I returned the duff amp, no problem, looked around this week’s sale, found a
good knife and a cast iron pan, just right for one. “I’ll take that to J.” was
my thought, “in New York,” shushing the voice in my head that asked, “Do you
really want to carry heavy luggage?” I bought the pan while wondering idly why
my hands had become so dirty. Back home, I cleaned and oiled the pan.
Something didn’t seem quite right so I consulted the mighty inter-webs, which
said two things of note: that a pan of this brand from the right year was worth
hundreds of dollars and that people are consequently making fakes. Fake
cast-iron pans? What is the world coming to? The sure sign of a fake? Orange
dirt in large quantities on your hands—rust. Fortunately, and most unusually,
the estate sale people took the pan back. Unfortunately the other two—I’d
hoped for a swap—were both gone.
When I returned home from a round of errands the garden gate made a
satisfactory sound behind me but apparently didn’t close properly. About a
half an hour later I glanced out a window and saw that an Hexit may have
occurred. I hurried out, calling the girls. “Bop, bop, bop?”
They responded immediately…from the corner of the front garden under the big
rhododendrons.
“Yes?”
"Is there a problem?”
“Dog not behaving?”
“Trouble with your pruning?"
They came towards me in an infantry patrol kind of line, scratching and
feeding as if walking out in the open was perfectly normal. I went inside for
bread and enticed them back, counting as they ran through the gate: one, two,
three, four? Cheddar was missing. I know enough now to go immediately to the
brooding area. There she was, trying to hatch some eggs. “Got to think of the
future!” The others followed me in.
“Breeead?”
I asked, “What were you thinking?”
Appenzeller, “You’ll have to be more precise. I have thoughts all day long.
Can’t remember half of them."
Mimo, “Good you got out, then. A change is as good as a rest.”
Rocky, “A kind of a holiday is how I think of being out there.”
I told them that there were dangers beyond their ken, dogs for example.
Mimo, “There’s a dog in here. You just run at him and he backs off.”
I tried to explain, “Better together.”
Rocky, “We were together."
Peccorino stamped, I swear. “And we’re sick and tired of gods telling us what
to do.”
Appenzeller, “Freedom!"
It occurred to me that a potential exit strategy in re. chicken care would be
simply to repeat today’s accident. Who knows though, maybe their
self-confidence is warranted? Maybe I have the world’s first group of Commando
chickens?
On a rainy day Hamish discovered in our kitchen that when you have wet feet, a
wooden floor can change one’s orientation to the world. He recovered his
equilibrium quickly. And dignity is not an issue with puppies.
I was at another estate sale where they had native american masks for nine
thousand dollars apiece and a sculpture for thirty thousand. Someone bought
the latter. I was distracted by a father who encouraged a little boy to touch
everything in the kitchen, “You like that? How about this?” The kid had a
streaming cold. I kept my hands, and my wallet, in my pockets.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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