[lit-ideas] Sunday Wotsit
- From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 11:23:50 -0700
Trader Joe's is selling a beer called Pig War...
"What do you want to do this evening?"
"I dunno, we could open a Pig War and see what develops."
"Pig War, it's what your right arm's for."
A cool evening with bright sky after sunset. I'd been feeling a bit down. Too
many polite-and-kind rejections from publishers. All the effort to prepare a
manuscript, and then it's, "Actually...no." We watched the second half of
"Twelve Years a Slave." I stepped outside and witnessed for the first time in
twenty-five years here, bats, two of them flying over Harry's house. Our
neighbor the other way had once tried to lure them with one of those wooden,
slatted houses. No luck. Suddenly, here they were. What luck!
After her contract expired, in the evening after her last day at work E was
re-boiling chicken stock. Between times she kept looking under piles. I asked
what she was missing. Her "to-do" list.
"What was on it?"
"All the things I had to get done before the end of work."
Wensleydale has become noisy first thing in the morning. She and Appenzeller
are still brooding, but she now shoots out of the sleeping cot at top speed,
sprints towards the water bowl, sometimes remembers she wanted food first,
trots back, eats a bit, runs over to the water, leaps up onto the garden bench,
does a pooh and shrieks. It's how I imagine someone in a primeval therapy
group might sound, letting years of pent up rage out. Then she preens.
When I finished pouring old milk into the steel bowl, I asked if she was all
right.
"I hope the damn chick is grateful."
"Chick?"
"Sitting? Egg? Chick? Hello?"
I mentioned that we have no rooster.
"Males," she practically spat, clearly remembering the time when we *did* have
a rooster. "I'm in favor of the alternate route."
I asked what that might be.
She looked around and whispered,"Immaculate."
Cheddar came up, "What's immaculate? Not me. I'm ready for a bath."
"Nature. Nature is immaculate."
"Oh, yes" said Cheddar, attacking bugs under her wings, "Nature. Very nice,
nature."
Wensleydale has an odd kind of neck motion when she gets excited or feels
strongly about something. The feed store boys say it's something genetic,
probably to do with her crop. She did this thing now, "We must leave room for
the metaphysical in our lives..."
Cheddar cocked her head, "Room?" She gestured with her head and gave her wing
a bit of a sweep. "We're not short of room."
"I'm talking about metaphysical space," said Wensleydale.
Mimo arrived. "Meta what?"
"Physical," said Wensleydale. "Metaphysical."
Peccorino was tasting the white water I'd put in the bowl. "Fizzical? Oooh,
no. It's quite fine, this. Not fizzical at all."
Wensleydale squawked, "Physical with a pee and an haitch. Metaphysical." She
adopted her Big Fluffy Druid Pose. I wondered if she was losing what
leadership position she'd gained.
Appenzeller joined in, "It's going to be a hot one. All right if you're white."
Wensleydale said that there was absolutely nothing she could do about the color
of her feathers. Beyond, of course, rolling in the dirt. That got everyone's
attention.
"Baaaaath!" they said in unison. "Dust!"
Off they went for a communal, physical roll in the dirt. Nothing meta about it.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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