Is that a white deer in the Waterhouse painting up there? Do white deer exist? When I first looked at it, I thought it was a lamb, but I’m okay with the animal being a deer because I made braised lamb shank over the weekend and served it to Mariano over polenta with pan sauce and I’d feel just terrible if I had to look at a lamb after just cooking one up in a pot with vegetables and serving them to a hungry mailroom guy, you know?

Why are you looking at me like that? You have the most amazing look on your face right now. What in the world…?? Did I say something? Did I do something? What’s so interesting about lamb shank? You’d better take a deep breath and just calm down. I’ll tell you more about the lamb shank later if you really want me to, good grief.

Now, then, let me share about one of the marvelous classes I’m taking! The class is called “The Literary Animal.” Fantastic. Here’s an excerpt from the class description:

Wow! You should see the reading list.

If you are familiar with my fabric line you know I love fabric with animals on it — not animal print, mind you, which I do not like, but fabric with tiny animals printed on it. When I spy a little animal print in the patchwork of a quilt, the whole quilt feels warmer and more friendly to me, so I put lots of animals in Small Wonders fabric.

Ergo, there are plenty of animals in my quilts — but hardly any in my life. I live downtown. I have no pets. I have not managed to make friends with someone who owns a working ranch (or even a chicken farm.) In the city I see squirrels, pigeons, and the occasional rat, but this is my main connection to the animal kingdom and this is kind of sad. “The Literary Animal” is changing all of that.

My first assignment was to be a “citizen scientist” and observe an animal for 15 minutes, then write down my observations. Guess where I went? Guess what animal I observed? Well, I observed a turtle!! I rode my bike to the Shedd Aquarium and watched a turtle with a real bad attitude for 20 minutes and then I wrote down everything I saw and thought about in my special notebook. I could start a whole new blog about that turtle. I won’t. But I could. Also: Turtles make you think about things that have nothing to do with turtles.

“The Literary Animal” is a graduate-level class; there are only five of us in the room, plus professor Cross. Tomorrow morning, when we all share our experiences and the pieces we wrote, I get to go to the zoo. I mean that figuratively, but in two weeks, we’re actually going to meet at the zoo.

Now, about that lamb shank…

I am waging a war with a pen. Actually, I am waging a war with a Citibank ATM vestibule.

The only reason I “like” banking at Citibank is that in the 15 years I have been a customer, Citibank has not been absorbed by a series of other banks like most everyone else’s bank seems to be.

It happens all the time around here: On Tuesday, you’re banking at Bankorama and then Bankorama gets bought out by Blinky Bank; by Wednesday, you’re a Blinky Banker. Then Blinky Bank gets bought out by Ba-Donk-a-Donk Bank and now when people ask you “So where do you keep your life’s savings and petty cash?” you have to say, “At Ba-Donk-a-Donk Bank.” You do not have to say that for long, thankfully, because it’s only a matter of time before Ba-Donk-a-Donk Bank gets…you get the idea.

Citibank has consistency going for them and I appreciate that, but I’ve had plenty of run-ins with statement errors and exorbitant fees. I’ve endured agonizingly slow service and I’ve overdrawn my account a few times. (It just feels better to blame them for that.)

But not until this spring did I question my loyalty. Why did I question my loyalty?

Because the pen in the ATM vestibule of the Michigan and Monroe branch has been dead since May. May! 

I told them in May. With a chipper attitude, I let the tellers know that the metal pen on the cord attached to the table in the ATM vestibule was not functioning and that they might want to replace it. Several weeks later, finding myself without a pen and needing to deposit a $1m check (just kidding, it was $40), I told them again. Next time I’m at the bank — after hours this time — and need a pen… Same pen! That pen has no ink! The pen is just a metal nib that scratches paper but does not mark! How hard is it to change out the pen?!

I started leaving notes. In the vestibule one evening, I took an envelope out of the trash and wrote — with a pen I found in my purse, thank goodness — “Fix this pen!!” and I stabbed the pen through the envelope so it might be seen.

No dice. That pen is still the same pen. So I left another note, which you can see above. I’ll leave one more because it’s really fun and funny to yell at a bank about a pen, but if nothing changes, I shall write a stern letter. I can only do a few things really well in life and baby, writing a stern letter is definitely one of them.

In fact, if you ever need a stern letter, call me. I’ll pen one for you.