Hail... and lots of it

Last Thursday, Elsewhere was hailed upon... 

in a Biblical sense.



Fortunately, everything on the farm can be cleaned up with a broom and rake...

others didn't fair so well.

My poor little flowers...  

...maybe next year.

The Joys of Eating

We chew. But we don’t eat. Our food is eaten for us. I did not know this. I mean… I did… but not exactly.

          I’ve always had this picture of my food: chewed and travelling down a perfectly straight esophagus, dropping into that wine bag of acid, where it is liquefied, and from there, dispersed to, well… wherever. Some scientist on N.P.R. was kind enough to explain differently, elaborate.

          Now, I know we have bacteria in our stomachs, flora. What I didn’t picture was that these little guys, these bacteria, have mouths and butts. I always pictured them looking like, well, yogurt. Nor did I envision that the food we chew is actually eaten by these bacteria, not just magically dissolved. Eaten, digested and pooped.

          As if that wasn't gross enough, the scientist went on to explain that after the first bacteria's meal and subsiquant defication, along comes another, smaller bacterium. This smaller bacteria eats the first bacteria's poop, digests it and poops it out too. Then another. And another. And so on—I think the scientist said, eight or ten times—until the food we put into our mouths is broken down, 'digested', enough for us to use.

          Life is so crazy-beautiful.

Mag 111 'Note to New Wife'

image: Parke Harrison

In those salad days,
my younger brother and I,
bore home every morass in our All-Star soles,
honeycombed for that ‘surer’ grip—
Lewis and Clark—
only to find ourselves thwarted
on the threshold of a semi-flown nest,
pockets asquirm with pond-side game,
paralyzed by threat of tannings
and other such cruelties
should we tread,
sodden
onto mother’s freshly mopped floors.

Be wary, my dear
as you take my hand,
I haven’t changed a lick.

In The Garden of Eden...

A Brush with Stupidity

I don’t know what the odds are of winding up with only Charmin flushable wet wipes, and Hanes boxer-brief underwear on your Wal-Mart shopping list. I am not that kind of Aspie.

I am, however, the kind of Aspie who makes it all the way to the last-minute fried chicken stand—you know, by the one-dollar movie bin, there in front of the 20-items-or-less lanes—before realizing the implications of purchasing new underwear and wet wipes… and nothing else.

It's amazing I have made it this far in life.        

On Passing Mt. Olive Cemetery

From the clay atop yesterday's grave, moist and yet to yellow, Robin's glean a morning meal with all the joys of spring. 

I found a feather in a mouse hole, and yesterday it rained. The fire’s burned down to charcoal, and it’s getting cold again. Old Harold Graves has passed away, and I’m fixed to buy his land. I’ll be a feather in a mouse hole, just like Peter Pan.