DEER DIARY

Deer are not scary. Grizzlies are scary. Sharks are scary. Even stingrays can be scary. But Bambi never felt particularly threatening to me. In fact, one could make the case that deer are timid. They would always scatter when I charged them. Especially does. So, what went wrong this morning?

I was out admiring my paint job on the house, when I spotted a doe munching on the last pedals in my wife's sorry flower garden. Ever since spring, when her prized lilies first appeared, I've been chasing the deer all over the neighborhood in a futile effort to keep them off the expensive herbiage.

I've begged my wife to "plant" long-lasting, artificial flowers -- to no avail, and now I've become a Pinkerton on the garden beat.

It's never done much good. The deer always get the flowers anyway. But I get a little power rush thinking my heft and histrionics would feel threatening to a large, four-legged herbivore (my wife is a small, two-legged herbivore). I never chase carnivores, no matter how small.

I'm like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, scaring large beasts with large teeth back into the jungle. I go "whoost" and growl and the deers dart off into the surrounding woods like they've seen Hannibal Lector. I like that feeling.

Now I'm behind locked doors, all agitated and my hands are shaking. What part of my routine did that animal not understand?

So anyway, I'm out in the yard and I see this doe, a deer, a female deer, noshing on my wife's mind-bogglingly expensive hybrid lilies, and I feel my muscles tighten. Temples pulsing, I clenched my teeth, leaned forward, and charged the plant-purloining perpetrator.

Accelerating, I began thinking of the energy my considerable mass would unleash at the moment I impacted such a large, albeit docile creature as a deer. Actually, I was hoping it wouldn't come to this.

So why am I now dripping with sweat and humiliated beyond tears? I'm getting to that. Are we with me?

Anyway, back outside, I squinted and stared directly into the doey eyes of my quarry. "Make my day," I thought as the animal loomed larger.

So I'm charging and somewhere along the way I'm noticing that the animal isn't taking flight. The damn deer appears to be holding her ground. Oh boy, what do I do now? I sense my momentum is not going to be braked any time soon. Thank God she doesn't have a rack, I remember thinking.

Now everything is a blurred, slow-motion, stop-framed event. I see the doe lower her head. She's looking straight at me now. Like the bulls of Madrid, she is flaring her nostrils and the steam jetting from her snout indicates to me she is pissed over my intrusion. Now she starts scuffing her hoof along the ground.

I know this scuffing hoof thing means she's angry. Why do I know this? I think to myself.

I used to watch TV westerns with my sister, when the horses, getting angry about "injuns" in their midst, starting scuffing their left hooves against the ground. For some reason, it was always the left hoof. Do horses know their left hoof from their right? Who knows! Anyway, when I snapped to, it occurred to me that the deer was not only looming larger because of my approach, but because she had the temerity to charge me -- a human for chrissake!

What the hell is this? A deer charging me? Have deer finally turned on the human race? Was this the deer version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds? Why should I have to teach this deer how to be a deer? I'm not really prepared to collide with a two-hundred pound wild animal, I'm thinking. I haven't even had my coffee.

Two-hundred pounds hitting two-hundred pounds. This can't be good. I quickly calculated the force of impact. Two times two, let's see, carry the zeros...this was not going to end well.

Sensing serious rib cage damage, I veered off at the last second, tripping over the damn cement lid covering the septic tank that the assholes never replaced right when they last pumped the tank. Now, I'm squirming on the ground in considerable pain.

The deer turned to see my predicament and, shaking her head, polished off the last flower and sauntered off.

My wife's birthday is this Wednesday. This is the big one. She's turning 30. As soon as my ankle feels better, I'm going into town and getting her some artificial flowers.

RAISING THE QUEEN

I don't have a son. It didn't matter to me the gender of my child. There were no royal male succession issues in my largely matriarchal family and when the roll of the dice came, it was a young queen.

She bounced past "princess" to queen almost from birth. Even before she was fully articulated, her translation of "happy birthday to..." was "aba du," and when I'd say happy birthday to her, she'd say "aba du you too, da-da."

Intuitively understanding the royal "we," she felt that if it was her birthday, it was everyone's birthday: a state holiday. And she'd let them eat cake.

When taking home movies, I'd ask my daughter to give me a kiss and she'd wobble up and slobber-smooch the lens. Consequently, like Jacques Cousteau, she always appeared in-vitro. Lens wipes outnumbered baby wipes in our household.

As the court photographer, I took so many home movies, she thought her dad lived somewhere inside the camera. Even if the camera was sitting by itself on the counter, she'd walk up to it, peer inside the lens, and ask for me. A little tiny father sat in a tiny little chair just the other side of the lens.

Being "boo-boo" challenged, my daughter was obsessed with potential injury zones. Vulnerable spots she'd preemptively cover with Band-Aids. Like a chain chewer of gum, my young daughter became a chain user of Band-Aids. We'd go through several boxes a day.

I could always find my toddler by following the trail of Band-Aid wrappers. When I finally caught up to her, she'd be wallpapered in Band-Aids, looking like Nephritis' mummy.

Potty training was a breeze. My girl had a little plastic toilet that traveled, and I can still see her sitting on her throne waving to the passersby from the shoulder of the New York State Thruway.

The girl was definitely of regal blood. Early on she loved having servants and would feign fainting when their obsequiousness wasn't up to snuff. She demanded obedience -- always. Thinking she was possibly spoiled, I took her to a baby therapist.

After the $400 session, the shaken therapist informed me that my daughter really was a queen in a past life, and that I had better befriend her now before her palace guards had "issues" with me. To drive home "issues" point, the therapist had signed the euphemism with air quotes.

The girl always loved animals, and our home soon became a menagerie, with goldfish -- then tropical fish, and dogs -- then more dogs, and parakeets -- then cockatiels and parrots -- not to mention the rescued wild animals that had zigzagged in front of us just before "Daddy ran them over with the car."

We had pony parties for her where it always rained, and the pony tender would leave early before the eager guests arrived, and we were left with 20 whining brats and nothing but imprinted horse napkins.

Soon, my young queen started riding horses in earnest-- as royalty often does -- and she is quite the equestrian today. I don't like animals that weigh over a thousand pounds; especially those with brains smaller than a Chihuahua's, but she connects with them. I don't like Chihuahuas much either, to be honest, though they don't need to be trailered -- but enough about me.

By middle school, my daughter was found to be fast as a quarter horse. She joined the track team and was soon beating not only the princesses, but the princes as well. Not content to have anyone else in the number one spot, she would swiftly put those in front behind.

Now in high school, the attitude thing has fully kicked in, and I have become a wallet-in-waiting. Irrelevant at best, and an embarrassment the rest of the time, I drive her around in a chauffeur's outfit (she insists I wear a uniform so as not to be mistaken for her father). This is not unusual in our rich town where many kids are picked up from school by licensed taxi cabs. I think it would be cheaper to FedEx them home, but who am I?

These days my influence is no longer influential. Mostly, I try to protect my queen from injury. The Band-Aids are gone now, and the hurts have become real. Thankfully, the memories still hold court.

ORANGE WATER

Every morning, as I have for years and years, I hobble down the stairs, pour a quarter-glass of orange juice, and top it off with water. I've had trouble drinking straight water ever since my old Bon Appetit magazine client informed me that fish fornicate in it.

Bon Appetit's ex-editor-in-chief was a portly man: more gourmand than gourmet. He enjoyed the finest foods and drink and was a living billboard for his advertisers' products. Water was way too much a commodity for his epicurean tastes, and he was no stranger to the bottle, always taking his drinks "neat."

He died of a heart attack in his late 40's, but I digress. I've had trouble trying to visualize what a fish-eye view of fornication would even look like, but water has never seemed quite as appetizing ever since. Somehow, the acidity of the orange helps the water go down, and it helps me forget about the frisky fish.

This morning, though, I clumped down the stairs, poured the quarter-glass of OJ, and filled the rest with... milk? Wow, that was interesting, I thought to myself. You poured in milk. Where did that come from? We a little distracted, are we? I asked myself. The Twilight Zone jingle ran through my head.

As I was thinking about this, I noticed I had just put my metal coffee mug in the microwave and it was arching.

Yikes, I never do that. Just when I said, okay, we're focusing now and this nonsense is over, I realized that, in the midst of my declaration, I had fed the dogs Honey Nut Cheerios. They were delighted, but I had intended to give them the Science Diet kibble in the large 30 lb. silver bag.

Starting to think this was never going to end, I looked down and noticed my cereal bowl filled to the gunwales with hard brown chunks. An honest mistake I thought, but how unappetizing they looked floating in all that milk.

Wow, I thought. Was this the big A? Was the old head processor losing a few chips? Or was the stress of living through two Bush presidencies starting to get to me? Just as I was heading for the gingko, my mind wandered off into the nature of distraction.

Like, for instance, how does one dis-distract oneself when one has to distract oneself to focus on not being distracted? As I questioned this, I noticed that something was very wrong with my tee-shirt.

I could see from my reflection in the microwave (where I was trying to focus my eyes on the replaced microwavable coffee cup turning in circles), that my tee-shirt was clearly inside-out. I knew it was inside-out because the type on the front of the shirt was right-reading. My scientific mind knew this couldn't be so.

Pondering the fun of being able to read right-reading type in a reflection, I discovered my shoes didn't match. That's bad -- much worse than mismatched socks, which I'm often told I have -- though I only buy one brand of black socks so I don't know how that could be --but I digress.

Just when I was thinking I would have preferred seeing two different kinds of loafers on my feet -- rather than a loafer and a sneaker -- I felt the strongest need to head for the computer.

Of course, I hadn't actually been distracted at all. Everything was fine. All systems were "go." No need for an ambulance. I had simply been writing in my head the Pinecliff Network Life column for today. The moment I sat down at the keyboard, the story just spilled out like orange milk from a tilted glass.

CRUSHED BY THE POST OFFICE

I went to mail a small package of fragile goods at the local Post Office and was reminded of why our government is so dysfunctional. I don't like going to post offices nowadays because they feature large portraits of President Bush and try to sell you flag stamps. When you ask for the fruit stamps, they roll their eyes at you like you're unpatriotic or something, but I digress.

The package contained fragile antique toys I was sending to an auction house, so I bundled them up like babies in winter, boxed them in Styrofoam peanuts, sealed the box with an entire roll of shipping tape, and handed it to the clerk.

The clerk asked me if the package contained anthrax, napalm, or uranium. While I was thinking it over, she switched the subject to how I wanted it sent. I said I didn't care, as long as the box wasn't crushed. This raised her suspicions.

After scanning down a long list of services, the clerk looked up at me and said, "We don't offer that service."

I said look, just stamp it, "Do Not Crush." They had no "Do Not Crush" stamps.

Why not? You have a "Do Not Bend" stamp, I said. The clerk looked confused.

Look, this is a "Do Not Bend" order in every dimension, I clarified. I explained that I often get packages from the Post Office that are crushed: not merely bent, but crushed flat as a pancake. This was not a VCR or some piece of electronic junk that could be replaced.

The clerk said, "Look, we do not "Do Not Crush." What we do do is offer insurance. I said great, I have to pay you not to crush my box.

Well, actually, no. I couldn't pay them NOT to drop-kick my box into the truck -- and NOT to put a refrigerator on top of it, because that brand of tough love was a given. But I could buy insurance that would reimburse me for the damage, after the fact.

I said look, this is not just about the money. These are rare antiques. They cannot be replaced. When they're gone, they're gone. And wouldn't that be a shame? The clerk nodded and asked me if I wanted a book of flag stamps.

I said, look, I'm willing to pay a premium for you not to crush my box. The clerk said, don't worry -- you'll pay a premium alright, and charged me $26.35 for the insurance. I said that was an outrage. She said hey, they're your antiques.

Just when I started seeing red, I noticed a sea of yellow "Support Our Troops" ribbons behind the clerk on either side of the smiling Bush portrait. I don't mindlessly support our troops. For six years our volunteer troops have become a de facto wing of the Republican party, I thought to myself, and I don't support what they're doing in Iraq. Sixty percent of Americans think our troops are fighting the wrong war and I want them either home safe, or redeployed elsewhere where they can make us safer. Then, I'll support them.

Besides, government employees on official business are supposed to be neutral when it comes to partisan issues, aren't they? Support the Troops has blurred into Support the War.

"Flag stamps?" the clerk asked as I snapped to. No, I want the frickin' fruit, I reminded her. I was starting to wish I had listed "anthrax-dusted uranium" in the contents. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have crushed that.