Reflections at a Golden Age
It's not like I'm ready to be rolled, drooling, to the solarium where I might doze — though who could tell — in a semi-vegetative retirement. I mean, I entered my 52nd year last week, the day before the world turned upside down, and if the actuarial tables are right, I've got another coupla decades before it's time to shuffle off this mortal coil. I'm in good health, having dropped a score of pounds since I married the lovely Linda, and being that she still loves me -- more, she says when I push -- I think that's another sign that the Earth is still spinning in my direction.
Or is it the other way 'round? I told Linda that I was changing my attitude toward life; that I was taking a more benign view. When, she asked? Yesterday I said. She nodded at me sagely, and I moved on to the next issue.
Which is the deer; the kind with two e's. They are being starved out of the brown hills looking for something green to eat. May they have the mold off my bread. Nope, they'd prefer tomatoes, alyssum, verbena, cantaloupe leaves and vines, and whatever else is inconvenient to protect. (Stock tip: Home Depot, where I've dumped several million on green vinyl fencing and metal staking poles.) The fencing works, for the most part, but as we're trying to protect gardens here and there, success does not always tag along with the first effort.
First, it should be said that we are not anti-deer. I've never shot one and don't intend to, though the .22 rifle is loaded with snake shot, if they ever present a hindquarters, and which would be at a distance. I wish it would rain and induce Mother Earth to grow them something to eat. It's been ridiculously dry for most of six months, and recalls an observation from my first and shorter summer here -- that such conditions as the worst here are, should be reserved for prison guards and politicians.
I suppose the deer gotta eat, but you'd think maybe they'd try elsewhere. Oh, look, they'd say, he's put up that fencing, and hung Squirt cans with gravel in them so that if we touch the fence, the cans will rattle, and we'll be frightened off. In fact, we do our part to help. We found that moth-ish critters got into two drawers containing bags of rice, beans, cereal and similar fare. I emptied visitors and their victuals down past the turn in the driveway, for the deer and their friends to enjoy, well away from the house. I think the dawg ate everything but the Saltines and the pasta.
Enough about Bambi and Buster and back to promoting my new equananimous attitude to Linda. She's like Eliza Doolittle who demands of Freddie Einsford-Hill, Show me. She's gives me that patient glare-over-the-glasses look that says she's heard enough of my predicting; like how the temperature wouldn't break a hundred again this year. Five times I was wrong, so far. I'm pretty sure that Saturday was the last time we'll see triple digits this year, I told her. Er, um, she began to protest, but backed off when I reminded her that it was my birthday and she didn't have to protesteth too much. (Well, it wasn't really my birthday, but there's a zone around the actual day, which stretches from Stonehenge to the International Dateline.)
For the record, I am trying to embrace a come-what-may philosophy to reduce expectations and to greet all comers as wind for my sail. I came across a quote the other day from musician philosopher John Cage that sets sail in a similar direction. "The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature in her manner of operation." Seems to be.
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.