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October 16, 2007

Me, Myself and Ikea

Every so often I go to Ikea, in Elizabeth, NJ for picture frames. I assiduously avoid weekends, when the free buses are jammed to standing-room. Nevertheless, last Friday morning the bus was almost full, most passengers bound for the Jersey Gardens Mall. I brought my Walkman and a box of earplugs, arms against a sea of cell phone troubles: “What! Didn’t you realize you have to assemble everything yourself?” and other incessant shopper-babble.

After disgorging ninety percent of its passengers at the mall, the bus arrived at Ikealand just before 11. I had two whole hours before there’d be a bus back to NY. My first stop was for coffee at the hangar-like restaurant. The place was still empty, though by noon it would be crowded with meatball aficionados. I got a cup and sat at one of the svelte blond tables. The sweeping window-wall showcased a Newark Airport panorama, with a plane scudding in every minute or so. The sky was as wide and blue as Wyoming, with a cumulus coif swathing the horizon.

Coffee having been quaffed, I meandered through the vast showroom of model kitchens, baths, bedrooms (master, juvenile, nursery) as if I were in a dollhouse or movie lot with numerous three-sided sets exposed all at once. I relished the Scandinavian simplicity, not only because I’m one-eighth Swedish myself. Then I went to pick out a couple dozen picture frames and found the cashiers, about a mile away, in a laned realm like a bowling alley beyond the towering ranks of furniture stock.

Then outside to the bus. When a jet took off shockingly near, I ducked. I flashed to the plane that had coasted slowly down West Broadway as I stood with my grocery bags, amazed. I registered details of the sharkish underbelly and the faces in oval frames. The absurdly low jet levitated fractionally, adjusted its aim, and sped forward, disappearing seconds later into the tower. The jet was like a hook in the head of a giant silver fish. Its brand was like the shadow of a raptor’s wings. An explosion, and fire, and the pure blue sky was filled with the confetti of fractured glass. Then, inevitably, a hundred days of rancid, unbreathable smoke.

I yanked myself back to the present, focused on the meadows of churning grasses, the sprigs of yarrow against a backdrop of industry. Around Union City there was a sign on an overpass: “Welcome to Northern New Jersey, Embroidery Capital of the World Since 1872.” An unexpected caption to the cantata in my ears. The bus barreled into a long dim tunnel of tonnage--all trucks and buses--then burst into sunlight again, and the world reverted once more from horizontal to vertical.

On the subway there was an African king in embroidered robes, with a great covered bundle to peddle. A female beggar limped through the car trilling, “No matter what they take from me, they can’t take away my dignity.” I got off at Canal. On the platform a cheery, one-legged man in a wheelchair hurried forward. He gave the conductor a sweet, knowing wink. The conductor held the doors for him, smiling. It’s good to leave town once in a while; it invigorates perspective and freshens home.

Posted by Jane on 7:12 PM | Comments (0)

October 8, 2007

PEST CONTROL

Lately it seems everyone I know is suffering from one plague or another. I’ve heard reports of mice and fleas in apartments, rats in basements, termites in the timber of weekend houses. My neighbor across the street, who boards dogs, has had a sudden infestation of fleas. Another neighbor, who found a nice-looking blanket in the trash, now has bedbugs. Despite my animals, I haven’t any fleas or ticks, thank God, though gnats swarm predictably around the cat dish if left out too long; and huge flies buzz through the screenless windows to bang against the walls; and the ever-present drosophila dependably scarf up any scraps of onion skin; and the moths must be having a field day among my closeted sweaters. But no bedbugs, so far; my plinth must be too austere for bugs who like beds. And I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been mouse free for five years now, ever since the arrival of Izzy and Poe. In the B.C. [Before Cat] era, I often felt furry-scurries across my pillow in the dark. Switching on the light and seeing the tiny things, I’d scream “eek!” exactly as in those cartoons whose plot involved an eeking, shrieking girl leaping onto a piano with a discordant crash to escape a mouse. Contemptible behavior, but I did it too, minus the piano. Whenever I happened to surprise the mice by going to the bathroom in the wee hours, I'd catch them cozily tucked into my shoes, like a family of Stuart Littles.

So no mice, rats, bedbugs, or fleas, but I do have one unwelcome nocturnal visitor. A mosquito. I think it’s the same individual every night: an elusive, persistent, one-bug pestilence. It waits until I doze off to bite. Sometimes its whining whirr -- so much like a microscopic vacuum cleaner or helicopter -- wakes me, but before I can get the light on, I’m jabbed. Last night it was my right cheek. Reflexively I slapped my face, hard, and stumbled into the bathroom to assess the damage, clicking the sailing-ship night-light on. At three in the morning, when few of us are at our attractive best, I watched incredulously as a giant welt bloomed on my bleary, greenish-grayish visage. Of course I immediately thought of Gregor Samsa and hastily jumped back in bed. I wrapped myself up in the sheets from head to foot and hoped the bloodsucker felt sated. For the rest of the night, it seemed, I applied that juvenile remedy to allay the itch, which all Florida kids know. You inscribe an X in the welt with your thumbnail. But I'm open to other suggestions. My friend across the street, the one with the fleas, found an anti-insect lemon potion on the Internet. She recited it to me over the phone. It involves a lot of slicing and zesting, boiling pulp down into a tincture and thickening it into an ointment, etc. A lot of work for one mosquito, it seemed. Another antidote could be a mosquito net.

Naturally, the bugs will leave when it turns cold. If it ever does. A few minutes ago, as I walked sweatily down the street swatting at no-see-ums and scratching at my cheek, I overheard a young woman wail into her cellphone: "I came here for the fall foliage. I never dreamed it would be eighty thousand degrees in October." Yeah, eighty thousand degrees and still buggy.

Posted by Jane on 1:53 PM | Comments (0)