Animals – Snail Trek Blog

Squirrel Lessons

Two screens in our living room provide us delightful entertainment. The screen named Samsung lets us peek into jarring world news, a Jeopardy battle of brains and memory, and monochromatic Godzilla reruns.

The other screen, a 72-inch-long window, provides a panoramic view across the top of our cedar fence. Our neighbor’s lemon, orange and grapefruit trees provide the backdrop for the furry actors who scutter along the top rail. Squirrels are always nervous: Run. Brake. Freeze. Quick, flick tail. Think. Think. Scratch parasites. Whoops. No time. Twitch. Ah, at that last twitch, squirrel number two enters from stage right; he is recognizable by his unkempt, thinning tail hair. Viewing from our living room, we erupt into cheers as the two-squirrel drama unfolds on the Great Cedar Fence Freeway. Will they fight? Will their hearts seize from fear over the snarls of the neighbor’s frenzied Belgian Malinois? Through the window, can they watch Godzilla playing on Samsung, or do they merely perceive their own reflections? Can our furry dramatists perceive us, gaping at them through the window? And I wonder…do they like us?

Last week’s squirrel encounter was far different. By counting the imagined rings around my belly as you would count the rings of a tree trunk, you would say I should have “aged out” of the population who tows a fiberglass trailer into the semi-wilderness. But we still enjoy camping, the fresher air, the reduced population density, even our aging, flimsy mattresses. They all speak of mutinous freedom.

Halfway through our camping stay, I peered into the recess of our on-board toilet to survey the contents—a management technique of critical importance to avoid dreadful toilet overflows during the black of night. So courageously, I drained a generous serving into our portable black water tank, then hoisted it ever so gently into our 4Runner. Without incident, I emptied the tank and returned to our site. While gingerly unloading the emptied tank from the car, a young voice demanded my attention.

“Hey, mister! Did you know you got a dead squirrel hangin’ off yer front axle?” Indeed, I did not. Eleven-year-old Weston, with a gene pool shared by Huck Finn and a minor league bat boy, introduced himself. Camping with his grandfather, he had spied the furry lump of a ground squirrel’s body waving like a furry flag. I crawling under to inspect the slain vermin, its body unmoving yet curiously unbloodied. It resembled a bat, upside-down, asleep in the wrong place. Not wanting to touch the nasty, disease-ridden carcass, I searched for a stick to poke it down.

Before I could don protective gloves, suitable eye protection and unpack infection-fighting iodine, Weston’s voice proclaimed, “Got it! Here you go!” he proclaimed, crawling out from under my car. “I heard it make a loud thump when you started your car.” Weston presented me with the squirrel carcass and we examined it together. It had been healthy, heavier than I expected, bearing a lovely pelt. Weston and I performed a quick coroner’s inspection and discovered it was a recent mother, adding more pain to the tragedy.

That evening, I approached the campfire that belonged to Weston and his grandfather to thank the boy, a ten-dollar bill in my fist. Weston’s grandfather sat alone, his grey, scraggly hair escaping beneath an antique wide-brimmed hat. He had the beard of an aged Confederate soldier. “My grandpa never did nothin’ fur me,” Grandfather explained to me. With spicy words, he described how he wasn’t going to do the same to his own grandson. “I can take him camping. I can teach him all the things my grandpa never taught me.” He punctuated the sentence with an accomplished spit. “That’s really the best we can do, ain’t it?” I assured him that, yes, that’s a great thing to do.

Just then, Weston exited their camper and approached the fire, myself, and his grandfather holding an empty Budweiser can.

“You did an awesome job helping me today,” I offered Weston. “You handled that like a real man. You came and told me about the squirrel. You didn’t have to do that. And then you crawled under my car to get the squirrel so that I didn’t have to. You really didn’t have to do that either. If I were your grandfather, I’d be proud of you. Here’s a bit of an offering to thank you,” I said, presenting him the ten-spot.

Weston’s eyes showed that he had rarely held that much money at one time. We shook hands. “Your grandfather is wanting to help make a good man out of you. And you know what? I’d say you’re already well on your way. No doubt about it. Oh yeah, you’re very well on your way!”

Snailville

Smallville is the fictional earthly home of Krypton-born Superman. Snailville, however, has nothing to do with the superhero. Instead, it is the earthly home of racing snails, the shelled gastropods that we children set about to compete against one another. Trembling from nerves, we lined up our racing snails at the starting gate like microcars spoiling for a fight.

A snail racetrack should be sloped at a steep angle to encourage the participants to travel roughly in a similar direction. On a good day, given no head wind, a minimum delay for retracting eyeball stalks, and the absence of menacing predators, a snail’s pace reaches three feet per hour. So the finish line should be chalked at a reasonable distance, that is to say, fewer than 12 inches from the starting gate.

To improve our racing odds, each of us kids owned several sizable snails, the sort that is large enough, if given unfortunate circumstances, to produce a loud crunch beneath a careless footstep in a garden, the resulting squishified mess to be laboriously peeled away and cleaned up with stick and leaves.

Ours were handsome snails. Scrubbed of habitat soil, their shells gleamed a lustrous brown and tan. Admittedly, there is little to differentiate one attractive snail from another. Lacking distinguishing elements such as eyebrows, body hair, facial expression, nose, or body tattoos, it can be difficult for an untrained eye to tell them apart. The dexterity of the single foot or the patterns on the shell may be the few indicators of snail identity. Though snails doubtless can tell one another apart, for our purposes it was useful to easily recognize and identify them.

Some might have casually nicknamed them “Goblin Beak,” or “Google Eyes.” We, however, never considered disrespecting them. Instead, because of our devotion for them and the limited space on each shell, we distinguished each racing snail shell with painstakingly painted numbers. Incidentally, a 2018 issue of the Journal of Molluscan Studies declared the metallic silver and gold ink of Pilot brand pens to be the preferred shell-marking identifier. This discovery arrived far too late for our 1958 snail competitions, so I simply painted number “6” upon my favorite snail in acrylic.

When we lined them up atop the bomb shelter, their shells seemed to serve as protective helmets as they spoiled for the start of the 10-inch long snail-paced sprint.

Did I say, “bomb shelter”? Merely 13 years after the end of World War II, a bomb shelter in Cologne, Germany, where we lived, provided the perfect hardened concrete snail race track. The cement slope with padlocked rusted steel door at one end was the entrance to the sepulcher-like shelter, which was buried deep underground. I speculated what bizarre secrets the long-shackled bomb shelter might hold. Might there be decaying wooden tables and chairs and mildewed bedding awaiting those fleeing a feared Allied bombing run? Perhaps there were stashes of hastily discarded Nazi paraphernalia or mold-growing furry children’s toys or faded, unposted love letters. Worse, could it be a ghastly tomb containing skeletal remains, victims of the tyrannical German Reich?

Our snails were mere blisters atop the concrete racetrack, the entrance to the bomb shelter. I would coax, “Go, Number 6!” but my exhortations did little to hasten the slow unraveling of foot from shell and erection of eyes perched like celery seeds atop miniature bendable celery stalks. I had long learned that eye-poking, entertaining as it was, only slowed a snail’s glacial forward pace.

We protected and secreted our prized snails in glass jars, thoughtfully converted into homey snail residences with random leaves, twigs, and shallow water to provide both nourishment and enough humidity to promote healthy gastropod hygiene. Still, we were not perfect snail handlers. We discovered that warm sunny days could prove lethal for snails in glass jars. The magnified sun rays could reduce our racing snail population to empty shells at the bottom of the jar, floating atop brownish tan ooze, liquified snail bodies reduced to soup.

There was always the danger of intruders. More than once, we discovered our best shell-numbered racing snails murdered, their glass jar residences smashed, along with their shells, amid tiny puddles of snail entrails. We would quickly discover that the neighborhood raider kids had struck.

The starting flag dropped, and the shell-helmeted racers commenced their competition atop the bomb shelter racetrack. I coaxed Number 6 onward, yelling into his earless head, hoping for a stiff forward-propelling thump upon his shell from a falling acorn. He tried hard not to disappoint, slime faithfully administered beneath his foot, which was aimed down the steeply sloped cement raceway. It took forbearance and an adherence to the rules to resist dragging a distracted and wandering snail racer half an inch forward; perched upon this bomb shelter, we learned patience—boatloads of patience.

Had Jesus had been born in Germany, and had this concrete bomb shelter been His temporary tomb before His escape from death on that history-bending day, I suspect He would have paused on his way past the rusted, padlocked door. Snailville would have caught his gaze on His way up and out of that black sepulcher—the racetrack, snail Number 6, and us, patiently waiting—and He, just the sort of guest we could only have hoped for.

Getting Rid of Pets

I have always loved my pets, whether dogs, guinea pigs, my boa constrictor named Boaz, two lizards named Liz and Ard, or the zebra finches who suffered their simultaneous dramatic demise, feet pointing skyward in the bottom of their cage after choking on sunflower seeds. Yes, though cleaning cages can grow wearisome, I never thought of “doing in my pets” because of it. No way.

That is, until today—because today I received this notice from my extermination contractor: “Getting rid of pets just got easier.”

Imagine that! My exterminator, who rids our premises of cockroaches, rats, ants, and gophers, now has a side hustle: eliminating unwanted pets! No doubt he’s using the agony-inflicting chemicals already pre-loaded onto his truck! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the notice. What a brilliant, demented scheme! A one-stop shop to eliminate all annoying vermin and all pets!

I was infuriated and determined to whistleblow these clowns. I hastily typed in a Google search for the phone numbers of ASPCA, PETA and Petco. I was seething with a holy, self-righteous sort of seething.

As my computer hunted for the numbers, I fumed (not, “fumigated”) as I read the exterminator company’s promotional blurb one more time: “Getting red of pests just got easier.”

Oh—PESTS, not PETS! Whoop-sie. My mis-read. My bad.

As my blood pressure gradually receded, it gave me time to think. I was relieved. Good! I still get to annihilate cockroaches, yet keep my precious pets!

And I wondered about my pets.

As it turns out, I have a lot of “pets” beyond the furry and scaly variety. In fact, I possess a virtual menagerie in my garage. There are the soft-back and hardback books undisturbed for decades, their yellow rat-pee stained pages buried beneath compound layers of gathered dust. Beside them lie the carcasses of ancient iPhones, rest in peace. Lurking in the shadows, buried in random plastic containers, lie thousands of orphaned screws, bolts, nails, and washers. All my pets.

This Pet Became a Pest. A Scary One.

I had other pets that did not inhabit my garage. It started out as a pet, small and cute and respectable, but it eventually outgrew its own sort of cage, which was a record player case. In 1936, Sergei Prokofiev composed “Peter and the Wolf” for kids just like me. When I was in first grade, I had access to my parents’ record player and that record. I loved that record and that player. At first.

When I placed the armature of that record player onto the black spinning plastic, magic happened. Out jumped every character in the story, each portrayed by a different instrument—a bassoon for the grandfather, kettle drums for the hunters, nasty french horns for the nasty wolf, a flute for the freaked-out-frightened bird, and an oboe for the duck who was eaten alive by the wolf. Alas, heroic Peter, represented by a calming stringed section, arrived on the scene too late to allay my panic-mottled pink cheeks.

When the climactic, freak-me-out scary music let forth, I knew that the characters were alive beneath my dark and dusty bed. The wolf! The hunter! The mangled duck! The frightened bird! Mercy! Quick—I must get on top of the bed until the massacre was over!

My pets—the record and record player—obviously went very wrong. The story had grown too real, and the record player became a huge pest of frightening proportion. Eventually, I didn’t even want to play the thing. A pest, perhaps, and even more than that. My pet became a pest and a terror.

This Pest Became a Pet. A Lovely One.

Two of my grandchildren own a Rattus, the fancy genus name for a rat. I have unwittingly owned several of these creatures myself. They lived in our attic. After several seasons enduring scratching and gnawing sounds above my bed, and two episodes of profound stench from decaying corpses of deceased rodents, I brought in the professional with the big guns—er, rat traps.

“No need for cheese,” explained the exterminator. “These curious critters explore anything new, including a rat trap, and then, smack! The bar from the trap snaps shut and crushes any body part in its way.” He was right. In short order, I could have displayed a respectable Rattus pelt exhibit.

My granddaughter, June, owned a pet rat, Reepicheep, who was different. Reepicheep had crossed beyond the boundary of “pest-hood,” elevated to the honor of “pet-hood.” June knew just the right places to scratch him. He rested trustingly around her neck, a reciprocal bond of true friendship whenever June liberated him from his cage.

Pets Become Pets; Pests Become Pets

Perhaps I have this “pet” label and “pest” label hopelessly backward. Maybe I’ve been calling my “pets” my “pests.” And maybe I’ve been calling my “pests” my “pets.”

My pests are like this: For a long time, I’ve called life’s troubles, my “pests.” But later, looking back, I think, “I grew a lot. I learned a lot. I changed a lot. Huh!” Sort of like a friend helps you grow, in weird ways. The dictionary definition of “Trouble” is: “Trouble,” which is something that is just no good, and it hurts. But sometimes, in a weird way, trouble is good for me. And therefore my pests, my former troubles, have become my pets, the things I have come to value.

And my pets are like this: For a long time, I’ve called the warm and fuzzy and cuddly things in life, my “pets.” You know, the sorts of things that make me feel comfortable. And time-wasting. And draining. And shallow. And aimless.

You know, those kinds of pets.

You know, those kinds of pests.

The High Cost of Living

During just the first two months of 2022, the price of a can of Campbell’s tomato soup at Kroger rose by 25 percent. The rising rate of cars and fuel prices have far surpassed Campbell’s soup, a bellwether of staple food economics. Even the price for mattresses, where one might be inclined to recline, hoping to forget about all this, has skyrocketed.

Have you ever tried to run up a downward-descending escalator? That escalator is the current state of economics. We’re all running hard to keep up, but getting nowhere.

The high cost of living is upon us.

The uneven, up-down, zigzag floors, walls and ceilings of a funhouse are just that—fun—for awhile. It’s a relief to come out the other end, having survived the intractable and dizzying balancing act. But when will this economic funhouse finally settle down? The cost of living is skyrocketing.

I prepared myself for my customary morning walk on Friday, Good Friday, to be exact, the Friday before Easter. I doused myself with deodorant in the off-chance that Joe would want to chat. I often meet him mid-stride on my walks, as I quietly lurch down my familiar back streets. Joe likes to hail me from across the street. It took Joe several months to learn my name. For many weeks, he christened me with the name, “Frank.” I get that a lot. Upon introducing myself, I’m often mistakenly called Frank, perhaps because I mispronounce my own name. “Frank” comes out much more distinctly than “Craig,” which I myself sometimes choke upon, getting stuck somewhere around my tonsils, the place in the gullet reserved for salt water gargling. “Frank” seems a much more straightforward, tongue-forward appellation.

After several dozen more exercise walks, I finally trained Joe to learn my real name. Now I get, “Hi, Greg.” Never mind. His intent is good. My next task is training him to discern the difference between a “G” and a “C.”

Anyway, Joe is a retired school teacher who cares for grandchildren on occasion and walks his dog with religious fervor. There used to be two dogs on his leash, but last year the golden retriever perished quite suddenly in its sleep after being diagnosed with cancer. How do I know this? Joe freely invites me into his world to share the trivia in his life. In some way, I am gratified to be trusted with the rigors of life by this one-time stranger. He lays out a welcome mat into his world.

On this day, this Good Friday, while chatting curbside with Joe, I suddenly realized that I had not paused my Apple Watch exercise timer for today’s discourse interlude. So I attempted to gently drift downstream away from Joe, despite his attempts to close the growing gap between us.

I lurched and forged ahead, leaving Joe to ponder the correct pronunciation of my name, and determined to mark my exercise miles and minutes. The late fitness guru, Jack LaLanne would be proud.

Abruptly, mid-stride in my exercise brain haze, I half-stuttered a step, lurching sideways like a crab skittering from a codfish. A full step would have landed me directly upon the remains of a rabbit, car-flattened. This bit of brown fur was once a beautiful creation. I lingered over it in awe and consternation.

It was laid open, a beautiful handiwork of its Creator, dissected by an automobile tire. It was still a thing of beauty, but a Picasso re-arranged structure it was. The parts were there, but not in the originally-intended design.

Why did this rabbit meet his demise on my exercise street? Why on Good Friday, just two days before Easter? Was it some sort of omen? The implication was obvious—could it indeed be the Easter Bunny? A horrific thought.

My Good Friday Bunny soon disappeared from the roadway. The next day, during my walk, he was but a flattened pelt with most of the fur missing. And the following day he was gone, nowhere to be found. Surely, he had not been raised on Easter Day, this Easter Rabbit. No, indeed, surely not. But the irony was not lost on me, his coincidental death on Good Friday and disappearance two days later—contrasted with the incarnate God-made-flesh, the real Easter Hero who perished on Good Friday and was resurrected on Easter, two days later.

These days, as we all know, it costs a lot just to stay alive. We know something of the high cost of living with each visit to the grocery store or fill-up at the gas station.

When our friend, Mr. Rabbit, tragically met the Goodyear tire while crossing the road that day, he experienced the ultimate high cost of living.

But the alternative Easter narrative is the one we will to choose to remember. It’s the one in which, on that triumphant Easter morning, there was offered a permanent, never-ending solution for the high cost of living.

Just Grow a New One

I laid down my gardening tools, sat on my haunches, and watched the torso-less green and tan lizard tail twitch on the still, brown mulch. Slower and slower it convulsed until several minutes later it lay still, convinced finally that reassembly to its body was not forthcoming, and no further electro-nerve impulses would be sent its way.

“Ah, it’ll grow a new one,” I mused, half-pretending that it was not I who had inadvertently severed said lizard body from its tail with a power hedge trimmer. In fact, I know not whether all lizards or only some lizards can re-grow various missing parts.

Too bad humans cannot re-grow body parts; such ability would have found useful service for Grandfather Axel’s right index finger, or at least much of it, down to the middle joint. Grabbing severed finger with his other hand, Axel tried to re-attach it himself, jamming and ramming it onto the remaining finger stub without success. I’ve no doubt that the finger actually gave him no hope—no slow-motion twitching and thrashing about like the aforementioned lizard tail that I had sat to observe. Still, onward he jammed, until reality eventually set in. The severed finger would not revive.

What was left after his unfortunate power saw incident was a stub, a stub that years later, and for many years thereafter, Axel would poke into my abdomen at mealtime with exceeding encouragement, deeply stub-prodding as if he could discern slight voids where food ought to be.

“Ah, there,” he would declare, “There’s just enough room there for another slice of tomato and a meatball or two!” I would eagerly down the tomato and meatballs to fill the gap.

I, also, possess an injured right index finger, though my injury pales next to that which Axel suffered at the cruelty of the power saw. My own injury is due to an errant softball hurtling toward my head. Just in time, my hand, and the tip of my extended index finger in particular, shielded my face. The resulting lifelong souvenir is a fingertip that can no longer point straight. To point in a desired direction, I must purposefully aim it slightly up and to the left. Otherwise, giving directions to a traveler might result in a trip to Chicago instead of Milwaukee.

“Just go that way,” I point, “you can’t miss it.”

“Excuse me, which way?”

Twenty centuries ago, the first Catholic pope, who possessed no medical certifications, amputated an ear. Saint Peter and his companions, in the solitude of an olive garden, were suddenly set upon by a band of religious legalists. Under duress, Peter drew his sword and swung it, amputating the ear of one of the intruders. Malchus, now earless, happened to be the slave of the Jewish high priest, and a member of the party sent to arrest Jesus. Not a good thing to happen.

Jesus, the ultimate Primary Care Physician, would have none of the violence. Picture Jesus picking the bloody ear up off the ground, brushing off any olive residue, and reattaching it. Unlike my Grandpa Axel’s attempted finger reinstatement, Jesus’ reattachment held fast, a very good thing for both Malchus and Peter.

It’s reasonable to seek attachment in a chaotic world. Detachment from meaningful purpose and the people and things we love is not easy, and reattachment is not always possible. Sometimes, what we need most is a loving, stubby finger poke to the stomach and to hear, “Hey, I made it. So will you. You’ve got room for more.”

Demise of the Flies

When I bite into Cheerios, depending upon how long they have been soaking in milk, I anticipate a certain crunch, a crisp crumbling of the exterior wall of the oat circle, giving way to the welcome tenderizing by the milk moat surrounding it.

When drinking a beverage while watching evening television, one does not anticipate such a crunch. Instead, there should be the silk-smooth sensation of a liquid draining down the esophagus after a vibrant, refreshing taste exchange with an appreciative tongue.

While it’s not exactly the esophagus, my larynx is a well-behaved esophageal neighbor. Some years ago in a doctor’s office, a skilled specialist remarked on the size of my larynx. I sought his help after suffering unfortunate damage to my throat cartilage from a blow to the throat. Looking down upon me in the examining room were signed photographs from the doctor’s former appreciative patients; Barbra Streisand lovingly encouraged me that I had an excellent doctor. “Wow!” exclaimed my doctor upon initial examination, “I’ll bet you can really sing loudly! I’ve never seen a larynx this big!” This statement, coming from Barbra Streisand’s former doctor, caused me to swell with pride. And, yes, darn it, I can sing loudly, and hold a tune at that; after all, I had made it into my college men’s glee club. Admitting a slight boast, I confess that I can swallow a dozen pills in one pharyngeally-enlarged gulp.

But back to my esophageal interaction with beverages. A few months ago, while sipping my favorite beverage of choice while watching late night television, my wife explained what transpired because I didn’t recall it in detail. She explained that upon a certain fateful beverage sip, I inexplicably launched myself out of my chair, straight up, arms flailing outward while discharging the offending beverage several feet into the room. It was the classic television spit take—eyes bulged, buttocks clenched, the spew of mouth content arcing across the room.

What I had spat out possessed fur, accompanied by dangly-leggy things, and a sizable center pouch. This is what I guessed it comprised of, considering I had munched it several times before realizing it had no welcome place in my mouth or digestive system. It was a housefly, pierced by my teeth, its anatomy rearranged. I had very likely decapitated it before my oral explosion.

I had never had that happen before or since. Until last night. It was a déjà vu experience. Last night, I picked up my glass. I sipped. My lips recorded that same grotesque texture, that furry interloper touching my lips, the same sensation I had experienced several months prior. Another housefly in my glass! But that previous episode had taught me a lesson; my lips quickly sealed tight against the fur and the dangly legs and the bulgy, multi-mirroring eyes of another housefly. This time I locked him out of my mouth, just barely, and into my glass he went. I held the glass to the light to examine the floating corpse. Yes, he was indeed immobile. Drowned. Dead. I tentatively fished the deceased housefly out of my glass and placed him carefully on my beverage’s fabric coaster.

He has lain there for two days now, time enough to check for any possible movements or twitches of life, for I do not think a fly possesses a pulse. Time to discard him, whether disassembled by a trip down the garbage disposal, consolidated with the other trash bin rubbish, or centrifuged down the toilet.

Although a solitary fly possesses both a mother and father, and probably thousands of sisters and brothers, it’s difficult to get worked up over the death of a fly. It’s just one fly. Gone, never realizing it was alive.

But imagine the simultaneous hatching of billions of them, all headed your direction. Pharaoh rightly owned that plague sent him with the message: Hey. Listen up. Obey. Straighten up and fly right. Fly right.

So I ask myself: this one, lone, dead fly—what message did he carry to me?

Virus Diaries: Gray Flamingos

It takes several years for a young phoenicopterus roseus’ feathers to evolve into the handsome salmon-pink hue that we associate with them. Before their feathers turn vivid shades of color, flamingos are, well, gray.

Yes, flamingos start out gray. It’s their diet of algae and invertebrates that gives flamingos their color. So as young birds age, they take on their color.

Recently, I’ve noticed a similar thing happening with homo sapiens. Young individuals of this group are identified by healthy, supple skin in varying shades of tan or brown or pink or golden hues, all attractive in their own right. Lovely creatures.

Yet as they age, some of these beings take on unnatural characteristics. Subtle at first, bluish or reddish tints become more pronounced over time. Given the right circumstances, these colors can grow shockingly vivid.

So, like flamingos, as young humans age, they can gradually take on these colors. Startling, really, to see the pronounced blue or red hues predominate.

Gradually, like flamingos, they form their own social groups, each with its own novel identity, bonds formed stronger over time. The Bluish group on this side, the Reddish group on that side.

Such a group, in flamingo parlance, is known as a “stand,” or a “regiment,”— military words.

Interestingly, if a flamingo’s diet is changed, with a lessening of the pink-inducing dietary influences, its color will moderate and return to its natural grayish-white color.

During times of particularly disagreeable political turmoil, there is yet hope that artificially-generated human Blue and Red colors may also fade, tones reverting closer to their God-given hues. And with that, our own group-identified “stands,” and “regiments” may yet become less than permanent, militarized fixtures.

Like the flamingos, achieving that will likely also require a change in our own diet.

Candlelight Revenge

Upon our return from a camping vacation this week, we discovered that the electricity had been out much of the day, and were told the lines would not be repaired until 4 AM. Okay. We can tough out heat and cold like cave people. After all these millennia, we’ve perfected survival skills.
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So we busted out the candles and flashlights and went to bed early. Windows open, the whole night I heard workmen yelling at each other up and down the street, flashlights blinking in and out among the houses, and finally, at about 3:30 AM, the power came on, underpromised and overdelivered! Yes!
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Power for 20 glorious seconds.
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Then, just as suddenly, all was extinguished again until noon the next day. So I didn’t sleep most of the night, the brain entertaining rambling, incoherent and unproductive thoughts. There’s no “off” switch in a brain thus energized.
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There was one consolation. Before going to bed, I had realized that a fly had entered the house with us, and he had found the one light source he could ram over and over again with his fly-skull—my laptop computer screen, illuminated as I gingerly drew upon the computer battery power. So as I was attempting to decipher 50 e-mails before retiring to bed, he kept ramming my screen, drawn in by its bluish, glowing light. Annoying. Aggravating. Demonic.
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So, then, what was my consolation, you ask? When I arose the next morning in my still un-electrified house, I opened my laptop again, and beheld—the smashed body of aforesaid fly! Apparently, without even trying, when closing the laptop before turning in for bed, I had squeezed him lifeless in the process.
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Sweet revenge by candlelight.
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Note: One animal was harmed in the making of this photoblog.

Childlike Wonder

A water drain beneath their street was enough to draw grandchildren Holland, Linus and Thatcher in for a spelunking adventure. Nets and cups. Check. Rain galoshes. Check. Those corrugated steel pipes might contain toad or salamander trophies, or perhaps a scrap of unknown substance. My guess would be kryptonite.

When we are young, everything is new and undiscovered, so there is wonderment in everything. As we age, we can become criminally hardened to wonderment, to the “oddness” of things since we have seen it all before.

Last week, while taking a shower, an odd juxtaposition occurred. I draped my fresh clothes over hooks and unceremoniously dropped my old, soiled clothes in a pile on the floor.

Stepping into the shower, I closed the curtain behind me. With preliminary preparations completed, there was no turning back when I heard, and then spied, an enormous blue bottle house fly. I was imprisoned with this beast, cordoned off from the world, within the confines of fiberglass wall and shower curtain.

Shortly, I recognized that the fly’s incessant dive-bombing of my normally-inaccessible body parts could not go on. Defenseless, with reaction time inadequate to squash him and with no flyswatter in sight, I sought a means to destroy him.

We are blessed with an extremely efficient hot water tank, and doubly blessed to possess a shower head with a hand wand. Standing well back, shower wand in hand, I cranked the water knob all the way to the left–to scorch mode.

Briefly, the fly’s buzz escalated to the wail of a tiny ambulance siren, as the fly frantically sought an escape route. The wail was quickly extinguished when the scalding water fried the pest’s innards.

I wondered over the power and authority I possessed to end this pest’s life, a life so annoying yet wondrous in its creation. It lay, limp and tiny in the shower stall, a miraculous trophy of art and engineering. I felt both powerful and humbled.

There it went, down the drain, down the sewer. Perhaps my grandchildren will soon find their own creation trophy in a sewer drain beneath a road, fish it out with their net, and share in its wonder.

Pertified Possum

She’s right there. Can you see her? I’m not sure if you can really make her out, head curled around her body, entombed beneath the floor joists of our 1930-built living room floor.

Her body was accidentally excavated today, upon replacing the floor.

She might be a 1930’s depression-era opossum. Or she might have perished while wartime soldiers set sail to Europe. Perhaps she passed away during Detroit’s 1960’s era of Cadillac fins. Has she lain here since Woodstock? Or might she have lost her way beneath our living room floor merely months ago while we, just above her, viewed the latest Netflix feature. We cannot know what generation she belongs to. But does it matter? In her withered carcass, the measure of generations are erased.

We are left with the passage of time, no matter how long, and to ponder what we have done to redeem it. Claremont, CA