Gendered animals

I was thinking about my own writing on our visit to the zoo, and a fellow blogger's post that included some discussion of cities and gender, and I started to wonder about my choices to always refer, during the italic sections that represent comments, to the animals as 'he'.   Some objects  seem to just shout that they're female rather than male. (Who doesn't know someone who has given their mode of transportation some awful name like 'Bluebell' or 'Lucy', and who wouldn't say some places  -- lots of countries, I think - France, Canada, even the U.S., for me...'lady liberty' and all... -- are just female). But what about animals?  People tend to refer, it seems to me, to almost all animals (even prissy cats and flouncy poodles), as 'he'.  The fact that female-ness seems to fall into deviance aside, it's interesting that we are bound and determined to associate a sex with animals (I suppose they don't have a 'gender'), but often don't seem to make an effort to know which sex is the right one.     

Two stories come to mind: I used to cat sit for a nice family up the street from me when I was a teenager, and the mother of the family, who always used to give me the same orientation of the house (this is where the food is, this is where the litter box is, this is the scoop to clean the litter box, etc.), referred to the cat as a 'he'.  Naturally, when I arrived to do the necessary duties, I continued to think of the cat as a he.  But, as we got more used to each other, and as I gradually bent down to rub the cat's head, then back, then belly, the cat was very clearly NOT a he.  HE had teats.  Prominent ones.  And absolutely no...boy bits.  I thought maybe my lack of biological knowledge (see last post) had caught up with me, but a talk with the woman's daughter, who showed up unexpectedly one night, confirmed that the little thing was indeed a female.  Now, as a pet owner and an attentive, caring, and also intelligent woman, Mrs. Neighbor must have known, somewhere deep down, that he was a she.  I can't imagine the embarrassing situations that might have ensued, otherwise, at a new vet.  She must have been told at some point that the cat was a she (her own daughter knew it).  So, why the insistence?    

   

The other scene actually took place at the zoo: We were standing by the hippos at one point in the day, waiting for them to rise to the surface, when a fellow zoo-goer came up next to us, examined the still surface of the water, and then read the sign introducing the animals very carefully while waiting to catch a glimpse.  The sign very clearly said the zoo had two females.  I saw her read it.  She practically went over the whole thing with her finger.  Yet, when one of the animals finally broke the water's surface with her enormous back, she bellowed: Look how BIG he is!    Is it just inattention?  Or is it really something pressing in people, making them think that hippos are big and powerful, so they always must be a 'he'?  To me, an animal is imbued with something of real gender when we know their sex - I think a good deal of pet owners would agree.  This probably really is imagined.  My mother's dog is no more boy than those hippos are girls.  But I can't help but feeling like there is something (call it respectful in human terms), real or imagined, to knowing.  

Visiting the Zoo

Today, H and I ventured out in temperatures that fell bit by bit as clouds drifted unhurriedly across the sky, tucking in the sun like a patient parent waiting for their child to wind down before bed, and went to the Philadelphia Zoo. I love Zoos. I love watching the animals and cocking my head at their strange features. I love the surprised, obvious observations people make: Wow! Look how big he is!, or Oh he's sleeping! or, Look at him! He's climbing a tree! Do you see him climbing the tree?, like they're discovering something new and so intensely interesting, they just can't contain themselves. And even, for the most part, I enjoy the children who point and tug at their parents and poke their fingers in the cages, and ask, wide eyed Where is he? or What's he doing? Unlike most other family activities, it's a place parents and children seem to discover together, both unknowing, with furrowed brows and open mouths.

I used to go to Zoo Camp every year when I was a child, a day camp where we'd follow flirty, too-confident teenagers around, stopping at animal cages and learning quirky facts (Do YOU know what color a polar bear's skin is? I did, by my third year at zoo camp!), finally ending the day with a trip inside a starkly white building, in a starkly white room, where we were able to pet, with a gentle two-finger touch, one at a time, a snake, or a porcupine, or a chinchilla. I liked zoo camp, and rediscovering zoos as an adult always makes me wish I had ignored all of that hatred for my high school Biology class that I had built up over lists of vocabulary words and natural cycles I thought were dry and boring, and marched forth to study Zoology or Animal Behavior, to change the world with bold activism and field work that would save many a species from extinction. As it is now, I look excitedly at the animals, and diligently but lamely at their name plates and descriptions, knowing full well I won't remember any of it.

Over a gooey, warm waffle and a steaming cup of coffee after our adventures with the animals, H commented that it's the third zoo we had been to together, as a couple. That made me smile. I've enjoyed every minute of my recent visits. And I can safely say, wherever we live, my children will definitely get a big dose of zoos (if not Zoo Camp), and a little encouragement that studying animals, even making the obvious observations, is much too exciting and interesting to give up on, even over a tedious and drab Biology textbook page.

The empty tin

We usually have an overabundance of chocolate in our house - one of the advantages to being married to an expat is that his thoughtful mother, my wonderful mother-in-law, loves to send him (and me, by extension) enormous packages full of cleanly folded new pajamas (for both of us), lotions and nail files, and, of course, chocolate. Chocolate bars, chocolate Easter eggs, chocolate for making hot chocolate, chocolates to have with coffee, chocolates to spread on bread first thing in the morning, chocolates to savor before you go to bed. And these are good, quality, European chocolates wrapped in foil and smooth as good china. The last package was no exception. She included, in this batch, tiny coffee bean shaped chocolates, the perfect amount of luscious, smooth dark chocolate that melts into a the richness of coffee just at the right moment. They were delicious.

I have a terrible, terrible sweet tooth, and I had been grabbing two or three beans to eat before work every morning as I head out the door, a morning treat I've enjoyed since the package arrived a couple of weeks ago, and that has now became a dangerous if temporary habit. But I woke up today and went to our chocolate box to find it entirely empty. H had cleaned it out, packed it all off to work for his coworkers to enjoy, and left me with an empty tin and an unhealthy craving. He didn't realize I was eating them at all...but the joy of those tiny treats is to savor them a little at a time, I think. I hope his office mates savored them properly, and I suppose, in the end, I should thank him for the calories he saved me. Then again, I've just replaced them with the much less pure but still chocolatey enough Mr. Goodbars they've had in the back office at work. It's a sugar fix and does the trick, but I have to say, it does make me think about the differences in quality. One chocolate certainly isn't the same as another.

City walking

I had a friend in town this weekend (my pathetic excuse for not posting here), and whenever a guest arrives to ‘see Philadelphia’, the first question I ask after they’ve dropped their bags is: Are you ready to walk?

I remember how gargantuan and bustling the city seemed to me when we first arrived. After the decision was made, saying to people We’re moving to Philadelphia had all the muscle and electricity of a real adventure, charged with the promise that only an expansive maze of steel, concrete, busy sidewalks and endless honking can offer. Neighborhoods seemed to morph endlessly, one into the other, in an unreachable myriad of happy unfamiliarity, and the stretch between 2nd and 50th streets seemed entirely unbridgeable. As I got to know the city, learned the personalities of each neighborhood and discovered the gems in the city that have come to be home to me, I gradually redefined what it meant for me to go places. I cross blocks by the dozens every weekend, sliding from one neighborhood to the other without a second thought. Center City gradually seems small. Chinatown always seems accessible; the Eastern-most stretch of the city, there by the Deleware River, those cobble-stone streets that represent the mythic past, kept tidy for tourists who expect another world here, all seem, now, very solid and very reachable. Why is it that a place we’re unaccustomed to seems to be so much bigger? Is it just the potential of a new life that was harbored there, in those first weeks as I discovered the streets and found myself entirely taken with a disorientation that made my head buzz with impatience and want? But as I’ve learned my way through the city, I can say I’ve also grown to love the same paths I take, the fact that walking for miles seems normal, the steadiness of the expected as I pass it. So that sometimes, when someone suggests we bike or drive somewhere in the city, I have to reflect for just a minute and shake my head faintly, feeling a sense of calm at the thought: no, let’s walk.

Conferencing fun

Conferences can be a time to put your career into perspective, to reflect on long-term goals in the workplace, and to refocus on the things that matter most in your organization. To me, they’re also a blur of faces and nodding heads, comments that contain the wisdom of 10 minutes, career stories that probably won’t stick with me, and business cards and pages of notes that will eventually get stuck down in some drawer or other. (They also mean dry over-air-conditioned rooms and way too many snacks, but I suppose that’s for another post.) I met and rubbed elbows with a lot of interesting people at the last conference I went to – it was a long one, and fairly small, so names and faces stuck with me for a little bit longer than they generally do. But something else was different about this conference as well: they had Karaoke night. Outside the hotel, with tiki torches and a much too accessible bar stocked with the hardest of liquors, we were able to witness such incredible things. Full-fledged. No turning back. These are your colleagues, this is the cream of the working crop, and this is the way you sing I Will Survive in off-key shrillness while attempting to bob and bounce in some kind of regulated rhythm. There’s nothing like hearing the woman who stood up in Session 4, gently readjusted her glasses, and made that very thoughtful comment about the future of our profession telling me, in so many words, that she doesn’t think I’m quite ready for the jelly that is her bootylicious body. Now that puts everything into perspective.

Action movie economics

One night, while sitting around my parents' living room, wallowing in glasses of cheap wine and under a layer of shallow lamplight, we asked my Father casually how he liked the movie Collateral. He mumbled something to the effect of "There were a lot of high paced chases down tunnels, and cars flipping over." (This response, slightly curmudgeonly, out-of-touch, and cynical, made the edges of all our mouths crawl up into subtle smiles.) Then he suggested with a smirk that Hollywood could use the same damn clips of cars flipping over and blowing up, whirling into tunnels and through back alleys, for practically every action movie they made. Imagine the money and energy it would save. And, quite frankly, would anyone really notice?

H and I rented an action movie this weekend, and, before it was even in the dvd player, I dead-panned that there would be at least one shot of a helicopter. I could picture it, the camera below, on the rooftop of a building, the blades swooshing as the seemingly unwieldy beast hovered in mid-air. And low and behold, within the first five minutes, a helicopter made an appearance just like so. We've all seen this same scene a dozen times, and is one shot really so different from any other? And so, we'll add a chopper clip to the pile, Papa, wavering above a deep blue sky, and call your archive near complete.

Fall weather

The weather has been turning nippy...today, with rain and winds to make me long for hot cups of tea, my couch, my pajamas, and a good book. H and I dragged out a comforter from our big wooden chest last week (because the chest is cedar, the comforters always smell crisp and smokey for the first few nights, like a log cabin...it's so cozy). It's the lightest comforter we have in the house, but still -- having slept with only a sheet for a few months, it seems like a giant step towards Fall.

When the weather first started getting cool last week, I continued to leave the house in bare legs, open-toed high-heels and sleeveless tops, shivering through the cool morning air defiantly. It's only September! Who needs pants and long-sleeves?? But this morning I rolled out of bed reluctantly, and bundled myself up in the first comfy, warm things I saw - an old cardigan and thick, cushiony boots that will keep my feet dry. I usually dress much nicer for work, but casual Friday takes on a whole new meaning when the weather is this dreary. And now, I suppose, it’s time to grudgingly admit defeat, take a long breath of the cool, moist air, and shove those summer clothes to the back of the closet once again until next year.

Less than honest discounts

Last weekend, on that rainy Saturday in New York when we were looking for an escape from the weather, we ended up ducking down to the Subway and making our way to Central Park and the lobby of the very crowded, but still very intriguing, Natural History Museum. The line for tickets, kept neat by linked velvet ropes, snaked around and doubled over on itself five or six times, and we stood open-mouthed for just a moment, deciding what to do. Luckily, they have installed do-it-yourself ticket machines, following cues from any airport or grocery store, and we waited for mere minutes to finish our transaction, 21st century style. There, we checked out as 3 adults and one student...and that student would be me.

At museums, or any cultural experience put behind the barrier of ticket booths, I have, for two years now, pulled the I.D. from my old Alma Mater quickly from my wallet, bandied it about tauntingly under the noses of whoever I was with, and said discreetly "My I.D. is labeled as still valid! I can still pass as a student, I get a decent discount, and no one will know!" I kept my I.D. out as we headed into the museum, ready to present the evidence assuringly if any ticket-taker dare question my status, but no one did. I put it back in my wallet with a sigh, before checking one last time the tiny date printed in the corner: 08/09. It was my very last student discount. Now, with a heavy heart, I have to retire the I.D. for good. Finally, after two years of sneaking around pretending to be a student, I have to own up to my true status as a salary-earning, full-price-paying adult. It hurts. Then again, there's always senior discount to look forward to!

A Meat Eater's Book of Excuses

I'm a very un-picky eater, I'll eat just about anything you put in front of me as long as it doesn't involve brains or feet. But when someone wants to go out to eat, I've been known to immediately suggest Asian food -- yellow and red curries, pad thai, basil-spiced stir fry are all among my favorite dishes, and the thought of them can make my mouth water like a Pavlov-trained dog with a hyperactive bell. I always, too, order these dishes vegetarian style. I actually really enjoy tofu, when it's done right, and even in more traditionally American restaurants, I often order a salad without meat or a sandwich loaded with veggies. This, along with a dose of those shocking images of animal abuse that we all sometimes inadvertently stumble upon, all makes me think, frequently but fleetingly and entirely hypothetically, of trying to go vegetarian. Whenever I bring this idea up to my husband, I say I feel like I'm partly inhibited by what's easiest (he loves sausages, hamburgers, steak and meatloaf like there's no tomorrow, and having to cook two meals a night might just cause me to lose my head), and I'm partly inhibited by trying to be accommodating to others (I imagine arriving at a dinner party -- or worse, at my in-laws, good old-fashioned meat-loving folks -- and having to announce that I just can't eat half the meal). He nods patiently, and then says that he thinks I love meat more than I think I do.

This weekend, H and I ventured into the Poconos for a little romantic get-away. We arrived at our hotel amidst the hubbub that only a local festival could offer, a tiny town swarming with families and neighbors, dogs sometimes in tow, meandering through rows of booths, shaken lemonade and chicken wings in hand. We got settled into the hotel and ventured out to find something to eat, and I immediately made a b-line for the hot dog stand. As much as I like my tofu, nothing beats a good ball-park hot dog complete with ketchup and mustard on a hot summer day. This morning we popped into a diner for breakfast, and as I ordered my pancakes with a side of bacon (I LOVE bacon), I reflected on my choices. I've been eating more meat lately. And I've really been enjoying it. So, I suppose in the end, my husband is right. The choice to not go vegetarian may have something to do with convenience and a bit to do with accommodation, but a large part of it is probably just my own, regular old cravings. Regardless, I'm a meat eater by training and I supposed I won't be crossing the bridge to vegetarianism anytime soon. Of course, that doesn't mean I can't still enjoy a nice bowl of tofu curry every now and again.

Umbrella weather

I don't think anyone ever has real luck with umbrellas. H insisted, awhile ago, on buying a nice, real umbrella (rather than one that shrinks up for easy accessorizing) in order to avoid that embarrassing scene when a flimsy umbrella, unable to handle the Philadelphia winds that whip like mad, pops out of shape like a rubber toy. (You all know what I'm talking about - when you see it happen to other people, it's like a comedy show. But when it happens to you, it's just plain embarrassing.) What he ended up with, mere weeks later, was a mess of little, delicate rods that were supposed to connect the cloth of the umbrella to the base, broken up and made completely dysfunctional by that same forceful weather that had thrashed our other umbrellas in and out of shape (but at least, I told him, they don't break entirely!). That umbrella went directly into the trash.

For some reason, I have been stubbornly avoiding buying another umbrella ever since. But we were in NYC this weekend, and were out on Saturday, hoping the drizzle wouldn't be able to stop us from making it to the new High Line Park where we planned a walk and a nice lunch. The rain, though, was just too much. We sopped it up for about 10 minutes before I caved and turned to a street vendor for whatever item he might have in his bag of tricks remotely resembling an umbrella. I bought what he handed to me for five dollars, no questions asked. It's small, but it'll definitely do. And when the wind blows on it, maybe I'll look ridiculous for a few moments, but at least I won't feel like I lost an investment. Now if I could have only gotten my shoes and socks dry for the day...

Dixie cup Church

I'm from the almost-south, a city perched between the midwest and the southern states, with some of the charm of each. It's a place that's both tenaciously liberal (on my side of the tracks) and, in some cases, staunchly conservative. Religion comes in all shapes and sizes in my home city, but I will say that they haven't avoided the mega-church phenomenon by any means. There's a church out in the suburbs (out with the strip malls and the giant parking lots and the mega-Wal-marts), a massive octagon of black glass with a giant cross on top. Upon arriving in the U.S. for the first time to visit, my husband, a quiet adventurer with a curiosity for quirky nooks and crannies that are a bit off the beaten tourist path, demanded we go. He had to see it. It was a spectacle. I shook my head slowly -- after all, neither of us is particularly religious, and I have some bad memories of mega-church-going folk. But I was slowly convinced. Wouldn't it be interesting , after all, to see a church with two balconies and an escalator?

We sat as far up as we could, and watched the show. They had the giant, see-through pool, where they must baptize at least one person a week (they did two while we were there...a grown man who smiled goofily the whole time, and a child), they had the pop band on stage, singing about Jesus. But the thing I thought was the most incredible was the Eucharist. Grape juice passed out in little, plastic cups to everyone in the audience. Now that's the way to take in the body and blood of Jesus. In disposable cups that will be of use for 5 seconds before going to litter a landfill. Thank you, Dixie cup corporation, for your contribution to Eucharists in mega-churches everywhere. Your role is positively vital. How else, in God's name, would they get all that blood to all those people??

Kickboxing like a champ

I'm a pseudo-kickboxer twice a week, meaning I go to the gym dutifully every Monday and Wednesday night where I, among other things, knee and punch a giant, stationary bag, play with imaginary nunchucks, and go wild with jump-kicks that could cause some serious damage to a threatening but unsuspecting jaw. I'm pretty sure that would translate into real-world street fighting skill absolutely not at all, but let's leave that for now.

There are always two different instructors for the two nights, each with a slightly different style. Monday is a non-stop fire-cracker of a woman who makes the time fly by because I have to furrow my brow and bite my lower lip in concentration most of the time just to keep up with her. Wednesday's instructor is slower, steady, with combinations that aren't as complex - but she kicks our butts when we go to the floor for ab work. But tonight, there was a substitute. And maybe it was out of sheer exhaustion from kicking and punching, or maybe it was delirium, because I have been known to let my arms flail a bit too much, with the consequence of hitting myself in the face every now and then, but I could swear I hardly saw her lift a finger the whole class. She yelled, she barked, she counted out the number of hits we had dealt, but she walked...slowly...around the room, like a nun in a Catholic school ready to rap your fingers for going out of form. I don't trust these teachers. I think, if you're going to show me how to do it right, you've got to sweat at least as much as I do. After all, we would like to pretend, at least for an hour once a week, that we're bad-asses who deserve to be led by an instructor who is, herself, an ultimate fighting machine.

The best way to go

Having visitors is always fun, and is an opportunity for us to drag out into the open all the possibilities this city has to offer, making it a memorable trip for friends but also a good exercise for us. It rained Saturday, always an adventure since we (walking-folk) have to get creative, but we ended up in a mammoth warehouse of a store just outside of the city, with rows and rows of antiques, rickety old chests and marble-topped tables, brass plates and long, thin Turkish rugs, funky lime-green sofas and crazy sculpture-chairs made out of bottle caps (I'm not kidding). The strangest thing was just overhead, though: as we were milling our way through unique collections of material culture, you couldn't help but, at least once or twice, let your eyes roam upwards to the vaulted ceilings. There, on platforms high above our heads, were large, cushioned containers that looked vaguely like cello cases. One done in white silky material, another made to look like a boat, a third to look like a boxy car, we finally saw the sign: they were coffins. Fantasy coffins from Ghana, to be exact. My heart jumped a little, but how cool, hey?

Later, after taking it all in, we were relaxing on one of their couches, browsing some of their paper catalogs, when an employee came around with piping hot Moroccan-style tea for everyone to enjoy. Ikea, you've been one-upped. I'll definitely be returning when I'm looking for that perfect, Mercedes-Benz-shaped coffin to match my new living room decor.

Bland but Bubbly

Upon returning from Europe this summer (the first time I had visited my husband's family in four years there, thanks to schooling and visas (my husband's...not mine) and lack of money), I found myself having a hankering for something that I never expected to even like: sparkling water. The first time I tried the bubbly stuff, over five years ago, I thought I would spit it right back out again.  I'm not sure why - I suppose just because I never had had it before, and I somehow subconsciously associated it with carbonated anything (my midwestern mind was thinking 'oh sure, like coke!') - I was expecting something sweet and...well, something with flavor.  Any flavor. Even a little bit of flavor.  Heck, even a bad flavor.  What I got was a mouthful of fizzy wetness.  Fizzy, yes, but totally bland fizziness.  I drank as much as I could and made sure to practice my pronunciation of 'flat' in my less-than-perfect accent. But this time around, I decided to give it another go.  I had a fourth of a cup at one meal.  I upgraded to a half a cup at another.  I added a zest of lemon at a party.  I suddenly liked it.  I suddenly liked it a lot.  I suddenly felt the need to pout just a bit internally when someone was turning the bubbly water bottle upside-down at lunch, getting the last drops of it, and all that was left was my boring flat.  Flat water was suddenly like slightly grainy reception after I had been watching clear, crisp, digital genius on a screen.  

And suddenly here I am, back in the States, in the midst of August heat at its best, my cup of flat, iced water sweating out of its glass next to my computer, and remembering that time a European friend asked nonchalantly for sparkling water at a restaurant here in the city and got a very confused look from the waitress who said abruptly "oh, we don't serve that."  Yet, I also distinctly remember, mid-planning for a fancy party at work, someone suggesting that we serve 'bubbly water.'  My ears perked up.  I may just have to stick a little bit more closely by the buffet table for that shin-dig.  If it's got a snobby reputation in the U.S., then call me highfalutin' and leave me to my bubbles.

A point of clarification about said adventures with city pests

Yes, as I mentioned in my last post, we have had our fair share of mice. But I feel the need to elaborate so that I won't be written off as just plain gross. It was right after we moved in, H and I were settling down to a nice episode of Netflixed something-or-other, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Something scurrying? No...it couldn't be. Suddenly, my husband was saying the same thing. Is that...? No. We tried to settle back down to the story-telling bliss that is HBO drama, and then it was unmistakable. A blip in our image-flashing apartment, clear as the blood-curdling scream I let out the next moment, squeezing between a tiny little hole at the bottom of our front door. Oh, did we ever pay our city-dwelling dues then. We caught roughly 10 mice in the next week. We rigged our apartment up like a giant booby-trap, tiptoeing around metal jaws meant to break little mouse backs. When we discovered the peanut butter delicately but completely licked off one of our own safeguards, we started to buy other things: sticky traps and plastic ones that were supposed to snap shut when the mice wandered in. And here's where the oh so gruesome part of the story comes in. Those plastic traps don't work. Not well enough. In the middle of the night, just as sleep is setting in and our minds are melting into puddles of fuzziness, we here a distinct snap. Followed by a distinct squeal. Followed by a flapping noise and more squeals. We headed out to the living room to find not one but TWO little baby mice feet sticking out of the jaws, kicking and trying their hardest to get somewhere. It was, let me say, awful. To make a painful story brief, my husband dropped the trap in a bucket of water, while I sat on the couch and cried. I won't even go into what happened with the sticky traps.

So that's our mice story. And if you take away one thing let it be this: if you're catching mice, stick to the traditional traps. If they lick the peanut butter off, throw the trap away and set a new one. Words of wisdom from a reluctant but seasoned mouse torturer.