forbush**2 + apocalyptic ice cream

May 19, 2003


I'm finally able to drive in the city and parallel park without too much pain, though my arm does get tired and weak after awhile. My big outings are now more interesting than the trip to the grocery store or to Blockbuster for Jackie Chan movies. Yes, now I can seek used books and birds (used birds?) far and wide. Well sort of.

Anyway, Thursday was the first time since I dislocated my shoulder that I was able to drive to Central Square for my Thursday meeting. I made a real outing of it, allowing extra time for browsing at Rodney's and a sandwich at Falafel Palace. At Rodney's I spotted Forbush and the Penguins in the bird section. Penguins in Massachusetts? Oh, not that Forbush. This is a novel. In fact I think there's a movie made from it. It's brilliant and I must have it. I came away with that plus Living with Seabirds, which actually is a bird book by some internationally renowned gannet expert, and a book on snow goose migration for Nancy's collection of books about geese. How does one become an internationally renowned expert on gannets? Are there many job openings for them? Could I make a living as an internationally renowned expert on piping plovers? Doubtful. It would help to be able to lift my binoculars I suppose.

My goal in physical therapy is in fact to be able to lift my binoculars and hold them steady. Forget activities of daily living like bathing and dressing. Who cares if I can hook my bra? So anyway, I brought my binoculars to PT on Friday and told the therapists: "You guys call yourselves Sports Medicine and birding is a sport." They were astounded at how heavy my huge 10x50 binoculars are. They did however analyze the motion involved in getting the binocs on the bird and came up with two exercises specifically for that.

Saturday's treat was dinner with Nancy at Mary Chung followed by ice cream at Toscanini's. I have been dreaming of Toscanini's ice cream the whole time I've been disabled with the shoulder thing. I have longed for it so much that I was willing to skip dinner at Mary Chung and just have ice cream. I had one scoop of ginger and one of mango. They didn't have cardamom on the menu today. Nancy had one scoop of sweet cream and one of burnt caramel. All excellent choices. Oddly compelling cello music drifted out of the sound system making us progressively happier and more curious. Is that a cello or bass? What kind of music is this? Why does it sound like an electric guitar and a cello at the same time? Finally, I, gray-haired old lady, approach the kid behind the counter and ask what the music is. The kid grins broadly as he tells me it's four Finnish guys who play Metallica on cellos: Apocalyptica. He writes it down for me. He doesn't know the title of the CD but tells me the name of the first song is Harmaggedon. He writes that down too and tells us we should stick around for the last song on the CD. We do. It's fabulous. I love these little forays into the big city. They're so... so cultural. Every scoop of ice cream should come with such a musical epiphany.

Nancy suggested driving to Manchester by the Sea to walk around and look at the water down the quaint alleyways on Sunday. This was after we'd driven to Newburyport for coffee at Middle Street Foods, where I entertained people standing on line for their coffee with tales of how I can't sail anymore because of the shoulder dislocated sliding head first into second trying to stretch a ground ball into a double, or yanking my arm out of the socket grabbing the boom on an out of control sailboat in gale force winds. Then I almost had a guy convinced that I am actually Rocco (sure to be MLB rookie of the year) Baldelli's grandma. I couldn't convince anyone that I'm Mia Hamm's long lost sister Honeybaked though. What can I say? The line for coffee was LONG.

Not inexplicably we ended up in Manchester by the Book with g*d's own plenty of whaling memoirs, Himalayan mountaineering memoirs, no great plant hunter memoirs (this is the bookstore I discovered because they had a Frank Kingdon-Ward in the window), a few bird books in the birding section but nothing special, then, then, in the "local interest" section: Forbush. That would be Edward Howe "Birds of Massachusetts" Forbush not the penguin-loving Forbush. It's an unwritten law that all Massachusetts birder-bibliophiles must possess Forbush, must quote Forbush in all accounts of uncommon bird sightings, must preface all historical information with "according to Forbush". Yes, that Forbush. Right here in Manchester by the Sea. I was ecstatic. Can I afford it? Who cares? It's coming home with me.

All these new used books, and Apocalyptica, and the Yankees in town to be destroyed by the Red Sox. I feel better already.

Weeds In Bloom in my yard:
dandelion
common chickweed
corn speedwell
common blue violet

Today's Reading
The Natural History of Moray by Charles St. John

This Year's Reading
2003 Book List

Today's Starting Pitcher
Casey Fossum


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Copyright © 2003, Janet I. Egan