Harvard University Police Log

As you may remember, Banjo Player provided me with blog fodder in the form of that surreal police log about the incident involving her son at a university in Iowa.  At least the cops in Harvard seem to have decent grammatical and spelling skills... but who would want to live somewhere so rampant with crime?  Check out these actual police log entries:

7:24 a.m., November 24
Officer dispatched to a report of an alarm clock going off in Room 45 of Massachusetts Hall. Officer arrived and turned the alarm clock off.

9:24 p.m., November 25
Officers dispatched to a report of a flickering light in the area of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Officers report Facilities Maintenance Operations was notified about the light.

8:54 a.m., November 28
Officers reports hearing a loud popping sound in Harvard Yard. Officer searched the area for anything suspicious with negative results.

1:36 p.m., November 28
Officer dispatched to a report of bells ringing in the towers of multiple buildings for a half-hour. Officer reports there were no bells ringing in the area.

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A Picture Is Worth 51,305 Words

Sometimes I rock so hard I even scare myself.

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Photos of Plants

Today was a day of obligation (Immaculate Conception) and at Our Lady of Perpetual Sobriety, where we cater to every taste, there was Mass in English right after work, followed by Mass in Latin according to the Tridentine rite, followed by Mass in Spanish.  I went to the Mass in English, where young Father Keepin' It Real used plenty of incense that smelled like cinnamon red-hots.  (Seriously, when I went to Father Keepin' It Real for Confession, he said, "I feel ya."  Can't say I've ever had a priest say that to me before! Then I said something else and he said, "I know, right?"  I think all Catholic priests should conduct Confession in urban slang.)

But the title of this blog post did not promise you a recounting of my Confession (and you're not going to get one so don't even bother asking); it promised you plant photos.  So here they are:

Plant World looking mysterious

Plant World not looking mysterious

Thanksgiving cacti blooming

Christmas cactus blooming

Christmas cactus from below

Here are some shots of Nola, the papyrus plant I brought back from New Orleans.  At that time it was a little sprig, but now it is getting big.  (Hey!  I'm a poet and don't realize it!)

Succulents in Plant World

Hardingfele's compost heap avocado tree

Baby palm tree growing in red dracaena's pot

Is this orchid growing antennae?

Hey!  So is this one!

Keith (center) now lives in Plant World

So what plant is keeping me company at work?  Answer:  today Light Bright gave me a poinsettia!  Labeled:  "Marry Christmass, Faymuss" - I couldn't make this up if I tried.  So here is a picture of Vito the Poinsettia.  Why a goombah name?  Doesn't it look like a Vito?  It has no neck.

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It's That Time of Year...

… when charities are begging for our hard-earned dollars, and you wonder what some of them are thinking. A few years back, I remember a poster for food pantries plastered all over the workplace, talking about how many families are going hungry right here in our city. I couldn’t tell if they were being ironic or trying to undermine their own campaign, because the photo was of a very overweight woman and her two chunky kids posing with an anorexic-looking news anchor, and you couldn't help thinking, “Wait… which ones are the starving ones?”

Then there are the Adopt-A-Family charities. We have two families adopted here at work, and one of them – let’s call them the Harther family – asked for completely appropriate things. Sid Harther said his children would like clothes and simple, age-appropriate toys, and the family could use cooking ware and G-rated movies. Sounds wonderful! I’d be happy to help this family have a delightful Christmas!

Then there is the other family, let’s call them the Thoosters. Sarah Thooster’s children want expensive video games and MP3 players… whuh? Why should I give them money to have better stuff than I own? Aren’t they asking for our help because they are poor? And yet they already own the expensive video system to play these games on? Most disturbingly, the four-year-old boy wants sexy cologne and CDs of heavy metal bands from the 80’s. ‘Scuze me? Shouldn’t this kid be avoiding baths to the best of his ability and listening to inane children’s records? Doesn’t he want any toys? Is there any possibility these things are actually desired by Sarah Thooster’s live-in boyfriend, who is listed as if he is a child (although from his birthdate I can see he is older than I am!) and who wants leather gloves? And should you really be using a charity to get your own adult wishes when it is supposed to be to help your children have a Merry Christmas? You can buy your own leather gloves, expensive video games, sexy cologne, and heavy metal CDs, Sarah Thooster’s dude. (Or should I say dud?)

Disclaimer: the names of the characters in this story do not imply any endorsement or rejection of any particular religion; in fact, I would probably rather be Zoroastrian than Buddhist, if those were my only two choices. The whole monotheism bit, and all that. Although why their God is named after a car (Ahura Mazda) is beyond me, since Zoroastrianism predates automobiles by many millennia.

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True Adventure: The Finger

(Warning:  graphic finger photo at bottom of post!)

True story: the other day Richard Bonomo was coming home and his garage door wouldn’t open all the way. He tried to open it manually, but it wouldn’t stay raised, so he let it back down… without noticing his index finger was between two panels. So he had to lift the door back up and extract his finger, which was flat on the tip. He said it didn’t hurt yet, so he drove to the emergency room. Luckily it was a quiet night, so he was taken – by gurney – to be x-rayed right away, and the tip of the bone was shattered, but they said the pieces were all in the right places so it should heal on its own. Meanwhile, as the blood flowed back into his finger and it re-inflated, he said the pain got exponentially worse. Ultimately they gave him a small plastic guard for his finger, which he promptly lost in the hospital parking lot.

The next day Rich went back to the hospital and found his flattened finger guard in the parking lot, apparently smooshed by a car. Since his finger was no longer flat, he needed an unflat guard, so he brought it into the hospital and asked for a replacement, which they gave him. Then he and Kathbert went to look at snow blowers. The saleswoman, who was middle-aged, told him a particular model was the “Cadillac of snow blowers.” He asked if any models were really bad, and she said, “That one,” pointing at the Cadillac of snow blowers. Apparently she was talking in hip-hop, which one might not expect from a middle-aged white woman, but instead of amending his question to say something like, “I need to know which snow blower totally bites, not which is the sickest,” he requested to know which snow blower was “bad in standard English.” Kathbert just about died of embarrassment. In the end, Rich did not purchase a snow blower… and when he got home, he realized his finger guard was missing. Probably left on the top of the baddest snow blower, whatever that might mean to you.

Update:  8 December - Rich has actually provided us with an actual photo of his finger.  This must be from a few days ago.  It looks far worse today.

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Eerie Ears

Today Richard Bonomo, Kathbert, and I went to the University choir concert at the Lutheran church where I sing.  Five of the University choirs do a Christmas concert there every year, and it is always very impressive.  What really impressed me this time was that Mr. Microphone (or, as Kathbert calls it, "Eerie Ears") was there recording the proceedings.  Eerie Ears also recorded our final concert at the Early Music Festival and, believe me, it is very disconcerting (at a concert! ha!) as you are psyching yourself up to sing an eight-choir Tallis motet, to look up and see a microphone that looks like an Easter Island head.  (Or as the other soprano in Choir Seven said, "What is that, the Idol of Music?")  Here are some pictures Rich took of Eerie Ears.

This shot from the back isn't a very exciting picture of Eerie Ears, but it is a really good shot of the Lutheran church, so I decided to include it.

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Performing Without My G String

OK, now that I've got your attention, this post is actually about playing the violin.  Hardingfele and I drove to the mall, which is the last place I usually want to go this time of year, but this was to do a Good Deed.  And yes, sans G string.  Because when I pulled my violin out of its case, the G string was very, very broken, and I did not have a replacement.  Not to mention that these were gut strings, so even if someone had had a spare steel string around, wouldn't that have sounded weird?  Three gut strings and a steel string?  Talk about gauche!  (I didn't set out to throw lots of random French words into this post; it just kind of happened.)

Anyway, Hardingfele and I joined two other violin players and two cellists, and we played for two hours by the Salvation Army donation bucket.  If you noticed something missing in this picture, you are very astute:  no violas!  This means we had nobody to tell viola jokes to.  It also might have meant we were missing some important harmony, especially on the Corelli "Christmas Concerto" in G minor, but as fantastic of players as we are, that was probably the least of our issues.  The one violinist pulled out an accordion for the piano arrangements of the secular tunes, and we noticed we got a lot more donations during those songs than during the lovely religious tunes like "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming."  One cellist said maybe we should stick to the peppy secular stuff, and I noted that we actually got the most donations between songs, so she said, "Hm... maybe they're trying to tell us something."

As I may have mentioned before, I had no G string, so I was forced to play the first violin part.  Once in awhile things would go too low, so I would have to fudge with some harmony.  Then again, Hardingfele and I came across some kind of rhythmically bizarre harmony in one well-known carol, so we fudged that entirely.  We also had to borrow chairs from the Food Court, since I am still recovering from a cold and didn't want to spend two hours standing.  Otherwise, it was a fairly successful performance, even if I didn't have a G string.

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