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James Thurber's comedic writing doesn't all age that well, though none of it ages as badly as his serious stuff. When I was a child my parents had five or six collections of his pieces, one entitles Let Your Mind Alone, which may, if I had a chance to look at it again, age better than others: it was mostly pieces making fun of self-help manuals, which were as much a nuisance in the landscape in the thirties and forties as they are now.
But one of Thurber's staples was the "nature is going to get you" gambit. This took several forms, my favorite of which -- as a child, again, mind you -- was exemplifie4d by a piece called "After the steppe cat, what?" In these essays he'd seize upon a news article about some fiersome wild beast found in the middle of a city, and he'd riff on that until he concluded that civilization was about to end and humanity was in for it. Of course, seeing the times he lived in, that may have been wishful thinking on his part.
Not that we live in times that discourage worry, ourselves.
Anyway, I was thinking about this today because the big headline in yesterday's Sentinel (reminding myself I am going to quit my subscription because there's so little paper there -- less all the time and they don't even have an office in Santa Cruz anymore and what's the point of that? and I could spend that nine dollars a month on donations to public media of one sort or another)-- well, the smallish one in the coveted upper left position, the one you see when the paper's folded in thirds for tossing on to the steps -- was "COUGAR SPOTTED AT THE MALL-- mountain lion also seen roaming around Live Oak" Live Oak is an unincorporated area between Santa Cruz and Capitola. It is not rural. It's about as dense as Santa Cruz proper, now, I think, or at least it looks that way, though when I moved to town it was entirely truck farms and that sort of thing: the mall itself was built on agricultural land -- aren't they always? -- and has only in the last fifteen years or so expanded on to what was Brown Bulb Ranch, a place I always tried to get on at for winter work when I was working at the freezer plant. Anyway.
When I first came to the area in 1970, mountain lions were a rumor. Naturalists were pretty sure they were somewhere around, but they are really quite secretive and they were definitely down in numbers. People used to kill mountain lions for sport and not just for safety's sake. Also people used to hunt deer and other tasty beasts more often in these parts, and now there are vast tracts where you couldn't hunt if you wanted to -- dedicated parkland. The mountain lions have had a resurgence in population, and I think they must be feeling a certain amount of food pressure because we've been getting a lot of these urban lion sightings in the last year or so. It would make sense. We had about ten years of lush rainy seasons, which would result in a rise in the tasty beast population, and that would result in a rise in mountain lion population. And then the last two years have been dry -- and there's been continuing human incursion into the wilder parts of the area in the form of construction (and constriction).
Fish and Game say that they're not going to take action in the case of this mountain lion, which has been sighted in the wee hours of the morning, unless it does something scary like the one out by Pinto Lake at the edge of Watsonville, which ate a chihuahua and was therefore shot. They say that since this one is apparently avoiding people it will most likely wander back the way it came, using the ravines and brushlands to avoid people.
Okay, I can believe that.
Why do they call rich aging yuppie women with a taste for young men "cougars," exactly?
On the personal front, I did a little business with the University yesterday, and while nothing's official, the person I talked to said that the Office of the President has indicated that they are inclined to give Ted the five years' credit though he died a couple of weeks before his anniversary (my cynical side suggests this is at least partly to stop me talking about how he worked for them for thirty-four years, really. Every other time the employer of record took over the kitchen, he got some credit for the time he worked. Only the University made him start from scratch. Only the University had any benefits to speak of beyond a health plan, though). The difference is: if they give him the five years, I get to continue my health plan, and they pay me an annuity thing (I think it is not called that), which coincidentally about matches what I will have to pay for the health plan, which leaves me in a reasonable position.
Life insurance is about twice what I thought it would be, which leaves me with a small windfall after I pay off all our debts (which are not great, considering). Enough to have the house professionally shoveled out and to get my implants, I think. And I had just given up on ever getting them. I think I'd rather have Ted, though.
No, I don't think I should sock it away: I would be tempted to live on it, which would leave me with nothing to show for it.
But one of Thurber's staples was the "nature is going to get you" gambit. This took several forms, my favorite of which -- as a child, again, mind you -- was exemplifie4d by a piece called "After the steppe cat, what?" In these essays he'd seize upon a news article about some fiersome wild beast found in the middle of a city, and he'd riff on that until he concluded that civilization was about to end and humanity was in for it. Of course, seeing the times he lived in, that may have been wishful thinking on his part.
Not that we live in times that discourage worry, ourselves.
Anyway, I was thinking about this today because the big headline in yesterday's Sentinel (reminding myself I am going to quit my subscription because there's so little paper there -- less all the time and they don't even have an office in Santa Cruz anymore and what's the point of that? and I could spend that nine dollars a month on donations to public media of one sort or another)-- well, the smallish one in the coveted upper left position, the one you see when the paper's folded in thirds for tossing on to the steps -- was "COUGAR SPOTTED AT THE MALL-- mountain lion also seen roaming around Live Oak" Live Oak is an unincorporated area between Santa Cruz and Capitola. It is not rural. It's about as dense as Santa Cruz proper, now, I think, or at least it looks that way, though when I moved to town it was entirely truck farms and that sort of thing: the mall itself was built on agricultural land -- aren't they always? -- and has only in the last fifteen years or so expanded on to what was Brown Bulb Ranch, a place I always tried to get on at for winter work when I was working at the freezer plant. Anyway.
When I first came to the area in 1970, mountain lions were a rumor. Naturalists were pretty sure they were somewhere around, but they are really quite secretive and they were definitely down in numbers. People used to kill mountain lions for sport and not just for safety's sake. Also people used to hunt deer and other tasty beasts more often in these parts, and now there are vast tracts where you couldn't hunt if you wanted to -- dedicated parkland. The mountain lions have had a resurgence in population, and I think they must be feeling a certain amount of food pressure because we've been getting a lot of these urban lion sightings in the last year or so. It would make sense. We had about ten years of lush rainy seasons, which would result in a rise in the tasty beast population, and that would result in a rise in mountain lion population. And then the last two years have been dry -- and there's been continuing human incursion into the wilder parts of the area in the form of construction (and constriction).
Fish and Game say that they're not going to take action in the case of this mountain lion, which has been sighted in the wee hours of the morning, unless it does something scary like the one out by Pinto Lake at the edge of Watsonville, which ate a chihuahua and was therefore shot. They say that since this one is apparently avoiding people it will most likely wander back the way it came, using the ravines and brushlands to avoid people.
Okay, I can believe that.
Why do they call rich aging yuppie women with a taste for young men "cougars," exactly?
On the personal front, I did a little business with the University yesterday, and while nothing's official, the person I talked to said that the Office of the President has indicated that they are inclined to give Ted the five years' credit though he died a couple of weeks before his anniversary (my cynical side suggests this is at least partly to stop me talking about how he worked for them for thirty-four years, really. Every other time the employer of record took over the kitchen, he got some credit for the time he worked. Only the University made him start from scratch. Only the University had any benefits to speak of beyond a health plan, though). The difference is: if they give him the five years, I get to continue my health plan, and they pay me an annuity thing (I think it is not called that), which coincidentally about matches what I will have to pay for the health plan, which leaves me in a reasonable position.
Life insurance is about twice what I thought it would be, which leaves me with a small windfall after I pay off all our debts (which are not great, considering). Enough to have the house professionally shoveled out and to get my implants, I think. And I had just given up on ever getting them. I think I'd rather have Ted, though.
No, I don't think I should sock it away: I would be tempted to live on it, which would leave me with nothing to show for it.
