Anthropomorphizing

[firstfrost]

The Davis T station has had a cherry picker in it for a couple of weeks (to change the light bulbs? I don't know). Each time I see it, I wonder how it got in - there's all these stairs and low ceilings and it's not really the sort of space that I imagine construction equipment driving into trivially. In fact, it reminds me a lot of Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel - does anyone else remember that? Jerry never read it when he was little, but I thought it was a very sad story as a kid. (Published in 1939! Wow!)

Then, as we got back to the house after brunch, we spotted one of the living room coasters out in the street, apparently trying to escape. Jerry eventually decided he had dropped it when he went to ditch the vase of older flowers in the compost bin. He picked it up and apologized to it all the way in, and promised to wash it.

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

I read it, though I don't remember it well. (Is there a second one like it, involving snow plowing, or does the steam shovel get to plow snow too?)

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

There appears to be another book by the same author ("Katy and the Big Snow") about a snow shovel, but I didn't read that one.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

We have that one now. I remember Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel both first hand and because of an episode in one of the Ramona books in which she asks the teacher how Mike went to the bathroom and the flustered teacher says that's not important, which is not something you tell a bunch of kindergarteners who know that where you go potty is one of the most important things in the world!

And yes, it's a pretty sad book for grownups, but a lot of kids books are. I cannot get through even the bowdlerized board book version of The Velveteen Rabbit that Alice adores.

[desireearmfeldt]

Which is odd, because I Hated sad endings as a child (actually, what really drove me nuts was open endings, but I wasn't so into sad ones either, as I recall).

[mathhobbit.livejournal.com]

That's the first book I ever "read". I can't remember if I actually read it or just memorized it -- that was 37 years ago.

[(Anonymous)]

Mike Mulligan was one of my favorite books as a kid. By the time my younger brother got thru it, my mother may have been sick of it tho. There are actually at least 3 other books by that author, tho I didn't run into any of those until I was an adult. You've noted Katy. I think there's one about a cable car, and I don't remember what the fourth one is offhand.

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, now the best steam shovel in the world gets to be a furnace never struck me as a happy ending.

[greyautumnrain.livejournal.com]

Not only do I remember Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne, but we bought Margaret the book in board book form.

[mijven.livejournal.com]

Do you have an official compost bin (i.e., any recommendations) or is this just a home effort?

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Somerville subsidizes this one (http://www.somervillema.gov/Section.cfm?org=Environ&page=542), "Earth Machine". We're not very good composters (we don't turn it enough), and it does get roots coming in from the bottom, but it does serve our purpose of "throw away veggie scraps and yard waste", and Jerry says it's started generating usable compost finally.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

I have used the earth machine at another's house, and the one I bought from Gardener's.com at home. I like the expensive one better, I can lean into it when I turn with a pitchfork. But it was a lot more expensive, and harder to put together.

Hmm, they don't have the one I like anymore. It looks like now they have the EcoStack, I don't have any experience with it.

[mathhobbit.livejournal.com]

Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel still makes me cry. :)

Maybe they brought the cherry picker in on a train?

[laura47.livejournal.com]

I LOVED MIKE MULLIGAN AND HIS STEAM SHOVEL!!!

[kelkyag]

I remember that book, too! 1939 doesn't surprise me -- it would have to be old enough for the author to've seen steam tech get displaced.