I put out cobs which are in the chickens’ view even better than bay shrimp—this
week’s new food. Appenzeller wanted to make an issue out of who got to each
which one but when there’s more cobs than chickens, this is hard. I cut the
green bit off a tomato and threw that out.
“THIS is mine,” Appenzeller declared.
Mimo looked up, “Have at it you fat old dotard. Some of us are still
contributing to society.”
Appenzeller wasn’t going to let that go, “What did you call me?”
Pecorino, “Now girls, there’s just the three of us. Let’s get along.”
Appenzeller, “But she called me something with 'ard in it. And fat. I’m not
fat, I’m…”
Pecorino, “Family size?”
Appenzeller, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Pecorino, “No idea. You know all that noise birds make at dawn?”
Appenzeller, “Of course.”
Pecorino, “I picked it out of that mess.”
Mimo, “Dotard. Same story. Don’t you like the sound of it?”
Appenzeller reflected, “I do. Dotard, dotard, dotard. Yes, you may call me
that. Add a ‘royal majesty’ at the front if you like.”
Mimo, “Your royal majesty, Dotard the Fat. Could have been queen of France
with a name like that.”
The other two recited, “Charles the Fat, Charles the Bald…”
Mimo, “Pepin, the short. Can’t forget him…”
Appenzeller, “Louis the Stammerer…”
Pecorino, “Louis the Pious…”
Mimo, “Charles the Simple…”
Appenzeller, “Can’t forget Odo.”
Chorus, “Never forget Odo.”
I was going to take a photo with my phone but I diverted to the garden section
and by the time I’d returned they’d changed the price stickers. That’s the way
of the world now. Anyway you’ll have to take my word for the fact that in Fred
Meyer they were selling pistachio nuts with reference to “mindfulness." There
was a sign claiming that pistachios are the mindfulness nuts. Of course when I
got home I told Mimo.
“What’s mindfulness?”
“It’s a popular thing at the moment.”
“Can you eat it?”
“No. It’s a reference to being in the moment.”
“Where else can you be?”
“Fair point. Distracted I suppose is the answer. Diverted. To the garden
section.”
“We have to divert around the dog.”
“There’s a lot of it about.”
“Maybe you need a bit more mindfulness. You might be running low. Is there
Mind nearly-full-ness? I think that’s what the dog has.”
For fun I told the chickens I’d once thought about making fiber glass sharks
and mounting them high in the Douglas Firs. What did they think of that idea?
I quoted Melville to them, “Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,
Pale ravener of horrible meat.”
Mimo cocked her head one way and then the other, looked at the other girls.
“Off his trolley.”
“He originally wrote, ‘pale mumbler’ you know.”
Appenzeller, “Who?”
“Melville. And then he changed it to ‘gorger.’”
Pecorino, “Barking.”
Mimo, “Secure the food supply before he gets worse.”
When the chickens are gone, says the other god, the one who actually owns them,
we might try ducks. On her travels this week, she was entertained by a pet
duck who wanted to dip his or her head in water many times over but only when
people were standing a good way back. When people came too close he stopped
dipping.
“That,” I asked, “was entertaining? Must have been a dull trip. We were at a
wedding once that was interrupted by ducks…trying to breed.”
“Are they still married?”
“The ducks?”
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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