The Mandelbear's Musings

Today is Colleen's birthday, the second since she died. She would have been 71 years old.

Our birthdays are three days apart, and several other friends also had birthdays in March. (Not to mention our daughter, E.) When we were living in San Jose, we'd celebrate with a huge open-house/potluck party. We called it the "It's Green" party because Colleen's birthday is the day before Saint Patrick's Day. We'd provide corned beef and cabbage, and a case of Green Rooster beer. Colleen never managed to rebuild her social circle in Seattle, so birthday parties have been low-key family things.

My birthday was Monday, but there was so much going on that we decided to push the celebration out to today. Makes things kind of weird, and bitter-sweet.

Phoebe Prince, South Hadley High School's 'new girl,' driven to suicide by teenage cyber bullies Via a chain starting with Megan Kelley Hall, through seanan_mcguire to admnaismith.

The Daily News headline is misleading: there was physical bullying, too. And I don't like its tone. This one from Slate is better. There are too many to list, or even to look through. Some of the comments are harrowing.

Didn't we learn from Columbine? Evidently not. Most victims are like Phoebe -- they take it out on themselves.

I didn't get physically bullied, as far as I can remember. It was all verbal -- they called it "teasing". And luckily there were other geeks in my junior high and high school -- we called ourselves the Chess and Bridge Club and holed up in the Latin teacher's classroom before school started. Thank goodness, too, for tracking -- we mostly had our classes with the other geeks. Unlike some people whose stories I've seen, my parents never took the bullies' side, but they didn't have much advice for me, either.

The scars are still there, when I think to look for them. Mostly I never thought about them, which is probably the biggest scar of all. I still don't know where they all are.

There are more news articles today; most are highly predictable bits of sensationalism, but a few are worth reading. ABC News has a bit on the victims' condition (critical but stable). And the San Francisco Chronicle comes through with a bit from the OSHA report on Tatiana's attack on a keeper last year:

On Dec. 22, 2006, the 350-pound Tatiana chewed the flesh off Lori Komejan's arm during a public feeding demonstration. A state investigation later ruled that the zoo was at fault for the attack because of the way the cages were configured.

A June report from the state Division of Occupation Safety and Health blamed the San Francisco Zoo for the 2006 attack, stating that the tiger cages were configured in a way that made it possible for Tatiana to bite the zookeeper's arm. The state found that Komejan was attacked after she reached through a drain trough to retrieve an item near the tiger's side of the cage. The tiger reached under the cage bars and grabbed her right arm, but the zookeeper tried to push the tiger away using her other arm, the report found.

Both of her arms were under the cage at that point and her face was pressed against the cage bars, according to the report. Another employee grabbed a long-handled squeegee and hit the tiger in the head until it released the injured zookeeper.

So let me get this straight: it's feeding time, and she puts both arms into the cage with the hungry tiger. And people are blaming the cage design and the tiger?

When it's all over, I think we'll find that Tatiana's tragedy is less about vicious, wild felines than it is about stupid primates.

After taking the Wolfling to work (for her next-to-last day) I took the Honda in for its 60,000 mi. service. Drove the loaner home, had breakfast, and put down my last two vocal tracks.

Then I set out again for Kaiser's Campbell offices, where my doctor had phoned in a refill to the prescription that I discovered had expired when I picked up my other refills on Tuesday. Longish story. My co-pay has gone up considerably -- grumpy-making, but nothing to be done about it. Gotta have my drugs, man...

Since it was close to noon at that point, I went across the street for my walk. Kaiser sits between Winchester and Dell Ave., in a building that used to be owned by Zilog back when I worked for them a little over two decades ago. My doctor's office is within a few feet of where my old cube used to be.

Behind the row of old industrial buildings across the street, between Dell and Route 17, is the Los Gatos Creek trail and a set of groundwater recharge ponds ("percolation ponds"), where I used to take my walks back in the day. It was irresistable, and I didn't. Walked for about two miles under the baleful gaze and occasional snide comments of the local geese. Despite my years of noontime walks I have only a few memories of the place, run together by the passage of time: sailboarders, fishermen, and joggers; the walking sticks I used to improvise out of fallen branches and cut-off lengths of bamboo. No sails on the pond today, though; that's strictly a summertime phenomenon. I'm sure the geese and ducks appreciate it. The trees on the banks of the ponds are taller; it's prettier than it used to be, and perhaps a little more peaceful.

So now I'm back at home, having had a late lunch and banged together the Ikea basket-drawer frames for the chaoswolf's closet. Need to set some rat-traps in the garage attic, and maybe put down some guitar tracks.