Emma to Cindy, Constance to Wendy
ANY PORT IN A STORM
We were getting perilously close to not having any November diary entries! That would mess up my archives page so here is a thing: not a lovely thing, not a useful thing, not a thing you necessarily wanted. Just a thing. Like a weird gift from a relative where you have to shift your voice up a register after opening the box: “Ohhhh! It’s a *takes a hard look at thing* THING!” Gift season is nearly here so we should all practice those neutral phrases. Will you look at that! I’ve never seen one of these! I don’t have anything like this! Thank you! I have been known to perform this neutral-phrase service for other people’s gifts, even, since my kid used to be very flummoxed by weird gifts. I remember practicing when he was small and explaining that “thank you” was enough. Thank you is always enough.
I personally do not have the common-to-people-socialized-as-female problem of apologizing too often (I perhaps have the opposite problem, in fact), but I remember reading some advice to substitute “thank you” for some of your “sorry” times. Sorry I’m late = thank you for waiting. Sorry I am having trouble finding your file = thank you for your patience. This is kind of brilliant and also kind of sneaky, in a way. I like things like that.
ANGUS MACGYVER
I did not have any floss at the office so I (privately, in the bathroom) used my Nordstrom card to work a piece of black-bean skin, from my lunch burrito, out from between my teeth. The intersection of grooming and capitalism.
ADULT EDUCATION
Aaron and I took a “taxidermy 101” class. We were issued a dead rat. We took the skin off the rat! Carefully. You make a little incision (pretty small). You gently work to break the skin/fascia/muscle connections; think putting butter and herbs under the chicken skin. First you get her little arms out, gently, one at a time, like taking off a baby’s shirt. Then the head, working around the eyeballs (you want to end up with a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style rat-skin mask). Then the body, then the feet. Wash and dry (with Dawn dishwashing detergent). Break for lunch. Wash your hands first.
(Note: at some point in this process the terms “inside” and “outside” lose all meaning so the instructors refer to the “fuzzy side” and the “meat side.” Evocative!)
The peeling was our favorite part; the stuffing it back into an animal shape is more difficult. (Perhaps we could get a volunteer peeling job, and leave the actual taxidermy to experts?)
I guess with larger animals you buy a form and stretch the skin over, but for a little rat it’s a good old-fashioned stuffed-animal stuffing party. You wrap wires with cotton and make rat-limb shapes, you guide it all into the skin sack, you stuff the body with more cotton than you think it can possibly hold, because the skin will shrink and contract slightly with age and no one likes a skinny rat. Sew up your incision in a fancy no-show way. Stick pins in for the eyes and pull the eye socket flesh over them a little bit. Decide how to pose, wire her to a board. Our girl has pins propping up her ears here just to keep them perky while she dries out a little, but we have since taken them out. (Likewise, the crayon has been removed now that we know her head won’t droop.) Look how cute.
The organizers provided a handout on how to deflesh and clean the skull and offered to chop off your rat’s head if you wanted to take it in a baggie and do that at home. We were the only skull-takers! HOW CAN YOU PASS UP THIS OPPORTUNITY. Aaron finished the job during the teacher’s strike, with tweezers and hydrogen peroxide, and now we have a rat skull that we are slightly unsure how to utilize. It was recommended to just display it alongside the rat but I don’t know. Maybe part of a terrarium jar? Some moss, some rocks, a rat skull.
Taxidermy takes a long time! Being a complete amateur did not help, but even prepping a tiny rat start to finish, with a very short lunch break, took about six hours with a bit of scrambling for time toward the end. Do not ask me to fix up your grave-robbing trophies any time soon, is what I am saying.
—mimi smartypants sips lean, double cup toasts.