I was sitting in traffic, halted behind one of those behemoths that
pass for passenger vehicles hereabouts: an Escalade, an Excursion, an Armada, a
Pre-Emptive Strike. Obviously it wasn’t the last of those names, but I
wouldn’t bet against the possibility of someone in a meeting, “Let’s call our
next SUV the Pre-Emptive Strike.” Well, maybe I would bet against that.
Anyway, there were two other tags on the back of this thing, “Max” and
“Limited.” Max I could understand. This was clearly a maximum kind of
vehicle, the biggest, the most escalady of escalades, absolutely the stuff to
take you over a castle wall in a siege. But surely if it was in some way
maximum it couldn’t also be limited?
While exercising Hamish it occurred to me to text J. to find out how
she and her roommate tackle Football’s Big Day. I know they won’t be watching,
but her roommate is a professor who has a book out about concussion and
football helmets. So while Hamish was catching his breath, I typed, “How does
your household deal with the spear owl?” This is what adaptive spelling
thought I wanted, “spear owl” for “Superbowl.” When I returned home I thought
to tell L. but she was about to depart for brunch with the ladies, so there was
but one option. I stepped outside.
The chickens came running up, “Chips?”
I threw a few. We keep a supply of stale ones beside the door.
“Nice weather,” I suggested.
Appenzeller, “Very.’
Pecorino, “Makes a change.”
Mimo didn’t say anything until she had finished gobbling. All chickens are
serious about food, but as the smallest and the most aggressive, Mimo is the
embodiment of what the New York Times tells me is called in Japanese, “Ikkai
ichi dousa,” doing one thing at a time.
It has been terribly wet, wet to the point that a landslide closed the inbound
lane of Burnside, a road leading downtown. Today, when snow was forecast, the
sun has come out and I’m thinking the roses will need pruning soon. I tried to
explain to the chickens about the “spear owl” typo but soon realized that you
need to understand typing, corrective spelling on a phone, that the Super Bowl
exists, football…All they heard was “spear owl,” which was a concept that
worried them greatly.
“Owls are bad enough,” said Mimo. “But now they have spears?”
“No, no, no, no, no,” was the unanimous verdict.
Mimo changed the subject, “I’ve been wandering what happens when I stop
producing eggs.”
“Appenzeller went bonkers for a while and thought she was a rooster.”
Mimo, “Only, I thought I might invent an ap.”
“An ap?” Maybe explaining texting was not as difficult as I imagined?
Mimo, “Have I mispronounced the word? Translation from Robin is always hard.”
“Robin?”
Mimo, “You haven’t noted flocks passing through?”
“Hamish and I just wandering past maybe twelve of them. We took a route around
but they nonethless flew into nearby trees, all but one of them. After we
passed the one who didn’t fly away, took off, no doubt wanting to crow about
success and bravery and so on.”
Mimo, “Bugger crows.”
“Sorry. I know they annoy you. You are thinking of inventing an ap?”
Mimo: “I was thinking about one that helped with cleaning bottoms.”
When you don’t have hands?”
Mimo: “You have it exactly. Robins say you can get aps do useful things. How
do they work?”
“Well unfortunately in order to use one, you pretty much have to have hands.”
Mimo, “Typical. The world gives to those who are already wealthy.”
“You’re rich in feathers. Hawaiians thought feathers were the bees knees.
Made royal regalia out of them.”
Pecorino, “For your information feathers are not made from the knees of bees.”
“Really?” I said. “I stand corrected.”
Mimo, “When will the soup arrive? You said something about a bowl of soup.”
At this point, I kid you not, J. replied to the text, saying that her room mate
is busy as a result of being quoted in a New Yorker article and one in the
Atlantic magazine. I mentioned this to the chickens, careful to explain that
it wasn’t the chip off the old block who is currently famous, but her room mate.
Mimo, “Did you say chip?”
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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