Returning

What's the point of February? Surely the UN or someone else with an acronym should just replace it with another June.

It is a month with no commitment, and no balls. Little League, like everything else fun, is many weeks away.

Spoonful of sugar for the medicine. 

February is neither winter nor spring. February is a stale candy heart that mutters tepidly: "Be my valentine. Because I'm bored and cold, and so are you."

To the month's credit, there is Fat Tuesday and Pancake Day. But let us not forget that these joyful exploits into pastry and beer are mere sugar coating for the long Lenten season of chocolate neglect and doldrumery ahead.

Every year, I listen hopefully for a specific February phrase: "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

A lot of normal people might get bummed out at such a sentiment, but I take it as a hopeful sign, like the return of the crocuses from the cold earth, that all this crap will soon be over.

A kept man

In the days before Tom left me, he sat quietly by the window watching the world go by. He didn't say it, but I knew what he was thinking.

Freedom is just some people talking.

So when my Tom finally worked up the courage to walk out the door, I just let him go.

I went through the seven stages of grieving, spending items one through six on worry. When the one you love is a turnip, it's hard not to worry.

But I moved on. I told everyone that I didn't need Tom anymore.

Then one night I found Tom on my doorstep. He was cold and twitchy. He hadn't realized there'd be other Toms out there. He felt prepared to look on a warm hearth with renewed appreciation.

How could I say no?

So my Tom has returned to me. He spends most of his days at home, head contentedly on my shoulder. But whenever the fancy takes him, he goes walkabout in the wild world.

These days he always returns home before the owls and the ghosts skulk out of the riverbank at nightfall, because my lovely Ginger Tom Cat may be a turnip, but he's finally acquired some common sense.

The cows are restless

Gary Larson was right. Cows are more revolutionary than you might think.

Each morning, I rise to the sound of them clumping heavily across my porch. A peek out the window reveals them licking the ground with their fat tongues, slurping up every last morsel of spilt bird seed from the rafters.

Their appetites are infinite and boundless. They will eat mesquite and children's chalk with glee.

"Foooooooooooooood." 

By afternoon they are lined up on the hill, lowing an ode to hugeness. They stare mournfully at the SHRINE OF ALL FOOD, wondering when the LORD GIVER OF FOOD will come out.

Should the LORD GIVER OF FOOD choose to cower indoors, the bovines mosey up to the SHRINE OF ALL FOOD and gloop their boogery noses across my living room window, gawping at the immense splendor of FOOD.

When I walk to my car, thereby leaving the SHRINE OF ALL FOOD unguarded, the bovines descend like paparazzi (but fatter).

I hate to be uncharitable to cows. Theirs is a rough lot. I have been told many times that they are benign, peaceful creatures. And I am in no position to condemn gluttony. For one thing, such condemnation might require me to drop this here cake and stand up, which is surely too drastic an action for the circumstances.

But I cannot ignore the growing FOOD conspiracy in my midst. There is the matter of their clandestine gatherings behind the barn, and their plans to build a secret bunker and tunnel into the SHRINE OF ALL FOOD.

How do I know about their plans? Well, because it's incredibly tricky to stash secret plans out of sight when you have fat hooves instead of opposable thumbs. Plus, looking casual about the notion of TAKING OVER ALL FOOD is impossible for cows.

So, should dispatches from mañana ever suddenly cease, you will know that the cows have won. In this instance, please don't delay in sending a rescue team. And food.

Fish tale

Ana closed her eyes and fell down, down, down into the belly of the deep blue sea. Jonah would have cried like a baby, but not she.

Dreamweaver. (Stewart Carrington) 

Swarms of silver fish snaked by, inches from her nose. Bright pink and blue jellies flitted around like glitter. Prankster fish nibbled her toes and made her giggle.

Beyond the little creatures loomed a giant fish, jaws yawning wide.

Jonah would've run away like a little girl, but Ana gave a great forward thrust of her arms and swam straight into the belly of the mighty fish.

Inside were treasures beyond imagination: chambers of gold, and roomfuls of jewels bright as the sun. Ana carried armful upon armful to the surface, where her mama was conveniently waiting with a wheelbarrow to take the loot away.

This is always how morning breaks in my house: she crawls under my covers in the still-darkness with cold toes and a tale to share. Her dream stories almost make up for the fact that I may never sleep in again.

Jacinto Frost

Cold came to windmill country in the night. It crept over the llano on a silent army of snowflakes, followed by a wind-born icicle plague.

Non-booger stalactites. 

There was nowhere to run. Cows grew booger stalactites from their frigid noses. Cacti developed gooseflesh. Coyotes wept in falsetto, and La Llorona moaned, for once with reasonable grounds for complaint.

While the great world outside churned in sub-zero turmoil under an ice cube moon, the sugar plum children slept snug in their beds.

It sure is nice to live indoors. Mostly because it's the only proven way to avoid booger stalactites.

But the cold stuck around after dawn, and for days. Even the indoor-dwellers started to complain, and La Lorona became insufferable.

This is all to say that I've had enough winter now. You?

Pretty good year

Into the shining sun. 

White Sands is a good place to spend the twilight hours of a dying year.

Above, there is pure blue sky and blinding white sun, punctuated by the odd missile. The dunes melt the structure and the mess of the world, stretching forever away in windswept symmetry. Missiles aside, I suspect this is what heaven looks like.

In this moonscape, grown-ups play like little children and children are in their element. Both are at peace - in such a world there is only the present.

I like White Sands. I like remembering that almost everything that seems to matter actually doesn't.

May the force be with you in this newborn year. Thank you for all years past.

25: The finish line

...Christmas to you and yours.

24: Luminarias

Light for miracles big and small.

23: Angels

Friends in high places. 

22: Winter sky

Farmer's delight.