, and hey you over there, didn’t you just come back from one a few weeks ago? I’m not talking about daytrips either. Those are wonderful but you can’t sink your teeth into them because you are back that night. I mean, I haven’t even been on one of THOSE in a long time, but a real honest to goodness vacation where you are gone at least a weekend, now that’s something I haven’t done in at least 5 years. I think the last one was when I went to Chicago for a few days to visit an ex-girlfriend. We went to the United Center to see the Sabres play the Blackhawks and I walked around the Windy City and took in lots of sights and sounds which is one of my favorite things to do when I go somewhere… find a good spot and wander around for hours and hours.

Anyway, I feel like I’m long overdue for another trip but with a tight budget and without someone to go somewhere with or to go see, I just haven’t been able to get away. Life can get dull without a little spice sprinkled into it. Routines are good and necessary for me but to function efficiently but every now and then I need more. That’s why last night was very much needed and appreciated.

On the final night of summer I went to Nietzsche’s to see 2 bands play: Clandestina y La Raza Cosmica (cosmic race) and the 12/8 Path Band. Now the first band is one that I’ve seen a few times recently and absolutely love but the 2^nd is one that I hadn’t seen in nearly as long as it’s been since I’ve gone on a vacation! When I tried to describe them to someone I realized I couldn’t. It had only been about 5 years! I remembered that there were plenty of percussionists and that I had a good feeling about them. I just read this quote by Maya Angelou the other day and it’s very true; “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I couldn’t remember much of anything about the 12/8 Path Band but I remembered I felt good watching them all those years ago so they must have been a good band.  

Clandestina y La Raza Cosmica went on first and I sat back and soaked it all in. It was heavenly. The infectious rhythms had me smiling for nearly the entire set. My feet tapped repeatedly and my hips and shoulders swayed from side to side despite the fact that I was sitting in a chair. I was tempted to get up and dance which is saying a lot for me. Clandestina y La Raza Cosmica plays a Mexican folk music called Son Jarocho. I could try to explain it but here’s a link to help with that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_Jarocho  It is fun, charming music that makes me feel like I’m somewhere else when I hear it. That’s part of the reason I like it so much. It takes me away from my job, from my problems, from my insecurities and my fears. Any good band will do that for you, they’ll take you away for a little while but since this was more of an exotic band compared to what’s playing in Buffalo venues, I feel like the music takes me farther away than a good rock n roll band could. It was more than being “not here”. I actually felt like I WAS someplace else… someplace warm, inviting and relaxed. I’ve never been to Mexico so I couldn’t say it felt like I was in Mexico, but I have been to Puerto Rico and maybe it kind of reminded me of that. The point is I didn’t feel like I was sitting in a bar on a work night wondering when I should go home. I was lost in melodic bliss unaware of time and place. You can’t beat that on a work night.  

When the next band started I had good feelings about it. Both in that comforting feeling I mentioned earlier about seeing them in the past despite not remembering exactly what they sounded like, and also because when they were ready to begin they were a sea of percussion and horns and pardon my slang, but ain’t nuthin wrong with that! They began to play and suddenly I felt I was in Louisiana as they had a Cajun groove going. The style was equally infectious as the first band. At times they sounded like a College Marching band freestyling it and others like a drumline with a conscience. They mixed funk, classic jazz and I don’t know how many exotic world styles into an awesome display. I felt like we should have started our own parade and marched right out of Nietzsche’s and down Allen street together spreading love and good energy to all those in our way.

When their set ended, Clandestina y La Raza Cosmica came back to play again and as they got several minutes into their 2^nd set my friend reminded me of the time. Dammit, it was almost midnight and since it was a weekday, I had to work in the morning. It was time to get back into reality and be responsible again. My mini-vacation was over although I enjoyed immensely.

Today I feel a mild hangover. It’s not from drinking too much as I had very little booze. It’s that hangover you feel the day after you’ve gotten back from a trip. You know the one, the longer the time away the worse the hangover. Your body and mind need time to get back into the groove. Although my trip was short it was meaningful and since it was unexpected it was even more enjoyable. So despite feeling hungover, I do feel a little refreshed today as if I really did go away. Now I find myself looking forward to the next mini-trip while I work on that bigger one that’s long overdue.      

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Rice Pudding (9-15-11)

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Rice Pudding (9-15-11) I don’t blog publicly that much anymore. Honestly, ever since my birthday and my poetry show I’ve hardly typed a word. I still scribble poetry or some random thoughts onto sheets of paper but I’ve been staying away from the keyboard. I’ll always have the pen, even when I’m going through a dry spell. In the last month I’ve only written a few new pieces but they are not in the same voice as my previous work. Nowadays my pieces have an underlying sadness to them, plus a hint of defeat or even gloom. I’ve always been a dreamer… a hopeful sort that no matter how bad things got or bleak they appeared, I’ve always hoped for brighter days. Sometimes I even took steps to provide them for myself and others. Lately I’m trying to provide brighter days for other people because that usually makes me feel great but it seems like those might be the only times I’m truly happy… when I’m doing things for others. I don’t know why I’m more apt to do something nice for someone else than I am for myself. Too much of my mother in me I guess.

Going back to when I was young, I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with myself. I wouldn’t give myself the same patience and understanding I’d give a friend. I wouldn’t really mind if anyone messed up around me but I when made a mistake, whew would I be upset. I was and am so critical of myself, although not like I used to be. The fact that I give out mixtapes and perform poetry in public is proof of that. But I’m still critical. Back in the day I’d hate myself for my faults, my weaknesses, my impulses and the bad choices I would make while loving myself for my kindness, compassion, love and intelligence I possess. More simply a lot of times it would boil down to this conclusion: I’d love my heart but hate my head. They’d work in conflict with one another often and it would frustrate me. Why couldn’t everything be on the same page? Why couldn’t there be just one fully functional Edwin, with one Edwin agenda? If I know deep in my heart that I want to be thin again why does my mind allow me to keep doing the wrong things to get there?

Sometimes I wonder that if one day I achieve my goal of getting back into good shape, will I then move on to find another reason to hate myself? Like maybe my weight is my most glaring weakness so that’s what I’m fixated on. When that’s gone maybe I’d find something else. I’m bummed because this summer hasn’t gone the way I would have liked with my nagging ankle injury and other things preventing me from doing all the things I wanted physically and reaching the goals I set out. Now that the summer is ending, perhaps I’m feeling a bit like a failure and maybe that’s the heart of the matter and why I feel so blue lately.

There’s so much joy and hope and love for people and life within me but there’s also sadness, doubt and loneliness. All of those things are in there. I’ve talked about my personality type (INFJ) on several occasions and isolation and complexity are two of the most common traits of it. Life is a roller coaster ride but being who I am I love the highs and lament the lows more than most. Right now unfortunately I’m feeling some lows.

I think to me, right now the end of the summer insinuates many things, whether right or wrong, true or false. I think I feel like I lost the chance to get into “summer shape”. I think I will see my friends a lot less in the coming months. I think there will be less opportunities to get out and do fun community things. I think there’s less likelihood that I’ll meet someone to go bonkers over and hopefully vice versa because less people will be out now. All of those things along with the changes the new season brings have me feeling a bit down… like the party is over or the good times are fleeting. It’s a feeling that builds in the spring with each warm day and culminates when I am smack in the middle of a great time outside somewhere with friends all around in the middle of summertime. That’s not to say I couldn’t be out having a great time with a bunch of friends 2 months from now, but maybe I’m more inclined to believe such occasions occur with regularity in the summer and far less frequency, if at all in the winter. The truth is I don’t want to let the summer go.

While I do love the fall and the color, holidays, traditions, warm drinks, getting re-acquainted with half my wardrobe, crunching leaves, pumpkin flavored everything, football, hockey and more I guess I need to find closure to summer to get to the place where I can love the fall again. This is me, the last one to want to go home when having a good time and the one who is heartbroken when the good times end. I think I write more youthful, hopeful, optimistic poetry in the spring and old, sad, reflective poetry in the fall/winter. I guess it makes sense. As an empathetic individual I like to tell people I am a sponge when it comes to the emotions around me. I soak it all in. Perhaps I just pick up on people’s excitement and happiness for the spring and also people’s apprehension and sadness in advance of the colder times and my mood reflects it, sometimes surprisingly to me because I might not have felt that way and all of a sudden I do.

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Speaking of apprehension around me perhaps also fueling my gloomy mood of late is the political climate. I just don’t trust the American voters/people and as the Congressional elections in New York City and Nevada 2 nights ago proved, I have reason not to. Two Democratic congresspeople were ousted by Republican challengers in districts that have supported the Democrats for several years. Uh-oh. The Obama pile-on is getting out of control as he’s being blamed for everything under the sun despite not having a lot to do with it. I’m not foolish enough to think he’s done the greatest job but I also don’t think he’s done nearly as bad a job as people have said. I wish the guy could have gotten a fair try at it. That first year or so he had the opportunity to do some things but just as he was hitting his stride the mid-term elections switched the congressional power to the GOP and they’ve acted like nothing short of a spoiled brat ever since. This “my way or the highway” mentality is completely counter-productive, dangerous and cruel and they know it is.

They’ll never admit it while Obama’s in office but I feel like the last 2 years they’ve basically sabotaged his presidency and the short-term welfare of low-income Americans with their inability to be flexible despite that being the very essence of governing in a democracy. They’ve sabotaged Obama in order to regain control and when the plan comes to fruition they will continue pissing on the poor, outsourcing jobs, forcing God into everyone’s lives, widening the chasm between the classes, telling people who they can marry, giving tax breaks to their buddies and deregulating the stock market so the same filthy, cheating scumbags who started this recession with their greed and immorality can pick up where they left off robbing Americans blind. Did I leave anything out? They probably figure that most citizens are too stupid to realize that it’s not Obama’s fault because they pin every thing they can on him and are in a constant state of attack on him. Meanwhile they put a stop to anything the guy tries to pass and they quickly tear apart and squash any ideas the administration comes up with and then turn around and accuse the President of not doing anything. They’re absolutely burying the guy and recent poll numbers suggest a lot of people are buying into it.

I remember the feeling I had in 2004 when Bush won a 2nd term. I thought holy crap is America that dumb? I knew Kerry wasn’t anything special and I didn’t vote for him but I thought Bush was probably the worst president of my lifetime. That’s when I knew I couldn’t trust America to make the smarter choice. We live in a place with short attention spans, too many choices and people are more likely to keep up with the Kardashians than they are the issues of the day. In a lazy, spoiled society fixated on instant gratification like this one it seems the masses will listen to whoever is talking the loudest and saying what they want to hear and they’ll go with that. People look at bullying as fire and strength just as long as they’re talking loud and saying scary things. For many, it doesn’t even matter if they are is lying, being unfair or not making real sense, because quite frankly they’re blinded by their beliefs, their selfishness, their fears or simply their ignorance. I dunno folks, but I feel a storm is coming. I feel like we’ll have some crazy person who doesn’t give a crap about me and people like me like Rick Perry as president and then we’ll see how much we can take. If they haven’t already, the poor will start to get very angry. Maybe that’s what we need. Maybe we need a revolution. Maybe we need riots and marches and demonstrations. I mean, it’s been too long since we’ve had a meaningful cultural rebellion around here and how else will the rich and their minions realize that we’re all in this together? There’s still a naïve part of me that hopes that one day we’ll figure it out and do what’s right for all of us but as I said earlier I don’t trust voting Americans. History has shown us the fat cats will go too far and then it’s up to us to check them and bring humility back into the equation. The gap between the rich and poor is bigger than I’ve ever seen. How much longer can it go on like this?

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On the happy side of things, this weekend looks like a really fun one as I will be busy and walking that line between sports and art that I love to balance on. Friday night starts off with culture and the Ghost Walk of Allentown. I guess I’m going to hear some of the legends of the Allentown area and as much as I am a skeptic, I also am also kinda open minded and very fascinated by the supernatural. On Saturday I have 3 football games. That’s right 3! If my injured leg will hold up I’ll be playing at 11, 3 and 4. After that is rushing home to get ready for Music is Art and I will spend the rest of my day soaking in the atmosphere, music and food of what might be the last great festival of the summer season around here. Sunday I’m going to get together with the fellas and watch the surprising Bills take on the Raiders in what should be a very winnable game for Buffalo. When the game ends I am going to venture out into Bidwell Park and enjoy friends and sunshine. So there it is, friends, music, culture, folklore, sports watching and sports playing. Now that’s a weekend!

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And lastly, last night I came this [ ] close to making a decent batch of homemade rice pudding. My cooking skills are not, how shall we say, highly evolved. BUT, I’ve been dabbling with rice pudding off and on for years trying to make a good batch. There have been some decent results but nothing like the memories of phenomenal rice pudding at Christmastime with family when I was little. I will keep trying and I may never get there, but I must go on because even when it’s close, it’s still alright! Let’s face it, I’m just a man in search of love, meaning and amazing rice pudding.

Anyone have any EASY to follow rice pudding recipes? Please share!