Ok, so I don’t usually post videos on here and this is the second one in a couple of weeks but it’s marvelous! So consider this my Christmas gift to you all! I laughed until I cried and I don’t do that very often! Somehow, combined with our recent performance of Handel’s Messiah, this was the icing on the cake! There are several different versions of this on You Tube but this is my favorite.
So I give you Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus as you’ve never seen it before!
When I was ten years old, my greatest ambition was to have a pair of rainbow-striped suspenders, a la Mork, the alien who hailed from the planet Ork on my favorite TV show, Mork and Mindy. Yes, I’m serious. I remember going to the fabric store with my mother and she, bless her heart, inquired as to the availability of rainbow-striped elastic. I can’t remember why we didn’t buy any but I think it may have been because it was out of stock. So apparently there were several other kids running around town who, like me, wanted to be compared to the incomparable Robin Williams.
I have not seen all of his movies over the years, nor did I love every one that I did see, but every time that I happened to catch him being interviewed, I had to stop and watch because he never failed to make me laugh. He always amazed me with his quick wit and his hilarious comparisons. How his mind could fly from one thing to another and make it all uproariously funny! I envied his ability to think on his feet. I can think on my feet to a degree – I actually enjoyed extemporaneous speaking in speech class – but I’m not funny. I don’t have one iota of his ability to make people laugh.
Not many people do.
The truth is, Robin Williams could also make people cry. His movie What Dreams May Come is one of my favorite movies of all time. Perhaps “favorite” is not the right word. It’s too depressing to be a “favorite”. Maybe “most heart-wrenching” would be better. Or “most unforgettable”. Never has a movie made me think more about life, about death, about heaven and hell. About theology.
Is it trite to say that the world is diminished because of his loss? It is, trite or not. My heart hurts, thinking that even as he cracked us all up, he was hurting so desperately inside. I pray that I’ll give grace to the next person who irritates me – to the next and the next and the next ad infinitum – because I have no idea what is going on inside of them. Because, even if a person is smiling on the outside, on the inside they may be breaking apart.
Na-Nu, Na-Nu, Robin. I miss you.
Me: “There’s a squirrel in the birch tree right there.”
My husband: “It better run for its life.”
Me: “I bet it doesn’t know.”
My husband: “It will find out soon enough.”
Me: (A little guiltily) “I noticed all those black walnuts on the ground beneath the trees the other day and got to worrying about the squirrels. If they’re drawn by the scent.”
My husband: “But not enough to pick them up.”
Me: “What?”
My husband: “You didn’t worry enough to pick them up.”
Me: “Oh. No. Too much work.”
Black walnuts, anyone?
My husband: “You’d think that they’d spread the word. Avoid the place.”
Me: “They can’t spread the word. They’re all dead.”
My husband: “Don’t blame me.”
Me: “No. It’s the squirrel mafia.”
My husband: “Totally.”
Me: (Still watching the doomed squirrel.) “Poor guy.”
My husband: “I’m not too bothered by it, actually.”
Me: (Shouting) “RUN AWAY, LITTLE SQUIRREL! RUN AWAY!”
My husband: “He won’t.”
Me: “I know. I know.”
My husband: “Dead as a door nail.”
Me: “Deader. Doornails never were alive.”
My husband: “Remember the little paw?”
Me: “Lying on top of the dumpster. Like a mute warning.”
My husband: “Squirrels beware.”
Me: “It really was gross.”
My husband: “That’s the mafia for you. Probably a few of their victims are swimming with the fishes at the bottom of the stream.”
Me: “Swimming with the beavers, you mean. We don’t have any fishes in our stream.”
My husband: “Cement boots.”
Me: “Electrocuted, actually.”
My husband: “True. Brutally shocked at the top of the light pole.”
Me: “Fallen to the ground below. All stiff…”
My husband: “Next time the power goes out mysteriously in the middle of the day – no storm, no warning – you’ll know why.”
Me: “Yes. The squirrel mafia will have struck again.”
My husband: (Joining me at the window) “How many times has it happened?”
Me: “Twice. But there was that other squirrel – the one that did a weird dance in the middle of the road and was found dead in the yard the next day.”
My husband: “Yeah. Forgot about that one. I thought you thought it was rabies that time.”
Me: “Mafia-induced rabies, probably.”
We stood there, watching the innocent squirrel run down the tree trunk and head south.
My husband: “Looks like he’s heading into Iowa.”
Me: “Good thing. The mafia is less powerful there.”
My husband: “He’ll be back. All those nuts…just calling to him…”
Me: (Shouting and banging on the glass) “GOOD LUCK LITTLE SQUIRREL! AND DON’T COME BACK!!! Never, ever come back…”
My husband: “Squirrels aren’t known for their wisdom.”
Me: “Maybe I should put up warning signs.”
My husband: “Maybe you should just pick up the walnuts.”
The End
PS – Though the conversation may not have gone exactly like this, the details of the squirrel mafia are entirely true. It’s a bizarre fact that squirrels who come to our property die. And we don’t have anything to do with it. Any relation to actual events was completely on purpose. No animals were injured in the making of this post.
Bare walnut trees.
Ok, I have to “reblog” this post because it is so marvelous. “Clyde of Mankato” is a fellow-Minnesotan. This post about a chaplain visit he made to a nursing home is full of humor, pathos, and humanity. I practically began weeping in the café as I read it. Luckily no one looked at me weirdly as my eyes were full, that’s for sure. Please read this and experience it with me. – Gretchen
This is post #3 about my high school trip to Kairouan, Tunisia. See the previous two posts for the full story!
Our last day in Tunisia was our most exciting. But not necessarily for a good reason.
We headed out to the camel market on our final morning. No, we were not looking to buy a camel, but we were searching for an authentic experience in Tunisian life – for this market, or bazaar, was a place of vast proportions and numerous opportunities.
Picture dusty rugs on the desert ground – aisle after aisle of them – with vegetables, fruits, trinkets, pots, pans, pottery, spices, leather goods, and drinks for sale. There were animals, too: goats and sheep and, I suppose, camels, though I think they were in a different part of the bazaar. I bought a baggie of saffron for my mom. I knew it was supposed to be the most expensive spice in the world, but here it was dirt cheap! I wish I had such a good source of saffron now.
It was hot in the open-air market, and aromatic. Cinnamon and peppers and sweat filled the air. And it was full of noises. Bleats and baas, the sounds of goat milk streaming into metal cans. The call of merchants selling their wares, the din of old and wrinkled women gossiping, of young men jesting, of children laughing and crying and playing in the aisles.
We walked down row after row, being jostled and beckoned to, and then, almost as if we’d planned it, all of us stopped – after being persuaded to by the vendors – to admire something that looked like cantaloupe.
My best friend and I stood at one rug, talking with the vendors. I say “talking with” but really it was more “talking at” – they didn’t understand us and we didn’t understand them. I think the phrase “James Bond” might have arisen. Other than that our communication was by smiles and gestures and thumbs up.
The rest of our group stood not two feet away from us at the neighboring rug.
We watched as the vendors cut into a melon with a scimitar – using that long, curved blade to slice through the melon as smoothly as if it were butter. We laughed and they laughed and we did our bit to promote good will and international peace.
And then, suddenly, one of the laughing and smiling salesmen at our rug jumped up and grabbed my friend around the neck. He held his scimitar to her throat – the tip just millimeters from her skin – and, unbelievably, laughed.
No one in the souk looked up. No one worried or noticed or troubled about the gullible Americans and the scimitar-wielding melon-salesmen.
I stood, immobile, terrified, tongue-tied. The man smiled on and on, his gold-toothed grin so wide that I could see where his molars ought to have been. His friends, too, grinned and guffawed.
It felt like minutes passed but I suppose it was only seconds. Next to us, our traveling companions were unaware that anything was wrong, so mesmerized were they by a slick little melon-cutting exhibition going on at their rug. Bits of sweet, orange flesh flew in all directions.
And then, all of a sudden, the man released my friend. Spewing out words we did not understand, he pulled away his sword, still laughing, still flashing those golden teeth. So much laughter! So many broken melons.
It wasn’t until we headed back to the hotel, sometime later, that my friend’s aunt realized her wallet had been stolen.
It was all a diversion. And we fell into their trap perfectly.
But it makes for a great story.
Tomorrow: Thanksgiving on foreign soil…a pilgrim in a very unfamiliar land.
The summer of my 14th year I was offered a job. As this job did not involve babysitting or vacuuming or pulling weeds in the garden, I was eager to take it on. I do not know why, exactly, I was offered this job. I suppose the people must have been desperate. Either that or extremely optimistic. Either that or they had never met me and just thought that, since they knew and liked my sister, they would know and like me as well.
Boy, were they disappointed.
I was uniquely UNqualified for the job. 1) I could not drive, and the job involved driving large vehicles. 2) I grew up with two sisters and zero brothers and the job involved lots of muscled, sweaty men spitting and hefting things and this intimidated me greatly because I did not understand men, did not know how to talk to them or behave around them, did not have any clue as to how to flirt with them and was far too shy to do so even if I did know how. 3) The job involved patience and focus…and I was easily bored.
But, given the choice of a job – and a paycheck – I said “Yes!” despite the little voice in the back of my head shouting, “RUN AWAY!”
And so my sister picked me up one hot August day – or perhaps it was July – and drove me over to the parking place of Occupational Hazard Number One (hereafter referred to simply as OH NO).
As we parked and got out of her car, I spotted a large, intimidating Hay Truck.
“Um…is that the vehicle I’m going to be driving?” I asked my sister.
“Probably,” she replied. “But it could be that one over there.” She pointed and I saw a mammoth truck looming over the farm yard. It was like The Incredible Hulk…or the Jolly Green Giant, minus the jolly parts.
At OH NO I met Nancy, my optimistic/desperate employer. I don’t think she was overly impressed with me. My sister hung around awhile, and then she drove away, leaving me behind, horribly nervous, and desperately shy of these unknown, sweaty men and the efficient woman who had hired them.
There was one person there whom I knew: my brother-in-law. He was always kind to me, teasing me and telling me to stand up straight. I have never asked him, but I have a feeling that, as he saw me hanging around that day, he had to have known better than to expect big things of his little, wimpy sister-in-law.
We piled into the cab of OH NO. I was smushed between my brother-in-law and a French Canadian guy whom I couldn’t understand and who smoked these appalling-smelling skinny cigarettes. I thought longingly of the babies I could be sitting on to earn my money and wondered how on God’s green earth bodies could smell so badly. And they hadn’t even begun bucking bales yet.
There were more guys riding on the back of the truck. Younger guys. A couple only a year or two older than me. I knew that there were girls who would give their eye teeth to be in my position. I was prepared to give my eye teeth to get out of it.
And then it was my turn at the wheel. My brother-in-law gave me a few pointers and set me free to wreck the havoc that he probably knew I’d be wrecking. They began tossing bales and I began driving V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y. This was in part because I was supposed to drive slowly…but also in part because I had to shift, steer, and otherwise operate a gigantic vehicle when I had never, in my life, operated any kind of vehicle, ever.
It is a funny fact that a field which appears to be flat and level may be, upon closer inspection, very much NOT flat or smooth. If there was a tiny hump in the land, an itsy bitsy depression in the ground, I found it with OH NO. I stalled the truck. I heaved and lurched and abused the truck. And, in my attempts to NOT run over bales along the way, I managed to run over at least three which were lurking in the shadows and then jumped out at me in particularly vulnerable moments.
My view from the truck windshield. Think you could do it? Yes. You probably could.
I couldn’t hear over the sound of the engine, nor could I see in my rear view mirror as it was soon obscured by bales of hay…but I know…I KNOW…that I was being laughed at. Or perhaps cursed.
I was asked to drive two other times that summer. And, being a glutton for punishment, I did so. I think that somehow I thought this was good for me. A learning experience. A chance to broaden my protected and innocent horizons.
What it turned out to be was a chance to realize that I was in no hurry to get my driver’s license if this was what the future held. To accept that babysitting, while NOT my favorite way to spend time, was a way better way to earn a few bucks than this embarrassing gig.
It was also a chance to cultivate my keen sense of smell – to realize that men can be identified by their particular sweat – and to know that, should I ever come across that dreadful-smelling brand of French Canadian cigarettes again, I’ll be immediately transported to a certain hot hay field on Orcas Island where, to my chagrin, I proved my ineptitude as a professional driver.
Several weeks after haying was over, my sister came up to me and handed me an envelope. I eagerly tore it open and found myself staring at a woefully tiny paycheck. Turns out the owner of OH NO took the cost of the run-over hay bales out of my check.
I stared at my pathetic wages and looked up at my sister. “FOURTEEN DOLLARS?” I asked her.
But she didn’t answer. She was too busy trying not to laugh.
I was mad. I thought of the sweaty men, and the nasty cigarettes and the hot, yellow fields under the summer sun. I thought of OH NO, and the grinding gear shifts and the non-power-steering. And then, surprisingly, a little part of me smiled.
I had survived.
And I came out with a great story to tell.
I spent nine weeks during the summer of 1989 in Thailand with a group of about 100 college students. Most of the summer was spent in Bangkok, hanging out at Ramkhamhaeng University. Then, at least, it was the largest university in the world, boasting over 500,000 students. We met with students, debated God vs. Buddha (though most of them knew very little about him) and we talked about America. It was a challenging and sweaty summer, full of pop-in-a-bag (in the interests of reusing their pop bottles the venders poured pop into ice-filled bags and gave you a straw), bargaining over trinkets (actually I’m a horrible bargainer – I’d way rather just pay the money they’re asking and be done with it), and salmonella due to an unpalatable “dessert” of an egg poached in coconut milk complete with tiny rice balls floating around in the bowl. I had two bites and could stomach no more but it was enough to keep me indoors for the next several days…and then led to more fun later on back at home. Oy, vey.
Don’t you just love this? Taken in Krabi – a strong wind blew the umbrella away from the fruit stand and this boy was sent after it. I have loved this photo for 23 years!
We also spent some time in northern Thailand in Chang Mai and Khao Yai National Park, which was a lesson in identifying land leaches and in what not to do when you see a small hole in the ground right outside your cabin door.
We visited a waterfall at some point, driving down a heart-stopping, narrow, curving, hilly road. The fact that I survived that drive is a miracle, as we swerved past busses, trucks, and other wide loads that almost gave us heart-attacks, let alone almost sent us careening over the edge of the road into land-leach-filled tropical jungles.
We also took a train to see the actual bridge at the River Kwai…which broke our hearts and caused me to quote Rupert Brookes “The Soldier”, which famously says, “There is a corner in a foreign field which is forever England” as we saw the rows upon rows of white wooden crosses marking the British cemetery. Still makes my heart ache to think of it.
But then, at the end of the summer, we went to Phuket Island for a few days. (Yes, you’re remembering right: it’s one of the scenes of the Tsunami in 2004. It’s just one of the places I’ve been that afterwards has suffered incredible loss…I need to blog about that whole topic sometime.) We also spent a week in Krabi nearby, which I’m sure also suffered beyond belief from the tidal wave, though I’ve never heard details.
Some of my fellow teammates. I have a feeling all of this was destroyed in the tsunami, though as I don’t know the exact name of the beach I haven’t been able to confirm this.
Krabi is a nice, small, southern city on the coast of Thailand. We spent most of our time there in a jungle village outside of Krabi proper. It was there that I saw my first lightning bugs, incidentally.
While we were there we visited some homes located on the Andaman Sea.
Yes, ON the Andaman sea.
On stilts, over the water, with the tides coming and going not far below their floorboards.
We visited with the familes, talked, ate a little something, and then – SHOOT! – I had to use the facilities.
Now, virtually all of the potties in Thailand were “squatty potties” – non-flushable bowls with a handy water source nearby which, after you “went” you cleaned by filling a pan (or two) with water, pouring the water down the bowl, and hopefully sending all the nastiness far away so as to not offend the next person.
Way better than what I faced. These squatty potties seem to even flush!
Not so with a house-on-stilts over the sea.
I told our interpreter of my need and he, knowing what I would be facing, asked me just how badly I needed it. I told him I was rather desperate. (This memory gives me a little more patience with my children on long car trips.)
He then relayed my need to the man of the house who, with an agreeable smile, motioned for me to follow him. There was another girl who needed the same thing so the two of us followed him into the house. (We had been sitting on the deck outside.) There was, of course, no electricity, no hallway lined with school photos, no recycling bins, couches, or TV guides on over-laden coffee tables.
There was one windowless room, the bare grass-woven walls leaving chinks of light on the smooth floor. There was a cooking corner, some sleeping mats rolled up for the daylight hours, and a walled-off area smack in the center to which he led us. He gestured inside, picked up a door (with both hands) which was leaning against the wall, and, with a few incoherent words, indicated that by strategically placing the door over the opening, we could shut ourselves in. Smiling and unabashed, he turned to go.
My friend and I looked at each other, our eyes wide. The door, which was made of uneven sea-worn boards held together by a board or two nailed across them, was heavy. I entered the room, which is surprisingly large in my memory, and there, in the far corner, was a hole.
Below the hole was the sea…which, at low tide, was simply a beach. I was glad the tide was high just then.
Gotta admit, though, they had a good flushing system!
Yes, this is the actual house – I took this 23 years ago in a slide and my dad has the capability to turn the slide into a digital image – thanks, Dad!
The hole was bordered on both sides by bricks, to elevate the feet (often bare or possibly in flip flops) in case of misses, I suppose.
I heard kids playing outside, and voices floated in from the deck. I shrugged my shoulders and proceeded with the task at hand.
And that, my friends, is why I am so thankful for my life. For the blessings I enjoy. For the bills that get paid and the firm roof over my head. For the food in my cupboards. For my lovely kids and patient husband.
For toilets that flush.
And the tides that wash away our iniquities.
P.S. – I’ve heard, though haven’t been able to confirm, that military cemeteries in foreign lands have been deeded over to that country. So the military cemetery for England, for example, there at the Bridge of the River Kwai, is officially on British land. I think that’s very cool.
I was listening to the classical music station while driving the 15 minutes home from town the other day, and a piece of music came on the radio that I hadn’t heard in a long time. A piece of music that is steeped in my family’s lore. A piece of music about which no one can be neutral.
I’m talking about Maurice Ravel’s Bolero.
I don’t know that I remember the very first time I heard this famous piece of music, but I do remember the first time I was old enough to understand my mother’s feelings about it.
She was not amused.
In fact, if there is any piece of classical music that my mother can be said to hate, it would be Bolero. I think mom’s issue with it is that she hates the repetition of it and she hates the way it makes her heart beat in the rhythm of the drums.
Mom is not a fan of drums.
My father and sister, on the other hand, love it. My dad’s love for it might come more from teasing my mom about it than from real love, I’m not sure. My sister, though, will turn the music up loud and dance around the house and, if I know her, collapse on the floor dramatically at the culmination. Well, if she doesn’t, she should.
The first time I remember hearing Bolero, I decided that I hated it, too. I decided this for several reasons. One being that it was different than anything I’d heard before, and was, therefore, suspect. (My parents listened exclusively to classical music, but this was NOT like the usual stuff they listened to.)
But the main reason I disliked it was that Mom disliked it.
Now I don’t disparage my mom at all in this telling – everyone is entitled to their opinion and, as a mom myself now, I know how hard it is to never express my opinion on anything and thereby impact my children’s opinions about those very things. It’s impossible. And our kids pick up on that.
When I first heard Bolero, I was at the age where whatever my mom thought, I thought as well. I remember looking at the Sears catalog with Mom once (remember those honking huge catalogs, the stuff of dreams and visions and uplift for short guests at the dinner table?) and every dress that she liked, I liked. I remember echoing her views about the dresses, and my sister saying scornfully, “You only like that because Mom likes it.”
“I do not!” I said. But suddenly it dawned on me that I did.
It was the beginning of autonomy.
But I had not yet reached that when Bolero came along.
And so, for many years (not giving a lot of thought to Ravel or his Bolero) I disliked it.
And then one day, along about late high school or early college, it dawned on me that I actually liked Bolero! I actually got a kick out of the repetition, the change in each repeat, the different instruments entering in (and trying to identify those instruments as they did so), the rise in volume and intensity. I especially liked the rapid slide at the end, signifying the dancer’s collapse on the stage in an exhausted heap. (At least in my mind that’s always what happens at the end!)
All these thoughts went through my mind as we drove home the other day – dancing along as best I could while in the driver’s seat – listening to Bolero.
And my daughter, in all her five-year old wisdom, said (without prompting), “I don’t like this music! Can we listen to something else?”
I laughed out loud and turned up the volume.
Being very careful to keep my opinions to myself as I did so.
When we got home, I stopped the car in the driveway and we listened to the last couple minutes. I laughed in delight when it came to a crashing end.
My daughter’s response? “Finally it’s over! Can I put on Veggie Tales now?”
I found this link to Bolero on You Tube and it’s 5 minutes of your life that will not be wasted if you give it a watch. It is vastly shortened from its usual 15 or so minutes, but that’s fine – you can find the whole thing on You Tube or anywhere else if you like.
This is a “flash-mob” made up of members from the Copenhagen Philharmonic in Copenhagen’s Central Station. I love the way the musicians gradually enter in (which is so perfect for Bolero, as it’s a gradually building piece of music), and the realization that dawns on the faces of the audience as they sit on the floor, point, whisper, and clap wildly at the end.
I absolutely love this video.
If you’d rather watch it actually on You Tube, click below.
One sunny morning two springs ago, I was sitting at my computer when my son (who was home from school for the day with a nasty cold) came up to me and, while looking out the window said, “Mom, there’s a pig in the yard.”
I, without even looking up, replied, “No, there’s not.”
“Well,” said he, “then it’s a weird looking dog.”
I looked up this time, glanced out the window, and said, “Actually it looks more like a sheep.” At which point I returned to my writing, hoping this pig/dog/sheep would just go away.
It didn’t.
In fact, though it had been heading east, into the fields and away from our yard, it suddenly turned around and headed back into the greener pastures of our front lawn.
I told my son to get the binoculars.
After applying said instrument to my eyes I saw that my son’s initial judgment was correct. It was indeed a pig. In my yard. Uninvited.
Is it a bird? Or a plane? No. It's a pig.
I chose to get a second opinion.
Now there will be some of you who, if you’ve been reading me for long, know exactly who I called first. That would be the same person I called in the skunk vs. cat issue and the pheasant-though-my-front-window incident. That’s right: my husband.
It’s not that I’m an incapable woman, unable to handle things on my own or to think for myself. It’s just that, when faced with the bizarre or stressful, he’s the guy I’m glad to have on my side.
That and I always value a second opinion.
That and I don’t always have very good first opinions.
You got to admit. He was an unusual guest.
Me: “You’re never going to believe what’s in our front yard.”
Him: “Not another window-breaking pheasant?”
Me: “No, but the animal kingdom is a good place to begin.”
Him: “Tell me.”
Me: (Wanting to play the guessing game a little longer but, realizing that I’m interrupting him at work, I capitulate.) “A pig.”
Him: Silence. And then laughter.
The upshot of the deal was that I called our three farmer neighbors who have pig barns – none of which are closer than ¾ of a mile away – and none of which were home. I then called our other neighbor over the hill and asked him if he just maybe knew anything about it. He didn’t.
I then called the sheriff, because it just seemed like the thing to do.
I was watching the pig out the window through all my phoning. He had found a nice little shady place beneath some pine trees that he kinda liked.
Heading into his favorite pine trees.
The sheriff told me to phone around – as I had done – and that, if no one claimed him within a week, the piggy was ours.
“A week!” I thought, hanging up the phone. “What am I supposed to do with a pig in my yard for a week?!”
Well, as the day went on, one neighbor called, and, having established that the errant pig was not a baby, (“No,” I said, “he’s way bigger than that.”) he said it couldn’t be theirs.
We kept watching him. Sometimes he’d disappear only to show up again an hour later and return to his cool wet place under the trees.
Finally another neighbor returned my call and, sure enough, they’d sold some pigs that morning and it was possible that one of them escaped without notice.
They came over on their ATV. They searched. And searched. He was nowhere to be found.
A very large part of me was rooting for Wilbur at this point. I’d taken a shine to this wayward porcine. I had visions of him trotting off into the sunset, a smile on his face, savoring every breath of free air afforded him. “This is the life!” he thought (in my imagination), “freedom and the open road!”
But then they found him – so far under the pine trees that none of us had seen him – dozing the afternoon away.
He was rudely awakened.
He ran.
And ran. And ran.
More help was brought in. Help that carried a gun.
He was good at hide and seek. Well...he was good at hiding, anyway.
But, the truth was, he was “compromised”. He was out of the carefully controlled habitat that is required for piggies, which meant that he could not be sold commercially. He could either A) turn into a 4-H project or B) be shot. I don’t think that A) was ever really an option.
By this time my daughter had gotten off the bus and my son had filled her in on all the excitement.
We made sure they were both in the house when the shot rang out from the back yard.
The writer side of me wants a better ending to this story. Wants to turn it into a children’s picture book, with talking pigs and wise, encouraging birds. Wants to illustrate him – a bandana tied to a stick over his shoulder – as he trots away across the fields.
Such a good book.
I know that the truth of the matter is he would never have survived, had he wandered off and eluded his farmer.
But still, it makes me sad.
That’s why I write fiction. It’s much easier to control than real life.
A fine day for an epiphany 