This is the second entry I've added to this online diary. I suppose if I do enough of this in a sort of general, not-too-personal way, I'll get more comfortable with it and can be a little more three-dimensional. Not that anyone is reading this yet... I've joined a couple of "pods" here on Tripod -- one for writers, another that seems to deal with women's issues. But I doubt anyone is blazing a trail to my little blue page.
Let me tell you how Fargo got named. For starters, he's not named after the movie -- which I enjoyed -- but after the city, which I did not, the one time I was there several years ago. Where it came from was that when I was in Fargo it was the summer, and when I was passing through, I think I must have been near a sewage treatment plant or rendering plant or something similar, because for about two miles I drove through the most mind-numbing stench you can imagine. It made my eyes water and I almost choked. When I was telling my now-late mother about it, I referred to it as "the Fargo smell."
Fast forward to the last week of June. I went to the pet place and bought a small pet carrier when I was on my way over to pick up The Kitten Who Would Be Fargo, and after I picked him up, I was driving back to the apartment when this same astonishingly bad smell filled the car. Apparently the kitten had pooped in the cat carrier from his excitement, and I had to turn off the air conditioner and roll the windows down to try to clear the air.
There was no question what his name would be after that. And if people want to think he was named for the movie, or make up some interesting story in their own heads as to how that connection was made, so be it. As he's gotten older (and as I've started to learn what foods not to feed him) the problem seems to have gone away, and life in our apartment is pleasant once more.
By the way, if you're actually from North Dakota, I don't mean to imply that your city stinks. In fact, if you can shed some light on what the cause may have been, I'd be interested to know.
I played a Marcello oboe concerto today that I played with a small orchestra in high school. I practiced up a bit, and then pulled out this cassette I have of myself from 1985, a recording that was actually made of the concert in which I played the concerto, and put it in the stereo. I tried playing along with myself (and the orchestra) and they absolutely lost me. That's right, the 17-year-old me played a lot better than the 29-year-old me. I took the tape back out and put it away for now. I fi get brave, I'll see if I can hook up the tape player to my PC and maybe record some of it and put the audio file up on this website. They only give me 2 megabytes of space, so maybe it'll just be a mercifully short clip.