the Omen

[sergebroom]

Thanks again, each and everyone of you.

Yesterday morning, I started going thru all the bills that had been piling up while we were waiting for my wife's publisher to finally send the money for her most recent contract. We'd deposited the check on Friday, but the funds wouldn't be accessible until midnight that day. So it was with a merry heart that I wrote and mailed the checks for bill after bill. And for the taxes we owed the IRS and the state for last year. And the first payments for the estimated quarterly taxes. And paid off a big chunk off our credit card debt. I hope it was not an ill omen that, when I had gotten up yesterday, it was raining even though it seldom rains here, and there were at least 20 earthworms crawling all over the patio.

Comments

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Rain is not a bad omen. Especially not in a dry region like New Mexico.

Paying bills is also a good thing. Though not usually pleasant. Rather like taking medicine.

The worms, btw, were trying to avoid drowning.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

All of it true, but, when I looked later, long after the rain had ended, the worms were still there, but dead. Oh well.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

They obviously didn't move fast enough.

My wife and mother-in-law do my taxes (we file as a family), which means that they'll be done this week.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

I saw something neat in our backyard yesterday... A mated pair of roadrunners. When I told Sue about that, she mentionned having heard a male's mating cry a few days before.

"Love is in the air..."

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

It's spring. Here, the crows are cawing, turkeys are flying, geese are honking.... Are roadrunners anything like the cartoon?

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Goodness no. They are predators. I've seen them grab mice in their beaks. But they're fascinating to look at.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

And there are no coyotes chasing them? I gather they're relatives of the cuckoo.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Cuckoos? I didn't know that. As for coyotes, yes, we have those around, sometimes walking in plain sight la-di-da on the side of the hill at the end of our backyard. They probably do chase the roadrunners, but I've never seen any sign of catapults or de-hydrated boulders oe instant tornados.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

And Acme doesn't deliver in your area. I've seen one coyote here in Atlanta, much to my surprise.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

One would think that Acme can deliver here. Heck, Los Alamos is not that far north from here, and Trinity's first atomic kaboom happened a couple of hours south of here. Hmm... Maybe 'they' don't want coyotes to go nuclear so they're keeping Acme out of here. On the other hand, coyotes, unlike wolves, have been doing better with the arrival of modern civilization and have spread all over North-America.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

That they have. They're basically behaving like foxes. Scavenging and predating on small urban/suburban mammals.

[miltonthales.livejournal.com]

Good lord, don't say that where our State Dep't of Wildlife or Health can hear you; somebody will think of trying to import them to get the mongoose under control. We now have many many mongoose because somebody thought they'd be great predators for the ship's rats. Nobody noticed that mongoose are diurnal and rats are nocturnal. Now we have lots of both critters.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Smart thinkers, eh?

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

And a lot fewer chickens, I'll bet.

[miltonthales.livejournal.com]

Oh, our chicken population is thriving. We even have illegal cockfights. It's a cultural thing, doncha know.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

In his celebrated essay, 'Deep Play', the anthropologist Cliffort Geertz says that Balinese men realise themselves in the cock ring. I remember commenting when I read this in grad school that the place where cocks are fought is called a cockpit, and being told that Geertz probably knew this.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

(...must...NOT... make bad... jokes... must resist!!!...)

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Why not?

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

There are ladies present. We don't want them to believe that men can't help resorting to juvenile humor. Do we?

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Well, they certainly have no problem....

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

There I was hoping the ladies would have a higher opinion of us and what do you do? You go on and reinforce their prejudices.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Who, me? I don't have any reinforced bones in my body....