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Monday deer blogging

It’s time to take this blog to the Next Level!

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Jamie and I travelled to Pittsburgh this weekend to meet Nick, who was on fall break; meanwhile, Janet was in Illinois, and . . . oh, never mind.  No one need bother with the byzantine logistics of this little three-quarters-family rendezvous.  What’s important is that Pittsburgh rocks.  It’s been the most pleasant surprise of our move to Pennsylvania; I’ve now been to Pittsburgh maybe half a dozen times and I always come away impressed.  Things are pretty bad financially-- the city is deep in a budget hole and everyone at USAir is now suffering through a 21 percent pay cut-- but it’s a strangely beautiful river city with steep rolling hills and lots of cool neighborhoods.  And a good zoo, which is crucial for Jamie, who collects municipal zoos the way certain baseball fanatics collect major league parks.  I love the zoo as well, though I can’t help noticing that it’s always Heterosexual Day at the zoo-- hets everywhere!  (Half price admission for breeders!) Except for the animals, of course, who are as queer as queer can be.  And as this pic suggests, Jamie is cool with that.

At one point during the Bérubé Boys’ tour of the zoo, Nick and I got into a discussion of canonization.  We don’t remember exactly why, but I think it started when we mentioned the saintly demeanor of this person or that.  So he asked me about the stages that precede official canonization by the Vatican, and kicked it off by saying, “after embalming, of course.” This cracked me up for some reason, so I parried with, “of course there’s flagellation.” “And then transmogrification,” Nick said, “followed by immolation.” By this point I was laughing too hard to keep up my end, so Nick capped it off with, “and then the entire chorus of ‘Pastime Paradise.’” Which, as you’ll recall, involves

Consolation
Integration
Verification
of Revelations
Acclamation
World Salvation
Vibrations
Stimulation
Confirmation . . . to the peace of the world

I don’t remember everything the Jesuits taught me, but that sounds about right.  Saintation is serious business, people!

OK, so here’s to Nick, Jamie, and two kangaroos:

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My next post will also involve animals.  Stay tuned.

Posted by on 10/25 at 07:59 AM

  1. Don’t forget Jane; she’s the one who came up with immolation. And housed me, to boot.

    But yes, now the entire blogging world has seen my face. Curses. Now I can’t implement my devious scheme involving all those people . . . who . . . read your blog . . .? Somehow. nevermind.

    -nicholas

    Posted by  on  10/25  at  10:24 AM

  2. I don’t know if you planned it this way, but your list of the stages of canonization reads like an old Cajun Man skit from SNL - which only makes it funnier.

    Posted by  on  10/25  at  10:48 AM

  3. Your boys look great.  Thanks for showing ‘em.  Keep your eyes on the prize…

    Posted by  on  10/25  at  11:42 AM

  4. Awww.  I wish the LA Zoo had Pettin’ Roos.

    That reminds me-- why did anyone ever think it was a good idea to outfit kangaroos with boxing gloves and set them on barhounds?  Who made the money off that stunt?  Anyone?

    Posted by  on  10/25  at  03:10 PM

  5. The Pittsburgh Zoo is a great walking zoo.  I go there almost every other time I visit my sister & her family.  Her kids, ages 6 and 3, also like Kennywood.

    Posted by  on  10/25  at  06:05 PM

  6. Actually you can’t pet the ‘roos in Pittsburgh, but you can have your hair licked by the deer, as Jamie discovered to his delight.  And it is a great walking zoo-- hills all the way, unlike the zoos of Indianapolis and Detroit, which are great flat walking zoos.

    As for this “Nicholas” commenter, well, I didn’t mean to overlook Jane-- I just didn’t hear her say “immolation.” I thought that was yours.  Sorry about that, Nick!  But I suppose I should explain the larger context for non-family-members.  We were hanging out in the aquarium for a very long time (because it’s Jamie’s favorite place) and talking about any old thing, and when the “canonization” ball started rolling, I said (after I stopped laughing), “just for that I’m going to put all this on the blog,” followed by “you know, I took that quiz about whether your blog owns you-- questions like, ‘when you see something on the street do you think about blogging it’-- and I’m relieved to say that my blog owns only 18.75 percent of my waking consciousness.” And we went back to talking about the aquarium.  But then I thought, well, having said that, I really should put all this on the blog.  I just had to figure out how to upload the images, and it turns out to be quite easy.

    But then again, upon further reflection, these here modern blogs tend to destroy ordinary parent-child contact.  Long ago, in the local, organic, gemeinschaft societies of the early eighteenth century, parents and children blogged face to face.  Today, however, parent-child blogging is mediated by technology and spatio-temporal distantiation.  Indeed, many things are bad now.  Email has inserted itself between ourselves and our telephones, CDs have ruined recorded music, and Ted Leo has sold out. 

    But the zoos are still cool.

    Posted by Michael  on  10/25  at  07:23 PM

  7. And if you had been so fortunate as to live in or near Pittsburgh 30 years ago, like I did, you would have loved it even more.  I grew up there.  One of the pleasures of Pittsburgh was figuring out where the unknown views could be had for watching fireworks and sledding.  There was a certain cemetary built on a ridge where the chosen would congregate on July 4, and there was a certain country club with a very long hill that would come alive in winter after midnight.  When the gloom descended, which it did around 1977 for me, because of the combination of an unbearably awful winter, the beginning of true economic hard times, and the breaking point of my father’s mental illness, I couldn’t wait to leave.  But objectively I know, it’s still a wonderful place.  And another thing for you to do—drive between State College and Pittsburgh on 276/22 the whole way during Christmas season in the dark early evening.  My children thrill to those elaborate Christams light displays everytime we do it (my SIL’s husband is a professor at PSU so we’ve done this drive from State College to my mom’s house more than a few times).

    Posted by  on  10/26  at  04:04 AM

  8. Yo Michael, Pittsburgh is one of the best kept secrets in the county. Excellent Italian food, beautiful Eastern Orthodox churches on Polish Hill, and a grand menagerie of ethnic groups on Penn Avenue, known locally as the Strip District; makes you feel like you’re in New York. Visit The Pennsylvania Macaroni Factory and take your cooler.

    But oh I miss the days when the Steelers and Pirates were rocking!

    Rob

    Posted by  on  10/26  at  04:41 AM

  9. What lovely children you have! And yes, Pittsburgh is amazingly nice, although not a good place for claustrophobes or anyone else who doesn’t like tunnels. Or, I suppose, people who don’t like those little personal ski-lift-like vertical railroads. Or bridge-phobes. Or if you’re petrified by ravines.
    Otherwise, it’s great!

    Posted by  on  10/26  at  05:14 AM

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