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Meet Herbert

My venus fly trap
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

You'd think at my age, I would have learned my lesson by now.

Whenever I end up caring about a houseplant, it always ends up disappointing me. In fact, I can't think of a single houseplant I've ever had that didn't end up crushing my dreams about houseplants. The ferns end up dead. The African violets end up wilting away. They start off looking lush and green, but then, reality sets in...again.

But I never seem to learn my lesson. You think I'd learn after all this time that I should stop getting emotionally attached to houseplants--because I know it will always, always end up in the same place.

So I've decided to go in a different direction.

Thus, Herbert.

Herbert is a Venus Fly Trap. For some reason I can't really explain, I've always been fascinated by these plants, but never knew how someone could raise them. They eat meat, right, so...do they have babies? Do they lay eggs? Magically split into multiple fly traps?

I had no clue.

Ends up they aren't that much different than other houseplants--except they are totally different.

I found a place online, called Carolina Carnivores, which sold me a Venus Fly Trap for $7. That didn't seem like much of a risk, so I ordered it. A week later Herbert arrived.

I don't normally name houseplants, but figured if something was going to live in my house and eat meat--it should have a name. Herbert is as good as any name, I figure. He doesn't seem to mind.

Now, there are some particular things about raising a Venus Fly Trap.

Herbert, it could be said, is a sojourner. While he can lay down roots--he can't do it in DC soil--it is too acidic. So, Herbert lies in a cushy pot of peat moss. Herbert also can't deal with local water (it contains chlorine), so Herbert can only get moisture from rain water or (as is often our choice) bottled spring water.

Even though I was fascinated by Herbert at first, I was also, equally, a bit repulsed. I didn't want to touch him. When he started to grow and needed a bigger pot, I didn't want to touch his roots, either. I know what happens to the leftovers when I eat meat, so I figured the same would be true for Herbert. God knows what is mixed into those roots.

So Venus Fly trap. Check. Peat moss. Check. Bottled water. Check.

Um, what about the flies?

Herbert had been living on my porch for about two weeks and I hadn't noticed any of his traps closing (a sign that he has caught a meal). I figured that he had to be starving and that I should help him out a bit.

It just so happened that a big, juicy spring fly had made its way from the front porch into the house earlier that day--so I went about trying to catch him for Herbert. Here is the rub: I'd have to catch it alive. For some reason, raw meat and dead bugs are unhealthy for a Venus Fly Trap. It has to be fresh--as in alive.

So I went about chasing the fly around our house trying to swat it--but only swat it lightly enough to stun it. This is more difficult than it may sound, as I was constantly missing the fly because I was second guessing how much force to use.

The next morning, I managed to take down the fly--I think I broke a few of his kneecaps with my pansy-like swat. Then I quickly scooped him up and carried him outside to Herbert. As soon as that squirming fly hit Herbert's leaf, his trap snapped shut like like a mouse trap. It was an amazing sight.

So Herbert digested the fly for a few days and then slowly opened his leaves again, letting the leftover fly parts flit away like pieces of ash in the breeze.

Herbert never showed any gratitude. Never really did much of anything--since he is a houseplant.

But, he survived.

Since then, Herbert routinely catches flies and mosquitoes on his own (don't know if he has a preference). And every time is as fascinating to watch as the first.

And Herbert is doing great. He just recently sprouted a flower for a little spring pollinating. (Does that mean he is a girl?)

I'd like to say that Herbert had renewed my faith in houseplants. But the truth is, houseplants are houseplants. Herbert is Herbert.

Therapy training

waiter stops to pet
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

"Do you take pictures of every dog?" I asked.

"Yes, I keep a photo album in my room of every dog that visits," Mr. Stevens replied. "But usually all I get back is pictures of the owners' legs." 

He spoke in a rapid-fire mumble and didn't like staying in the same place for more than a minute or two before pulling his wheelchair around the room by shuffling his heels against the tile floor. From the condition of it, I bet that Mr. Stevens had chosen to wear that Air Force jacket every day for a long time. It looked like he had been shaving without using a mirror for the past few weeks. 

Yet, Mr. Stevens was one of the more "put together" of the bunch--about a half dozen residents who came down to be volunteer subjects for therapy dog training.

The other volunteers weren't quite so gregarious, instead ranging from aloof to catatonic. 

More than once I wondered if there was actually any film in Mr. Stevens camera.

Our dog Lolly has never met a person she didn't love. Seriously, it doesn't matter who we come across walking down the street, she will drop to the pavement when anyone offers the slightest bit of attention. She is the most social dog I've ever seen. And people love her back. When we walk down the street, children will often call out her name and come running to see her. Almost everyone we've met in our neighborhood was a result of approaching us to ask about the funny little happy dog that prances down the street.

She'd make a great therapy dog, Katherine and I would say to each other.

After a year or so of looking around, we finally found a therapy dog group that sounded like a good match for Lolly. They have monthly training sessions for new dogs at the Armed Forces Retirement Home (minutes from our house), so we signed up and went this past weekend. 

Once we got there, we realized that it wasn't really training for Lolly--she just has to be a dog. The training was really for us.

Therapy dogs are brought into retirement homes, hospitals, after school programs, and other situations where a chance to pet a friendly dog might bring some joy or happiness. Our trainer told us that after a visit with an animal, patients are usually "up" for a week afterwards and often talk about the dogs they meet long after.

After learning all the rules and doing some obedience commands and tests (which Lolly, the first dog to be tested, ace'd with almost military precision--not quite sure how that happened), we were supposed to practice with the retiree volunteers. 

I consider myself really good with people. I can make conversation with just about anyone, in any situation, with relative ease. But once I looked around the room of volunteers, I immediately felt completely out of sorts.

Outside of Mr. Stevens, they weren't really a very communicative bunch. They all just kind of sat there and stared. I had trouble accepting that these people had actually volunteered to be here, as I'm quite positive most of them had no idea where they were.

In a situation like that, every physical and expressive cue that someone is approachable is nonexistent. You see some dude slouched in a wheelchair blankly staring at his foot and you have no idea what to do. Can I approach you? Do you want me to bring the dog to you? Are you going to scream if I get within two feet of you?

Lolly wasn't helping, as she surveyed the room and immediately determined that the resident volunteers were not nearly as interesting as the other dog owners, who did things like speak, move, and acknowledge her presence.

It was Katherine who figured it out first. She just saw a woman sitting alone in her wheelchair in the middle of the room, pulled up a chair next to her, sat down, put Lolly in her lap, and said, "Would you like to meet my dog?"

The woman immediately smiled and reached out to touch Lolly's face.

I thought Katherine's approach was genius and decided to repeat it myself. I went up to the most spaced-out dude in the room, pulled up a chair, and introduced him to Lolly. Without saying a word, he thrust out both arms and gently rubbed her face and neck. Then he got a huge smile on his face and Lolly melted at the affection. 

By this time, a few non-volunteer residents had noticed all the activity and shuffled/rolled over to see what was going on. Now there was about 12 retirees curious about the dogs, so we kept taking turns bringing Lolly to them.

Of those who spoke, they all wanted to know everything about Lolly--how old she was, where she came from, what kind of dog she was. After getting the basic bio facts out of the way, the retirees would then tell us about pets they'd had.

Unfortunately, every pet story they shared ended with a full retelling of the pet's awful demise. 

"Yeah, I used to have a dog that was this color, we called him Mr. Barks," one gentleman shared. "Then, one day, Mr. Barks woke up and his back legs didn't work no more--so I knew he had to be put down. I couldn't decide if I should take him to the vet or just take him out back with a shotgun and do it myself. The vet charged fifty bucks to do it--can you imagine?"

I told him Mr. Barks sounded like a wonderful dog.

To be fair, when you are that old, I'm sure a lot of your stories involve characters that are now dead, be they human, canine, or whatever. 

We go back in a few more weeks for another evaluation, then the group leader and we decide if this this is something we should commit to. Even before that, I'm pretty convinced already at this is something that Lolly and I will make a part of our lives.

As intensely awkward it was for the first few moments, that is also what I find so compelling about the opportunity. Lolly doesn't care that they are frail, old, shy, or smell like pee. She has a great time regardless. 

As I get better "trained," I'm sure I will too. Given the opportunity to spend an hour listening to someone reminisce about their dead pet, compared to sitting at brunch and listening to some hipster douche bag go on and on about video games and LCD Soundsystem--Mr. Barks is gonna win every time.

New guest post on Prince of Petworth

Alley is completely drifted over
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

I have a new guest post on the Prince of Petworth blog, about the new residents in the building pictured on the right (which was empty at the time I took this picture).

Quote:

"Like Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense–I have a mildly embarrassing confession to make. But unlike him, I don’t see dead people.
I see naked people.
And I don’t know what to do about it."

I'm even making the questionable decision of responding to several of the (typically) nasty commenters. Here is a link to the whole thing.

Music for Airports

Eno_Brian_music_for_airports
Originally uploaded by JRP1953

Throughout my life, I've owned at least six copies of Brian Eno's 1978 album Music for Airports.

I kept buying them, then giving them away to people that I felt should have the record. Music for Airports was Brian Eno’s first album of “ambient music”—sparce, simple music meant to create mood and ambience for spaces (like an airport, for example).

Music for Airports only contained four songs, if you can call them that. Each featured a series of tape loops of a few simple notes (or sometimes just a single note) from a piano, a synthesizer, or human voice. These notes would loop on intervals, one loop would repeat every 23 seconds, another every 39 seconds, another once a minute, and so on. The randomness generated unexpected harmonies and moments of beauty, surround by periods of reverberance and near silence. It was unlike anything anyone I’d known had ever heard.

I first discovered Music for Airports at a youth theater class when I was twelve. To stress the importance of learning to move well, they brought in this flaky choreographer a couple times a year who had no interest in dealing with children at all.

“Okay now, boys and girls,” she said. “I’m going to play some music for you—and I just want you to move. You can move any way you wish, just let your body do what the music tells you to do.”

That was about the limit of our instruction. Every week she’d show up with a new piece of music. She’d hit play, and start to lead by example. She’d roll up her arm, spin around, and then dart across the stage. Then she’d collapse to the ground, flop around for a bit, then stand up and look at us.

“Okay, boys and girls, now it’s your turn!”

We just stood there, perfectly still. After a few minutes one girl would raise her arm, then put it back down. A few of us would walk around the room stiffly, trying to time our steps with the music. Then someone would jump up in the air. Within a few minutes we were all back to standing shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the room, motionless. This cycle continued for an hour every class.

“Good, boys and girls, that was very good,” she said. “Now let’s try another.”

She popped in a new tape that just contained random notes. No beat, no melody, not much of anything in fact.

“Okay now, everyone, just move to the music. Let the music inspire you.”

Everyone just stood there.

“What is this?” one girl asked.

“I think your tape player is busted,” said another.

“This is called Music for Airports. Imagine you are flying….” she said, letting her voice trail away as she raised her arms and ran around the room swooping up and down.

That next Friday, as soon as I had my allowance, I rode my bike down to the record store.

“Do you have an album called Music for Airports?” I asked.

The clerk looked at me funny. I’m sure not too many twelve-year-olds came in asking for that one.

“The Brian Eno record?” he asked. “You know what that is like?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I’ve heard it before.”

You can listen to the entire album via the playlist below: