Learning #4: have spare keys handy (but not too handy)

I am a serial car key loser. In my defense, I drive a Prius and you don't actually have to hold the key to get into your car. You in fact don't have a key for this egg-shaped car at all, you have a little square transpondery Keything. With Keything you just have to stand in the general vicinity of your car and pull a door handle, and voila! Open, sesame. It's so gratifying.

In fact, Spare Keything (two Keythings are better than one, especially because replacements cost 50 times what any self-respecting key would) unwittingly led to a non-dramatic car break-in wherein all of my dirty change was stolen, as well as all my CD's. This really pissed me off and made me laugh all at the same time, as I strongly suspect that my CD thief found that the street value of burned indie and jam band CD's had even less value than my "Best of Culture Club" and various Ani DiFranco albums.

Spare Keything, you see, had been stashed in my User's Manual. Not being a reader of manuals or directions in general (dunno if I'll ever summon the courage to publicly tell the absolute best historical illustration of this point, so you'll have to take my word for it), I didn't open the manual package. Thus I didn't know that my spare key was in there. Thus I didn't know that, for the first 3 weeks I owned my car, anyone could have not just gotten into it but also driven off with it.

Whether the person(s) who broke into (er... opened) my Prius to abscond with my Built to Spill collection knew that they could have added Grand Theft Auto to Grand Theft Ani is anyone's guess.

Anyway, that's why you don't want to keep spare keys too handy. Good learning.

So as I was saying before I interrupted myself, Keything opens my car if it's close to the car and I pull a door handle. This has made me even lazier about knowing the exact location of my keys, and it's gotten me out of the habit of having them in my hands.

This is bad. This is bad because I lost car keys even before Keything entered my life and catered to every lazy bone in my fingers (especially the metatarsals - they're slackers), and because I tend to operate on muscle memory when I'm not paying attention, and since I'm not known for paying attention to car keys or when getting ready in the morning or when doing 5 things at once (usual)...

Sometimes I think that Einstein's theory of finite brain storage is correct. But regrettably, I just don't know a way to tell my brain that retaining every word and cadence of "Alice's Restaurant" is less important than keeping track of my keys.

What's worse is that my house key is the only actual key on Keything, and when I forget that I don't have Keything and I walk out of the house and close the door I get locked out. I have a habit of locking myself out of various houses, both mine and those belonging to others. At some point I realized that others were more dependable than I am, so I started giving out keys to multiple friends, and in their absence I've climbed trees, slit screens, stood on recycle bins to scale rooftops and jimmy French doors, dismantled French door panels, and once had a cousin come over to crawl through the basement (ew) and let himself in through the closet floor in my sister's room (I was a teenager).

So, to sum up: I lose my keys a lot, and I get locked out a lot. And that is why I used to have a lot of spare keys around, hidden in groovy places. Problem is, the spares always get lost - usually, maddeningly, by other people who forgot their keys to my house and know where my spare is. Or was. Argh. So I don't have any sweet Hide-a-Keys anymore, but I do have speed dial and a really pathetic "I'm locked out" voice that might make you want to come save me, especially since I'll probably make you dinner or something.

And all of this leads me to realize that I probably should have thought better than to put the keys to the basement on my car keys. It was only a matter of time before I went down there wearing something with no pockets (thus my keys were reunited with my hands), went inside, put my keys down to stash a dog costume or find a feather boa, came back out and locked the basement. With my keys inside.

And so it is now a quiet weekend, while I sit around and scratch my head and try to remember where in the holy heck Spare Keything is. The dogs have, thus far, proven themselves worthless at the "Find It!" game for my keys. Every time I try they run outside and want to play ball.

I wish I had an iPhone app to find lost keys.

Learning #3: Animals are smarter than us sometimes

You have to read through Learning #2 as to why. Yes, you may skip to the end.

And in the event that you're concerned about the various sad faces on the dogs in this photo, don't fret: they'd all just been bathed. And they were smart enough to act so woeful that I decided to spoil them and give them couch and blankie time.

I'm not proud.

Learning #2: Always bring a towel

1) I knew there was a reason I always loved "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

2) I don't eat duck anymore.

3) A police car often sits in a somewhat hidden pullout at the bottom of the 101 North Hillsdale onramp in San Mateo, waiting to trap hapless speeders and carpool meter lane violators.

What could these three things have in common, you ask?

Duck. A Mama duck, to be exact, and her babies. Like, a lot of babies. Little fuzzy ones.

I reflect on the fact that I don't eat duck anymore pretty much every time I see a police car or two at the bottom of that onramp. And here's why:

One Saturday morning, I had to go into the office (San Mateo). After the office I hit the gym, and after the gym I headed up Hillsdale to head home so that I could get ready for dinner in San Francisco.

Things were proceeding as planned until I hit the arcing onramp that makes a 180 degree turn onto 101, and suddenly everyone was hitting their breaks at the beginning of the curve. I jogged left into the carpool lane (thanks, Prius HOV stickers) and then saw that a silver Mercedes had stopped with the hazards on.

It was then that I realized why the driver had stopped: a mother duck and a huge... um, litter? gaggle? ... of ducklings had tried to cross the freeway onramp and was now trapped up against the retaining wall with nowhere to go.

On the drop over the wall is a freeway offramp/street. On another side is 101. And up the ramp is E. Hillsdale, which is a busy street on its own. I have no idea where the heck this duck came from or how she came to be in the carpool lane on this onramp (to be fair, she had more than enough passengers to earn her the right of passage), but this was most assuredly not the place for a duck crossing.

Resigned to possibly making myself a bit late for dinner, I stopped the car on the carpool lane shoulder, flicked the hazards on and tried to figure out what to do. The woman who'd already stopped jumped out of her car to divert traffic around us and the ducks.

Fortunately, we were towards the top of the onramp and in very full view of anyone entering the onramp, so it's not like we threw ourselves into the middle of 60 MPH traffic or anything. However, we did have the odd problem of figuring out how to safely collect a Mom duck and her... um, brood?... and then figuring out what the heck to do with them.

The woman was on the phone with 911 and was freaking out in the way that diamond-studded Peninsula ladies do so well, so I figured I'd better get to the business of collecting some very young, very fuzzy, very cute ducklings.  

Upside:  They were wee little fuzzy things who couldn't remotely fly, making potential duckling wrangling seem a lot more manageable than it might have been otherwise.

Downside:  Mom was not happy about her situation, as evidenced by her... honking? quacking? squawking?.., which caused me momentary pause while I considered whether or not Mama ducks are prone to aggressive attack when they've unwittingly led their babies to be trapped against a freeway wall and some crazy human decides to interfere.

I must admit, it was at this point that I wished I had a net. But there wasn't much time to regret such equipment absence - the babies and Mom were in imminent danger of being squashed if they decided to bolt, and Mom was squawking away and about as agitated as the gal on the phone.

At this point I figured I'd better try to save the babies first seeing as how Mom probably wouldn't leave them. This of course had to be accomplished without getting myself attaked by an angry duck, or - worse - leading Mom to fly either away or into oncoming traffic to her demise, thus leaving me with 13 orphaned ducklings. Which is the last thing I need. Seriously. 4 dogs is more than enough pets, thanks.

I would, at this point, like to thank Whole Foods for providing sturdy paper shopping bags that I keep in my car to re-use when I grocery shop. In addition to providing a good re-usable bag alternative, it turns out that Whole Foods bags are also good for providing quality, earth-friendly temporary duckling housing.

So, task 1 was completed: ducklings were safe in the Whole Foods bag, cheep cheep cheeping away and letting Mom know where they were.

Mom, on the other hand, would not come so easily.

Without going into huge detail, let's just say that trying to catch an adult duck who's surrounded by busy streets full of potentially fatal traffic is not the easiest thing in the world. Here's what I learned:

1. Don't try to use your gym towel to catch an adult duck. It will fly away from it. You're just too slow. And you will look and feel silly.
2. Ditto to your gym bag.
3. Mama ducks will stay with their ducklings, even when their ducklings are in the footwell of a Prius on a freeway onramp. They'll also follow you around if you carry that bag and try to lure them out of traffic.
4. Baby ducks are sinfully cute and are generally content to hang out in the bottom of a Whole Foods bag. However, there are always those few bastard babies that will try to jump out of the bag (or your hands), so if you're going to try to lure Mom with a single baby in your hand you should choose one of the mellow ones that's hanging out sleeping with some siblings, rather than the jumping cheeping one.
5. Ducks won't get into your car willingly. Even if you put their bag o' babies in your footwell. Instead they'll keep running under your car and out the other side again and again, thus making you look like a complete jackass to oncoming traffic. And to any other passing ducks, probably.
6. Ducks don't actually have much in the way of human-harming weaponry. They have bills, not beaks. So the best course of action to catch a duck is to get over the fear of the duck and grab it without hurting it. They're not as ill-tempered as geese (nor nearly as large), so just go for it. Carefully.
7. To grab an adult duck, you probably need more than one person. Try to corner the duck up against a high surface, since ducks can't fly straight up. Then grab the duck (gentle - it's a bird, and birds are fragile) and hold it close, trying to contain the wings.
8. The gym towel that made such a poor net makes a really good police uniform stain shield, if you happen to get an officer in your passenger seat holding a frantic Mama duck and that officer is afraid of spoiling his uniform with duck poop. Indeed, your gym towel can serve and protect.

#5 - #8 are what happened once the police showed up and got done with screaming at us for blocking traffic.

Now, to be fair, the babies being in a Whole Foods bag in my footwell meant that to all passerbys and the cops it looked like 2 crazy ladies were running around a freeway onramp chasing a duck that can clearly fly away on its own.

However, I'd just spent 45 minutes trying to wrangle a very frantic Mama duck. This had included hopping the retaining wall when she flew over, diverting traffic when she flew into the iceplant onramp median, luring her out of traffic various times with a bag full of babies, and trying various ridiculous "come here, ducky ducky!" calls to get her into my car while having horrible images of being the guardian of 13 orphaned ducks who were going to imprint on me and follow me forever. And it was hot. And now I was running late. So being confronted by a screeching, red-faced police officer that looked all of 19 years old wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

After cussing at Opie (as this officer will now be known), the other lady took off. My response to Opie also regrettably included a big fat curse word, which I fortunately delivered while revealing the inside of the bag. He took a peek in and was met with a view that looked something like this photo, at which point he lightened up and told me that I needed to move my car to the somewhat hidden pullout at the bottom arc of the ramp.

Problem: Mom duck was still up at the top of the onramp. Opie, though, quickly solved this conundrum by making a clumsy grab for her, causing her to panic and fly over the retaining wall and into oncoming traffic on the street side.

Awesome.

Fortunately, Mama then flew out of traffic and onto the sidewalk next to the retaining wall. And we were back to square 1. Well, OK, maybe we'd reached square 1.a. - she was on the other side of the wall, after all.

So, the new situation:

Mama duck's against a wall. I'm holding a Whole Foods bag o' cheeping ducklings. Cars (we had 2 squad cars) are tucked safely in the bus lane. And now I'm watching 2 rookie cops look at each other and say "What are we supposed to do now?"

It was at this point I realized that these two needed a pep talk. So I tried to give them the best one I had in me, which contained phrases like "You can do it!" and "I'm sure it'll be fine!" and "She's a duck, not a Mama bear - could be worse," all the while convincing them that they really, really, really needed to catch Mom so that the babies wouldn't pull a "Fly Away Home" on me.

Finally, Opie got over his fear of being attacked and managed to grab Mom up against the wall.

After securing her wings we decided that he should probably just get into my car and I'd drive everyone to the park, which was the best place we could think of for the ducks. I mean, her duck husband is presumably in Foster City somewhere (and where was he during this crisis, hmm? Out drinking at the Mallard?) so I didn't want to take her too far away. Plus I don't think Opie was up for a long-distance duck relocation commute, what with having left his squad car in a bus turnout and seeing as how he was holding an angry Mama duck, who thanked him for lending his lap by pecking him and trying to fly out of his arms every few minutes.

And right then, watching Opie wrastle with that duck in my passenger seat and wondering if he could get his seatbelt on (answer: no), I decided to name the duck Matilda. I don't know why, but the sight of a baby-faced rookie cop being pecked repeatedly by a flapping angry duck just made me go "Matilda, stop trying to attack the officer!" And so it was.

So, with babies and a duck-wrastlin' cop and Matilda in my Prius, we headed off to the park with a police escort behind us.  It was at this point that I lent the officer my gym towel, since he told me that his "tans" are dry-clean only and we figured Matilda might poop on him out of fear. Or spite. Or both.

And that's how it came to be that the park-hangin' denizens of Foster City were greeted with the assuredly odd sight of a police officer holding an angry, flapping duck (he'd lost his hold on her wings) while being escorted from a Prius by a girl carrying a Whole Foods bag.

He put Matilda down on the lawn, and I scooped out various loads of babies and put them on the lawn, whereupon they waddled over to a very relieved Mama. After lecturing Matilda for her poor choice in duck crossings, I left.

And I still thought I could make dinner. Except that when I got home it turned out that one of my dogs had pulled a Houdini out of a completely fenced yard to explore the neighborhood, and my 'hood is also surrounded by busy streets that make a very poor dog crossing.

So I then spent the next 90 minutes trying to find a rogue exploring dog, who ended up coming home on his own and wondering what the big deal was. But that's another story. And it's boring, except for the part about how he created a trick board in the fence that swung open with his nose and then swung back into place once he was through, thus leaving me scratching my head to wonder how in the holy hell this dog was getting out of the yard.

But I just told you the interesting part, so there you have it. Two animal adventure stories in one.

And since there's two stories, I should add another lesson I learned:

Lesson #3:

Animals are smarter than us sometimes. But it's OK, because it keeps us humble.

Learning #1: Think outside the map

The name of this blog has nothing to do with Eskimos, really. For that matter, saying that it has to do with Alaska is a bit of a stretch. It has about as much to do with Alaska as it does with Canada and Florida...

This blog will be organized by Learnings, in no particular order. Because being a woefully clueless person stumbling through life means that I learn things. A lot. Things you think I'd know (like "unplug that toaster before you stick a fork in it, for Chrissakes"), but things I just don't. Or just forgot. Or just decide I don't want to know, I suppose.

And that is why, when deciding what to call my blog, which will probably be a place for me to tell the various stories that lead friends to use me as the poster child of the difference between "book smarts" and "street smarts," I remembered a story.

This story may or may not illustrate the difference between book smarts and street smarts, though, technically. But it's close enough.

Anyway, as you'll see by the map above and the associated Google images link that takes you to a lot of nice pictures of the United States, Alaska sits in a nice little box there off the coasts of California and Texas. In other maps it's off to the left of California, next to Hawaii. And when I was a kid, all the maps I ever got had it over in the lower right-hand corner of the map. Hawaii: lower left corner. Alaska: lower right corner.

And this is why I thought Alaska was a floating island somewhere off the coast of Florida until I was 20 years old.

Now, for those people who wonder what you learn in college, I have an answer: I learned the exact location of Alaska, whereabouts previously uknowingly unknown. And this came in handy during the 2008 election, wherein Sarah Palin's addition to the McCain ticket led me to nod sagely and feel somehow extra informed, knowing that I knew exactly where that crazy young state was now.

I learned where Alaska was, oddly enough, in Spanish class. We were doing some exercise that involved locating this snow-machine trodden landscape on a world map, which was regretfully specific in its placement of the various locations it displayed so proudly. That being the case, Alaska was not relegated to a box in any corner of the map. This is of course why I couldn't find it.

I thought the map was broken or something. So I called in the aid of my classmate, who pointed to Canada. Well, a little section of Northwestern Canada.

Me: That's Canada
Him (thinking I'm kidding): No, that's Alaska.
Me: No, that's Canada.
Him (thinking I'm probably kidding): No, that's Alaska, hello.
Me: Hi, why would Alaska be in freaking Canada all the way up there next to Russia? That makes no sense at all.
Him (realizing that I may not be kidding): So where do you think Alaska is?
Me: I dunno, it's usually in the lower right-hand corner of the map, so I guess it's down there somewhere.
Him (realizing that I may have been dropped on my head as a child): Let me get this straight: you think that Alaska is a floating, arctic island off the coast of Florida?
Me (realizing that this is, indeed, what I thought and that, perhaps, I was dropped on my head as a child): Um... yeah, I guess so... but way way down there, like when it gets cold again... ?

At this point various eavesdroppers realized that the kid from Los Angeles couldn't locate Alaska on a World Map, and making matters worse was the fact that (a) I was a Foreign Service major (hey, the planes would get me there, who needs Geography?) and (b) my teacher was Canadian.

After the various jokes were made about the geo-centric attitude of people from L.A. and California in general (I went to Georgetown, which is in Washington D.C.., both of which are populated overall by people who can locate Alaska on a world map), I simply sat, dejected, upset that my childhood maps and teachers had failed me so.

And here's the deal, mapmakers: if you're going to stick Alaska in a freaking box, put the freaking box in the UPPER LEFT-HAND CORNER OF THE MAP. Is that so hard? You manage to put Hawaii and Puerto Rico in their appropriately respective corners of the map, so why are you getting all fancy with Alaska?

People have asked how I never wondered about the differences in climate between Alaska and, say, Barbados. The answer is: I just never thought about it. I'm a visual person, and it didn't occur to me to doubt the very official mapmakers, beacon of hope and learnings for travelers and 3rd graders everywhere. No, it didn't make me scratch my head when I saw pictures of Eskimos, all bundled up and stashed in houses made of symmetrical, perfectly-frozen blocks of ice (OK, maybe those were cartoons). I just figured that Alaska was, you know, far enough down to the right there that the weather got cold again.

Because the world is round, right? (Good thing I had a globe. I just never looked at it too closely.)

People have also wondered how I thought Alaska was an island considering that it has a straight edge. I must admit that, being visual and all, I did notice the straight edge and did correctly assume that something was on the other side of Alaska. What I thought was on the other side, I'm not sure - I sort of had a vague idea that it might be some other... protectorate?... thus making Alaska the arctic counterpart to Hispaniola.

Yeah, that's right, bitches. I knew about Hispaniola. I even knew where it was, sort of. I mean, I knew it was an island somewhere warm and near Spanish-speaking countries, OK? Because it's in the right place on the map, not shoved in a random box somewhere near Iceland.

Anyway, I've named this blog liquid igloo because of this story. Mostly to remind myself that sometimes water is just water.