Didn't Expect It

After I caught up on a disappointing wee-hours-o’-the-night game – poor old chaps – and had served Puck his breakfast oatmeal and blueberry tea, I looked over to find him busy drinking said tea from a small rolled seashell, over his empire of Lego city-states and Calvin-&-Hobbes towers.

When the Bear rolled out of his cave sometime later – he likes Saturdays – he taught Puck how to bat a little switch.

Inside.

Fortunately the speed was limited and did not include cowhide.

I know we all get snagged on those “trains of thought” from time to time, or all the time – for people such as myself. It’s honestly occasionally irritating, really. Often, in retrospect, I’ll see myself thinking these trains, like this morning sitting at the kitchen table with my leftover breakfast sandwich. Eyes sort of glazed over staring into some place only I can ever go. And my brain is running like this…

“I didn’t keep my sandwich in the oven long enough. It’s still cold in the middle… At least I didn’t burn it like I usually do… I wonder if that would ever catch on – a specialty sandwich shop that baked cold subs. I wonder if people would like that. Hot on the outside, cold on the inside. Probably not. Unless they were told before they ate it that it was supposed to taste like that. Probably then. Funny how temperature changes the taste of food… Too bad there’s so many things people create or think up like that, but there’s just not a large market for. Really interesting things, too… I wonder if, on the New Earth, everyone will get to make whatever they want, create things all the time that they couldn’t make here because they didn’t have enough time or start-up capital… That would be weird if there was this huge lay-out someplace – maybe Russia – where all the artists in the world try to sell their creations. But there’s a limited number of tables in this always snow-falling mile-long outdoor grid, and the waiting list is like 342 years long. Only one artist per idea or style. But then maybe customers are tired of the same kind of ship in a bottle from the same guy who’s been selling there for 58 years, so they let in a second guy who does the same, only differently. And they compare sales, the old-man-sailor-toy-maker shooting crotchety glares across the street while he paints tiny things on tiny sails and mumbles things to himself…”

Shake the head.

Things rattle around.

I got a lot of work done this morning. So I broke labor at ten-thirty for more Mitch Stokes’ “A Shot of Faith to the Head” [philosophy] over a tiny glass of apple cider vinegar [halved] – I sometimes wonder if I’ve had a sinus infection for three years – while all the Snicketts-Silverspoon boys Minecrafted together. [I feel like I might as well have inserted “scrapbooked” instead.] Also something about building Waffle House Two out of Minecraft blocks… I never heard about One.

And Crackers lounged on my notebooks between linoleum-scrambling from garbage trucks and motorcycles thundering down the street she was absolutely certain were personally out to eat her.

Gloria whisked Puck away for the afternoon [which ended up being the whole night] after admiring this little fur ball. I really have to admit – she’s a good kitten. [And since when are “good” and “kitten” ever compatible?] While the Bear practiced “Cotton-Eyed Joe”, because he was coerced into playing Bluegrass for the church picnic tomorrow.

Are we that stereotypical Midwest?

Personally, I think “we” just try too hard.

So we drove around the city for awhile admiring things, talked about a lot of other things, and split […“split”] a 10-inch Chicago-style meat pizza under the worrisome game of a high-def screen of a deserted pizza parlor. We smelled woodsmoke from the restaurant next door. Autumn has made its second impressions.

Quotes of the Day

“A Native man once said about Native people and their place in this supposed culturally homogenized melting pot [that is America], ‘Whatever it is that Indian people are made out of, we don’t melt too easy.”

– Richard Twiss, One Church Many Tribes

Regarding the author’s friend, sent to boarding school in British Columbia, 1960:

“She and the others were taught that God had made a mistake when He made them Indians and that this mistake was going to be corrected. And yet they were taught in religion classes that God was a God of love.”

– Richard Twiss, One Church Many Tribes