If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly composed of H2O, or mineral water, or saki. Zazen is drinking it.
—-Taisen Deshimaru
Trinity River Bottoms
Dallas, Texas
Pissing in a Cup
Craig would start his new job in ten days – today was the day for that new traditional pre-work-related task, the drug test. It was all set up by the Talent Aquisition Department with an appointment at a specialized drug testing clinic in a strip mall in a slightly shady industrial area. Craig drove by a day ahead of time to be sure he could find it. He could leave nothing to chance – he needed this job.
He was worried that he wouldn’t be able to pee on demand, that there wouldn’t be enough to fill the plastic cup. So he avoided the toilet when he woke up and before Craig drove to the clinic he chugged two generous tumblers of ice water – so he could be sure to perform on cue.
Of course they only needed forty-five milliliters, which he easily provided. The drug-test bathroom was a little bizarre, no trash can, only a wooden box and chain-of-custody tape on the toilet. Craig decided not to use that weird toilet because he was planning on going to a big warehouse electronics store afterward to pick up a switch for his new scanner and a couple programming books – a slight celebration for his impending gainful employment. He knew that place had a big bathroom – he had been there many times. It even had a changing table in the men’s room – a rarity. He had changed each of his son’s diapers more than once. That was nice – Craig hated most men’s rooms where he had to lay his infant son – one or the other – down on the floor in a stall. He was no germaphobe… but still.
Unfortunately, when he arrived, the men’s room was being cleaned. A well-mustachioed cleaning lady was dutifully mopping and had a sign propping the door open that said, “Bathroom closed for cleaning, sorry, five minutes.”
Craig started walking around the store. He tried to stop and look at the kiosk of books on sale to pick out the ones he wanted but he couldn’t concentrate. He had to pee so bad by then he had to keep walking.
His only recourse was to continually circle the huge store, going from music CD’s into the washers and driers, cruising through the high definition and projection televisions (they were all showing A Bug’s Life) through the laptop computers, passing down the mouse and video card aisle into the electronic gadgets, finally walking through software and past the bathroom to see if she was still mopping.
It took her a lot longer than the advertised five minutes. Craig couldn’t stand still and had to keep moving. He considered walking out to my car and driving to a nearby fast food place to use their bathroom, but decided it would be probably quicker to simply wait her out.
Finally, on his fifth circuit of the store he saw her putting the mops and buckets back into the janitor’s closet. A herd of men at that point converged and rushed the bathroom; Craig must not have been alone.
“All we do is sleep, and eat and lay around and make love. We’re like slugs. Slug-love, I call it.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women
Snails on a Beer Stein.
Slug On My Stoop
There was a slug on my stoop
tonight there on the concrete as I walked to the car to drive to the club for some exercise.
Moving slowly in the Yellow porch light.
Some don’t like slugs but I don’t mind, mind their little heads lookin’ around for what? slugs don’t think about creativity the nature of art but I don’t mind slugs eyes on posts slug body soft undulate brown spotted
I think it is too cold too late for slugs
It was late and dark I spent too much time today lying on the couch resting, thinking, dreaming, the deadly black control remote in my hand the death of life, of thought.
Slugs like summer wet hot not cold rough concrete October stoop they like eating children’s lettuce going Duh Duh Duh
The little head eyes on poles what does it dream? of summer? Warm and wet? Children’s lettuce? I dream of wind waving cream colored fabric dappled sunlight dabs of sun dabs of green a dropping away a flower unfolding and blooming before me a lake through mesh gold minted coins
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”
“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”
“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.” ― A.A. Milne
Collage by James Michael Starr, Carrollton DART station.
From my old online journal The Daily Epiphany – Wednesday, November 28, 2001
Whataburger
Corpus Christi is the home for Whataburger, the chain of fast-food hamburger joints.
I first ate at one in 1979, in Harlingen, Texas, when my brother and I drove from Kansas to South Padre Island for his spring break. We were spending the night is some bizzaro motel (the chains along the freeway being full, but giving us directions to a more out-of-the way place of lodging) that sported small lizards living in the showers and some man making enormous noise apparently puking in the room next door. Not knowing our way around, we simply drove ’til we found the first place to eat – a typical orange-and-white, A-frame Whataburger.
I remember having a damn good burger (such as it was).
Of course, in the decades since actually moving to and living in the Lone Star State, eating at Whataburger has become commonplace. Their food is old-fashioned and superior to the more national chains (such as it is).
The first night in Corpus Christi, Candy and Nick went out to eat with some teammates, but Lee didn’t want to go. He and I decided to simply walk out of the hotel and look for something to eat on foot.
We walked a few blocks, working our way through the dark streets of downtown Corpus Christi. Lee and I cruised past several seafood joints, a handful of Mexican places, and some bars with loud music pumping out through the smoke and florescent lights.
It wasn’t long before we saw the familiar orange and white A-frame of a Whataburger – and that’s where Lee wanted to eat. It wasn’t any old Whataburger, though, it was the company flagship, a super-delux eating establishment.
Two stories high, with a generous outdoor terrace overlooking the gulf, waiters to bring food to your table (though you still ordered at the counter – they gave out a little plastic number) and even tableside ketchup service (and Whataburger serves Fancy Ketchup).
Lee loved the place. Especially cool was the fact that a clot of teenagers with skateboards was grinding on the metal railing across the street. Lee grinned wide, especially when they’d let out a periodic string of obscenities.
It was nice, Lee and I, sitting out on the terrace, eating our burgers, chatting about the events of the day, enjoying the flawless weather and sweet ocean breezes.
Now that’s the only place Lee will eat. We went back for breakfast every day, and walked over every evening. It’s good when you’re nine to have your own restaurant – your hangout
“Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Sears Spaceliner Vintage Bicycle
Disease Vector
“Craig, there’s a bunch of kids with bikes on the front lawn calling for you.”
“Ok, Mom. I’ll go out the garage door.”
“I don’t know why they don’t come in. Why do they just stand there and yell. Now, don’t stay out too late, I’m cooking dinner.”
“Yes, Mom. OK, Mom.”
Craig went out through the kitchen and the door to the garage. He lifted up the heavy door and pushed his Sears Spaceliner bicycle out through the opening onto the apron, then turned and pulled the door down behind him.
“Hurry up slowpokes!” Bill Bradbury yelled out. “Let’s get going. They’re spraying for mosquitoes!” Spread out below him along the street were a half-dozen kids on bicycles, waiting for him. They all had spider bikes in a rainbow of colors with tiny wheels and big curved banana seats. The best bike was Bill Bradbury’s – a bright purple spider with sparkly metallic flakes embedded in the plastic of the seat and, best of all, a round car-style steering wheel instead of the usual high rise bars.
Craig hated his bike and wanted one of those spiders so bad. His dad had taken him to the big Sears store downtown and insisted on the gigantic, heavy Spaceliner. After only a few months the chrome was starting to rust, the paint starting to peel and the plastic buttons on the big dashboard that controlled the horn and built-in lights were broken and hanging out. Worst of all, the bike was way too big for him.
“Let’s get one plenty big, so you can grow into it and it’ll last a while,” his dad had said.
He had to push it to get it going, at least rolling down the slope from the garage to the street helped. After the wheels were turning fast enough, Craig had to climb up the side of the bike like it was a fence or something and haul himself over the top bar and onto the seat. Even then, at the bottom of each pedal stroke, the big, heavy pedals disappeared from under his PF Flyers and he’d have to fish for them as they came around and back up.
The thing was a heavy steel beast and hard as hell to pump up a hill but at least once it got going it was hard to stop and he tore through the gang of kids who whipped around on their little, light bikes to get going and catch up to him.
“Come on!” yelled Bill Bradbury as he passed Craig, standing and pumping furiously, hands gripping tight on the steering wheel (the thing looked cool but was a bitch to control, Craig knew), “The sprayer is this way!”
After a couple of blocks they heard the distinctive putt-putt-putt of the bug sprayer and then, around a corner, there it was. The City handyman, Stan Pencil, was driving a little Ford tractor down the street pulling the sprayer in a trailer behind. There was a small diesel motor on the trailer and a big tank full of chemicals feeding into the hot exhaust – leaving a thick blue cloud of oily smoke pouring out backward. This cloud spread out and drifted across the yards and driveways where is, supposedly, killed off all the disease carrying mosquitoes that were starting to swarm in the summer evenings. With a chorus of loud yells and whoops the kids swung into the street, riding right up behind the trailer into the thickest cloud of smoke.
“Dee Dee Tee Baby!” yelled Bill Bradbury as he stood on the pedals and sucked in as much as he could. “It smells so gooood!”
Craig couldn’t loop around like the others because of his huge bike, but he could keep up and ride in the smoke for a block or so before he’d have to peel off and come around again. He loved the smell of the smoke just like the others. Chasing after Stan Pencil, The Mosquito Man was the best thing in the summer evenings, especially after spending the day at the City Pool.
“Love this stuff!” Bill Bradbury was still yelling. “Breathe it deep enough and you’ll get drunk!”
“Hey! You kids! Get outta there! You’ll kill yourselves. Nobody can see you in all that smoke!”
Mrs. Cunningham was out on her front porch yelling. She was always out there yelling. Craig looked over at her red face above the handkerchief she held over her mouth. The kids all laughed.
“Listen to me! To hell with you! All of you!” Mrs. Cunningham was really working herself up into a lather this time. Craig thought about splitting off and riding home, but he knew he had a little time before dinner, so he kept going.
He made it home in time for dinner, but just barely. After he wheeled his bike back into the garage and washed his hands and face, his mother was peeling the foil off his dinner. He was happy, it was his favorite – two pieces of fried chicken in the big compartment, peas, carrots, and corn on one one side, mashed potatoes on the other and some apple cobbler at the bottom for dessert. His little sister had a smaller, kid’s dinner with spaghetti and meat balls and his Mother had turkey. His father held his fork over a bigger foil rectangle – one of the Hungry Man’s Dinners. It had two oval grayish Salisbury Steaks swimming in a dark brown sea of gravy.
Craig’s father attacked the steaks like he was starving. He always ate that way. He said it was because he grew up on a farm with lots of hands and if you didn’t eat fast, “You didn’t eat enough.” Craig was only half finished, with still a chicken leg, a couple spoonsfull of potatoes and his dessert to go when his father pushed the empty foil rectangle away, lit a cigarette, and started to tap the ashes off into the remains of his dinner after each satisfied puff. He burned the cigarette down to a butt without stopping and stabbed out the hot end into his dinner. Then he lit another.
His mother was still eating, but when her husband lit his cigarette, so did she. She would puff, take a bite, then puff again. She used a little ceramic ashtray that Craig had made for her as a summer camp.
“Connie Cunningham called over here this evening,” she said and then looked at Craig with a raised eyebrow. He knew better than to answer, and stalled by putting a bit of cobbler into his mouth.
“She said all you boys were following the mosquito sprayer on your bikes again.”
Craig shrugged a shoulder.
“Don’t talk back to your mother!” his dad said, as he crushed his second cigarette and lit a third. Craig thought about retorting, “I didn’t talk back, I didn’t say anything!” but knew better. “She says that you follow too close and that the cars can’t see you in the smoke. She was pretty upset.”
“Now, I don’t want you doing that any more, you hear me,” his father added.
Craig glared at his little sister who was smirking at him.
“Ok, Ok. Now can I be excused?”
“Yes, take out the trash, please, and then go up to do your homework.”
Out by the alley with the trash bags Craig had to swat a half-dozen mosquitoes off his arm.
“Damn thing doesn’t even work,” he said as he trudged back inside.
“From the outer edge of his life, looking back, there was only one remorse, and that was only that he wished to go on living.”
― Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man
Window sign, Tattoo Parlor, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
The Illustrated Woman
After work Craig drove off to the club to work out.
He didn’t exercise as an excuse to watch other people. He was serious about improving his fitness, he was working hard. But the first part of his program was to do a half hour on the stepper. There wasn’t much to do for thirty minutes except look around at the other folks working out.
He tried to do the stepper right. He would stand as upright as possible, keeping his weight on his feet, using his hands only for balance. A couple machines down some guy was flopped over forwards, resting his chest on the control panel, his arms on the handles. His entire weight was supported there, his blue spandex-covered butt stuck up in the back. Craig knew he didn’t get any real exercise that way and it must be killing his back.
In front of the steppers, past the always-busy treadmills was a warm-up area, where people do their stretching. This club was a serious place, not a lot of socializing, and although there is a wide variety of customers, a lot of serious bodybuilders hung out there.
Craig couldn’t help but notice one woman on the mat bending herself around, stretching. Tall and thin, almost gaunt, wearing wire-rim glasses and medium length blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. She wore white shorts, a gray athletic bra-top, black workout shoes and weightlifting gloves. She must have had some Yoga training, those were serious stretches. She stood, feet far apart, and keeping her torso and legs straight and locked bent over and touched her cheek to the inside of each calf. Then she rolled around and tapped the back of her head on the padded floor between her feet.
What caught Craig’s eye wasn’t only her extraordinary flexibility, it was her tattoo. Not a small, ordinary tattoo, but a big design. She was illustrated. The illustration was a vine, he guessed a climbing wild rose. He could make out red blossoms and maybe even thorns among the thick green leaves. It started as a spiral tendril between her breasts and grew into an arc over her left shoulder. It continued down her back in undulating curves and finally ended… well,Craig couldn’t really tell exactly where it ended.
He was not a big fan of tattoos, but he liked this one. It looked like a real part of her, not some odd design picked out in a drunken haze and buzzed in on an ankle in a whim. Jeez, though, that must have hurt. A good two or three square feet of skin under that electric needle.
He finished his time on the stepper and walked some laps to cool down before he started working on the weight machines. Down on one end of the club was the free weight area where the serious bodybuilders worked. One woman was sitting, doing concentration curls with a dumbbell. The biceps on her arm literally popped out like a hank of thick cords, you could almost see every muscle strand. She was like a sculptor in flesh. The sculptor and the sculpture too. Slow carving with sweat and plates of steel.
For the most part, the men down there had unmarked skin. He had never noticed before that all the women had large complex tattoos. Abstract patterns across their bellies. One had a tiger looking out of its lair drawn across her shoulder blades.
He thought back to something he heard on TV as a child, during the Olympics, Craig thought about it and decided it was the 1968 games in Mexico City. The announcer was talking about the East German women’s swimming team. She said something like, “The Communist Bloc girls have a big advantage over the American women because they have a weight lifting program. American women won’t lift weights because they are afraid they will look too manly .”
Thirty years ago before then… over half a century has passed now. A lot of water under the bridge. It’s odd that he remembered that from so long ago; he had no idea why it made such an impression. Things have changed a bit since then, though, haven’t they?
“This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”
― Alan Watts
Bike rider on the DART train.
From my old online journal The Daily Epiphany – Saturday, December 12, 1998
Too Early
Seven o’clock is too early to be at work on a Saturday. Setting that alarm on a Friday night for five the next morning was not a pleasant task.
I had to go in, I really did. We had a training course on some safety related stuff and I was supposed to attend so I could judge if everything was being done properly. I had to take a test, it was impossible for me to concentrate, to think about what I was doing. It was amazing that I passed.
I was home by one and had plenty of things to do. I had big plans, really did. Candy went out to run errands and the kids were being behaved; Lee working on his K’nex and some drawings, Nicholas practicing how to skip rope (he made his own skipping rope from a heavy string, cutting a bunch of drinking straws up and stringing them along the cord) so I stretched out on the couch with a book.
In a blink it was three hours later, I was woozy and my back curled and painful from sleeping on the too short sofa.
Another day, another spin of the world. Another afternoon on the couch.
For weeks, at work, Craig was seized with an odd obsession. He thought constantly about sneaking away in the afternoon and seeing a movie. It had been unbelievably hot – though it was a typical summer. Thirty-plus days in a row of triple digit temperatures. Coming up on two months without a drop of rain. This day after day of baking was affecting Craig’s brain – broiling his thoughts.
He thought of the multiplex down the street from his work. He thought of the cool darkness. The isolation and peaceful quiet, interrupted only by the cacophony of the film soundtrack itself. The crankle of ice cubes in a big paper cup, the swoosh of a straw, the smell of popcorn.
He dreamed of the time when he could lean back and close his eyes and feel the cushioned seat that jiggles a little, modern stadium seating, plenty of legroom. A modern bastion of entertainment, a pantheon to air conditioning. Cool whispers, dust filters. His fingers would feel the little paper stub in a pocket, a ticket to ride, escape.
It didn’t matter what the feature is… as a matter of fact, the more banal, the better. Some teen comedy maybe, or modern special effects smash hit mindless electric drivel. Escapism, is what they call it.
In his imagination he tells the girl at the front desk of the office, “I have an off site afternoon meeting,” and strolls out to the parking lot. It is only a five minute drive to the gigaplex; He sees himself locking his cellphone in the glove box of his car. The ticket seller, the ticket ripper, the concession slogger are all bored, the afternoon weekday crowd is light.
The worn carpet, the signs over the doors, the posters (coming soon)… He could see it all when he closed his eyes.
He didn’t do it though… He couldn’t do it. He worked in a factory, He was a critical cog in the machine. The oiled parts, hot and constantly moving, never know when his attention is needed.
So he took a hurried lunch, drove past the theater on his way back. The best he could do is to lean back a little between phone calls or emails, when nobody was standing in front of his desk with some question.
Lean back and close his eyes, try to smell the popcorn, hear the roar of the coming attractions.
“Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human. It is always the same words telling the same lies. And the fact that men accept this, that the people’s anger has not destroyed these hollow clowns, strikes me as proof that men attribute no importance to the way they are governed; that they gamble—yes, gamble—with a whole part of their life and their so called “vital interest.” ― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942
Last weekend I made some coffee, grabbed my notebook and pens, and took off on my bicycle to find a place to write up my three pages – I have been scribbling the morning pages from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. This last Saturday, a week later, I wanted to do the same thing. My son wanted to go to this new coffee shop Staycation – here in downtown Richardson and he offered to ride along with me. Sounds like a good idea. Nice morning ride – we left at 7:30 so we would get there before it opened. It turned out to be a hair over three miles – and very pleasant because there is no traffic at that hour of a Saturday and the air was still cool enough.
Staycation is a great coffee shop. The owner, Nichole Gregory, took a 1940’s cottage left in the middle of downtown Richardson and modified it into a very pleasant and comfortable place to grab a cup of Joe. I can’t recommend it higher.
After we had our coffee, Nick rode home – but I still wanted to put a few more miles in and I still wanted to stop and write (Yes, I could have written in the coffee shop – but I wanted to try something else). So I went up the Central Trail, then down the Collins Bike Lane, to the Duck Creek Extension trail across Arapaho. Thinking about a place to stop and write (there are a lot of benches… but surprisingly few tables), I remembered about a concrete bench that was stuck incongruously in the middle of a traffic circle at American Parkway and Presidential Drive – I ride my bike past there every now and then when trying to build up mileage. It’s a light commercial area – and would be deserted on a Saturday so I decided to go there… and it worked well.
My pens and looseleaf notebook (Morning pages) on the concrete bench in the traffic circle at Presidential and American, Richardson, Texas.
I wrote my pages – packed up and wandered around the ‘hood until I had my ten miles for the day. Made it home before eleven AM – a good start to the day.
“Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.” ― Clint Eastwood
Fog in front of my house, Richardson, Texas
Panel
Craig went back to work today. On the drive home, he thought, ” Hectic day, plenty ‘o stress. Quiet panic, nothing big, little things. Hey! Hey! it’s about to be a new year! All that’ll change, Right? Yeah, and monkeys will fly out of my butt.”
When he made it home his wife had broken out the overhead light panel in the kitchen. So it was off to Home Depot for him, mister home repair handyman dude. As he left the house in the minvan it looked hazy, some ground fog, very humid. It happened as he was driving, supersaturated air, more water vapor than it can hold, gas wanting to condense to liquid, giving up the day’s solar heat, the sun gone, over past the west coast, traveling across the Pacific. Polluted urban air, dust particles, stirred up by car tires, car exhaust (“I’ll get it tuned up next week”) jagged microscopic particles of carbon, every facet a condensation seed, a point for the liquid water crystals to begin forming, the molecules to line up along the surface. Oxygen, each with its hydrogen couplet, randomly spinning, vibrating, doin’ the Brownian jig, not enough energy to stay aloft, random movements bring the trio alongside the dust mote where millions of millions (Avogrado’s number is really fuckin’ big ya know) of its twin brothers now sit, lined up. He joins the line, relieved to be out of the air, safety in numbers, condensation, droplets, driplits, lets see where y’all feel like goin’, hitch a ride on a mote. This dance, this lining up, bringing into focus, making a little sphere, a little lens, refraction machine, forming of millions of millions, is itself repeated millions of millions of times across the city, plenty of dust to go around, no shortage of seeds so. WHAM!
Fog so thick you could cut it with a knife. Pea soup. Clouds on the ground at night, no white fluffy furry “hey it looks like Zanzibar” cloud this, but clingy hot and yet cold, “who selected the blend tool?” green blinding scary fog-cloud. It’s a big electric Texas city so the cloud glows from within. The fog captures oncoming cars, streetlights, leftover Christmas displays, store neons, RedGreenYellow traffic indicators, all give their light to the fog. The fog gives it back as a glow, as a hint, “There’s something there, but damn it if I can tell what it is” luminescence in the distance – actually not the distance, a lot closer than is comfortable. Car lights are tungsten white, Town East Mall Lights glow mercury vapor blue or sodium yellow, Christmas lights are -well you know what color they are.
Craig drove slow, careful, of course this is Texas so everyone else is driving like bats out of hell – who are these people? why are they always in such a hurry? there’s nowhere to go nowhere to hide a good song on the radio so why not take your time, slow down and smell the diesel exhaust. Craig wouldn’t mind if a few took the whole pipe in for awhile, they scared the shit out of him. Someone even creeped out into the foggy intersection… maybe to get a better look at an oncoming pickup before they get smacked on the passenger side door.
But Craig got there all right, picked out his transcucent panel, he had a small piece of the broken one in his pocket so he was sure that the new one matched. Home Depot at night, a guy in front of him was buying an entire cart of broken odds and ends of wood, no piece whole, no piece straight, they gave him a good deal on it, he also buys four tubes of caulk. His hands were covered with white dust, cement or wallboard-sandings maybe, so Craig figured he must know what he’s doing.
When Craig left the Depot, the fog was even thicker. He crept home, put up the panel. When they built the kitchen they made the light fixture a tiny bit too big so the panels barely fit in the frame. Every now and then one pop’s out. Craig thought, “Maybe I’ll add it to my things-to-do-list somehow shim the damn thing so they don’t fall. Maybe I’ll use duct tape, hoo boy, that’ll piss her off. Duct tape on the ceiling, might as well put a big sign out front – –White Trash, come on in, eat some Ding Dongs, we buy Mrs. Baird’s Pecan fried pies and to heat ’em we fry ’em again . Wash it down with Mountain Doo if yure under age, or Meister Brau if yure old enough, or some peppermint schnapps if yure cold and yure heart needs some healin’. Never mind the cars in the yard, they don’t run anyway, have a sit in the ARVEE out back – put a tape in the boombox we got both kinds – country and western. We’ll play some Yatzee and then UNO when we get too drunk to roll dice. Then it’s movie time, we got Rambo, we got Anyway but Loose (love that Orangutan), but that’s it, hard to get them Beta tapes nowadays.– – On second thought better put the duct tape away and cut some wooden pieces, finish them up real nice.”
“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Goldfish Pond, Dallas Arboretum
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Tuesday, September 08, and Saturday, September 12, 1998
Tuesday, September 08, 1998
Houdini toad
….. After work, I drove to pick up Lee at Nick’s piano lessons and took him home to get ready for soccer practice. I went over to feed K’Nex and Mortimer (pronounced More-Timer) and while I was shaking the live crickets into the aquarium I noticed there was only one toad.
We have had an escape.
I have absolutely no idea how the little bugger managed to get out. I cleaned their little world yesterday and am absolutely sure I put both back in. The lid is held down securely with suction cups and was tight today. Usually they can’t climb the glass of the big cage, but they are always trying, so I suppose he could have made it to the top and somehow jimmied open the clear plastic locking feeding gate.
At any rate, he’s out. So we have the attractive proposition of having a small, colorful, poisonous toad loose in the house somewhere. We are mostly worried that the giant killer dog might find the toad. I’m not sure exactly how toxic these guys are; I hope a moose-sized Labrador Retriever Mix might have a chance of surviving a meal.
I have devised a trap. At first I thought about using some crickets as bait, but on reflection I think that the toad will be more desperate for water than for food (there are plenty of bugs hidden in a house). I’ve set out a plastic box with a plate of distilled water in plain view. We’ll keep the dog in the back bedroom for awhile. Hopefully, tomorrow I find a lil’ green dude sitting in the plate of water.
If not, well, we’ll have to assume he’s escaped the house entirely, met some untimely end, or been abducted by aliens (which to me seems the most likely way he escaped in the first place). We haven’t mentioned anything to Nick or Lee so we’ll be able to sneak off to the pet store and purchase a replacement….
Oh, yeah, if you happen to know us, DO NOT mention this to Nick or Lee or any of their friends. For obvious reasons.
…I hope I can find one that looks enough like the old to fool the kids. Actually, that’ll be easy; green toad, red belly, black spots… they all look alike.
Candy is pretty freaked out at the thought of having an amphibian loose in our happy home. I’m freaked out ’cause I can’t figure out how he did it.
A little green escape artist.
Saturday, September 12, 1998
A runaway returns
….. I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. Tossing and turning and turning and tossing, I ended up on the couch in the TV room. I kept hearing a noise from the window. A tapping, or maybe a melodious scraping sound coming from the window. My exhaustion muddled mind imagined all sorts of horrible possibilities for this sound; when I’d turn on the lights, there would be nothing there.
Finally I realized that what I was hearing was simply the sound of raindrops hitting the glass. It has been almost four months since it has rained at our house, I had forgotten the sound completely.
Today I was out of sorts, headachy and tired. We ran some errands in the morning (soccer games canceled because of muddy fields) and Candy dropped me off at home while she took the boys to a church carnival. I made an omelet and was sitting on the couch eating, watching “Planet of the Apes” and generally trying to imitate a vegetable when a movement in the kitchen caught my eye.
There he was, hopping across the tile floor, heading out of the kitchen, our missing toad. I guess he’s been hiding behind the cabinets or something; luckily I was there to see him make his run. He was hopping pretty well, seemed no worse for wear for his few days on the lam. I scooped him up before the Giant Killer Dog woke up and deposited him back into the aquarium.
We had to come clean with the kids, had to tell the truth about why there were now three fire bellied toads in there. They weren’t upset at our deception, only happy that we now have three toads.
Bill Chance 