Small Bites

I munched a banana yesterday. It wasn’t easy, but with a little angling and careful nibbling, it went down, so I count it as solid food—the first since October 7.

In celebration of that milestone, I offer some tidbits to munch on this week, from a bedroom mystery solved to tales of the bar-tailed godwit, and some random musings in-between.

Fall Foliage

For a couple of weeks now, I’ve noticed tiny, crisp, dark flakes, almost like miniature leaves, scattered at the head of my bed. I’ve been sweeping them off the sheets with curiosity, half-heartedly pondering their source and purpose, but not committing myself to a full-scale investigation. Must be the cats. Must be something I trailed in when I grabbed my Boston Globe from the front stoop wearing only my socks. But they reappeared every day.

I looked up at the ceiling. Nothing. I shook my bed pillows for leakage. Nothing. I wondered if dandruff could somehow transform from white to black as a result of chronic insomnia or the aftereffects of general anesthesia.

I took a deep breath and examined the cats—dreading the discovery of some exotic scourge lurking in their fur. Nothing.

After a triumphant night’s sleep, my head cleared yesterday enough to identify the culprit. Since the surgery, I’ve been sleeping propped up with a crescent-shaped, neck-conforming pillow behind my head. I lifted the flap on its underside and spotted a minuscule opening at the zipper. Shake-shake. Buckwheat! I zipped it tight.

I’m so glad it’s not the plague.

Amazon's Kindle

Nothing says "you’re not completely well" like watching daytime TV. But I gave myself permission to watch Oprah yesterday and got sucked in to her frenetic and passionate pitch for Amazon’s new gadget, Kindle, which I’d heard about but hadn’t fully grasped.

It’s a handheld device onto which you can download newspapers and books, entire books, hundreds or (with extra memory) thousands of books, for an average of $9.99 each. I was enthralled and horrified. What will happen to libraries? How will this affect book deals? I want to hold my book when I sell it, grab its cover, turn its pages.

Then again, how amazing would it be to create your own portable library? Pretty cool. It costs $359, way out of my league. But if you’re in a different league, you can get one for $50 off through November 1 by going to amazon.com and entering the special coupon code OPRAHWINFREY.

I guess there’s some redemption in daytime TV after all.

Fish Wrapping

After reading James Carroll’s column in Monday’s Globe, "Courage, wisdom in an age of fear," about the threat of violence against Barack Obama, I wrote a letter to the editor. The editor called two hours after I hit "send" to verify my name and confirm that my letter was exclusive to them. Yup. No guarantees, but cool.

Around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, tossing and turning as usual, I went online to see if the morning edition was up. There it was! As a writer, it’s always nice to see one’s words in print. Except they had changed one phrase, politicizing my point in a way I wouldn’t have intended and purposely avoided. My thoughts swirled. Oh no! Oh well. I’ll write them. What’s the point? Did they distort the meaning? Not that much. I like my phrase better, I chose my words carefully. In the last paragraph, I had written "For Obama himself to say it aloud, Yes, there is risk in a risky world, is an empowering act...." Shh. Relax. Let go. It’s only a letter to the editor.

But they changed it to "For Obama himself to say it aloud in referring to the shouts of the crowd at McCain-Palin rallies is an empowering act...." Ugh! Ptooey! Political and klunky. I’ve had my stuff edited before, cut, condensed, altered without attribution. But this just stuck in my newly opened throat.

Ah well, you know what they say, today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s fish wrapping, right? No more. Now it’s online for eternity, including on my Google search. Shh. Relax. Save your moral indignation for the important things, like Sarah Palin’s Saks spree or those idiot racist rants about Obama and his grandmother.

Click here to read the letter.

It’s Saturday now. I’m over it.

Winged Migration

Sticking with the Globe theme, I cringed my way through the usual murders, rapes, deaths, and economic horror stories over soft dinner last night. Out of the misery and doom leapt an article with the lead, "The bar-tailed godwit, a plump shorebird with a recurved bill, has blown the record for nonstop, muscle-powered flight right out of the sky."

I was hooked.

Here’s the scoop. Scientists implanted transmitters in 23 birds and tracked their annual migration from Alaska to New Zealand. The godwits flew 7,242-miles in five to nine days nonstop. They could rest and refuel by taking a longer route with land stops but that option is risky and inefficient. What power of nature guides these creatures to make the choices they do?

Check it out here.

I’ve been searching for new role models lately—models of fortitude, goal-directed action, stamina, perseverance, self-abnegation, transcendence.

Thank you, bar-tailed godwits. I love you guys.