It's all coming together

My finger cut, that is... nine days from the day I inflicted it and it's healing nicely, despite the fact that I bashed it open in the sink doing dishes--and twice in the shower, and on my work mailbox--during the week. As with most injuries, one doesn't realize how wonderfully and thoughtlessly in concert even the smallest parts of the body work until a part is taken out of commission. Turns out I use the thumb-side side (non-palm) surface of the "pointer" finger of my left hand quite a bit, most notably to brace the eyelet side of a hook-and-eyelet brassiere fastening. An unexpected inconvenience.

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In New York this past weekend for a event I never even considered wondering about the possibility of attending: fricking Television played in Central Park. Even without Richard Lloyd (hospital, pneumonia, and then amicably retired from the band) it was a good time. Even when they skewed juuussst a little jam-y for my tastes, it was a good time. The big closer, of course, "Marquee Moon" itself, and I held my cell phone up and recorded about a minute of it onto friend D's cell phone. His return message: "okay, two possibilities: you saw a really great Television cover band or--and this is obviously false--you saw Television." Ha.

Stayed with JS & M in Brooklyn, nice little two-level walk-up with a neighbourhood that felt on the cusp of gentrification. An exciting stay, and not just for a fine evening at Florent (delicious, with a completely nonstandard lack of pretension given the Frenchness and fineness of the cuisine) and chill grill out of a Saturday night (in the dark). No no. I hope they'll forgive the "we," but: in the middle of our horror movie showing, we discovered we had mice. During a particularly tense moment in Dead Ringers, out of the corners of our many eyes, we saw the first shadow dart across the floor. I thought cockroach, J thought mouse. J was right. Over the next hour and a half, we went from one mouse to the firm belief that there were no fewer than three, possibly four, in the house. And they were eating the stray dog food nuggets on the floor. A quick assessment of the human foodstuffs revealed they weren't yet all up in the apartment's oatmeal, and I suggested they'd just wandered in recently, to scope the joint. We put away the loose doggy nuggets, verified that the cabinets were sealed fully against the wall, put all the pantry foods in either cabinets or the fridge, and made the plan for the next day: Stinky, Dinky, Blinky, and the unconfirmed Winky would shuffle off their mousely coils at our hands, and a thorough clean would purge the crevasses beneath the fridge and stove of any habitats or leavings.

At the hardware store in Williamsburg, we had the most brutal business of all. No key cutting, fan buying, or bolt-cutter renting for us: we'd come for the lowest-fi of pest control devices, the snap trap. I was (inappropriately I admit, given that it's not my apartment) adamant about the merits of the snap trap over the glue trap. I hate those things, and if you're gonna kill something I think it should be swift, not stretched out over many sticky minutes of starving and panic. We asked the guy at the register if they really worked and he said "dees things been used for t'ousands a years, of course they work, right?"

Right. I wasn't there, but J and M reported that Sunday night they swept beneath the (relatively un-moused) stove and fridge and set out the traps. Monday morning it was requiem eternam Stinky and Dinky. Was there ever a Winky? Did he or she beat a hasty retreat to less patrolled regions of Brooklyn? No se.

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I hesitate to reveal my Friday night plans, but this 4-hour Ken Burns PBS documentary on the Lewis and Clark expedition surely would be better (than it already is) if that red wine hadn't soured on me...