Parenting Test

How well I remember those days.

As I watch our daughter deal with a seemingly never ending series of trips to doctors offices and hospitals in search of an answer to her daughter's illness, I remember the stresses of early parenthood.

I remember the endless hours of rocking and soothing, and the nights spent with one ear ever alert to plaintive cries.

I remember the gurgle and hiss of vaporizers fighting congestion and the rushing of water into tubs in combat with fevers.

I remember the weak whimpers carrying pleas for comfort and the piercing cries of outright pain.

Parenting will either give you the stamina of a Corinthian column or spin you around like a pebble in a raging river.

It is a lifelong test, parenting. A test shelled out in parcels, some easily accomplished and some requiring Herculean endurance. It's a must, this gradual building of success upon success, for if you were permitted a glimpse of the entire course from the outset you would surely find yourself beaten before you started.

The Way of Dreams

He recognized this place. It was the house he had grown up in. Though how he had come to be here now he had no idea.

But that was the way of dreams wasn't it? You found yourself in the middle of things as though you were an actor who had walked into the middle of a play.

Only there was no scene unfolding, no occupants to interact with. He stood alone in the middle of an empty living room, understanding the place was his now.

The walls were the color of coffee with too much cream. A color that did not match him memories. Which caused him to realize there were other things slightly amiss. Such as the sound coming from above. Footsteps lacking a cadence. Step,step,step.  Step.....step.  Step. Step,step.  Step....step.

It came to him it was the sound of someone searching. Searching perhaps for him.

The house no longer felt warm. His pulse boomed in his ears. He wanted to flee.

But as it often was in dreams his feet would not move. This was a dream wasn't it? He prayed it was.

Deer Prep

The sign on the side of the pickup read: Custom Deer Preparation

Causing we to wonder just what a deer would need to prepare for.

Is there a deer equivalent of our SAT tests?  Does a buck need to score at least a 945 before being allowed to wear antlers?

Perhaps deer need to be coached in techniques for evading hunters, or in avoiding cars operated by intoxicated drivers.

And then I saw the rest of the sign:  Bill's Butcher Shop.

Oh, I said.  OH!

Magnified View

The mist moved with purpose across the fields, but curled back on itself at the treeline surrounding the small cottage.

Years ago, as a child, he had shared stories with his friends about the old woman who lived in that cottage. It was said that at night she transformed herself into a a stunning beauty who seduced young men, lured them to her simple home, and boiled them alive in an immense cauldron. The bones were then scattered around her house to fuel the wards that kept her safe.

He set down his binoculars for a moment. He had dismissed those stories long ago. But now, seeing the mist turned back, he couldn't help but wonder...

Bright movement in the trees caught his attention. Perhaps it was the warbler he had been searching for. Bringing his binoculars back to his eyes he gave a surprised shriek. Filling the magnified circle was the very woman he had just been thinking of.

Fuel Slots

Gas prices have jumped 30 cents a gallon in two weeks. So when I saw the pumps at a local gas station were being replaced I figured the owner of the place was probably distressed to be missing out on the price run.

Then I thought that perhaps the business owner just might be installing the latest generation of gas pumps.

Put the nozzle of the gas hose in your car, pull the lever, and watch the numbers spin just like they do on a slot machine.  Get three cherries and your fill up is free, but get any combination of hard numbers and that's what you're paying for a gallon of gas.

How does $9.99 strike you?

Snow on the Wing

It was as though I had driven into a freshly shaken snow globe. The air was filled with swirling white. Not snow, but snow geese.

They descended by the hundreds, wings flapping and fanning as the geese came in for a landing. It seemed impossible their wings were not becoming entangled.

And then it was over. The sky was clear. But the fallow field was hidden beneath a fluttering blanket of white that stretched from one tree line to another.

I cracked the window of the car. The squawking... or whatever geese do... was deafening, shattering the impression of white peacefulness.

And then they were on the move, on the ground this time, forming up into individual colonies of white bordered by the brown of the sleeping land.

Prognosticating Sunshine

This is one year when I can actually believe that Punxsutawney Phil  actually saw his shadow without the influence of a score of lights set up by the new media for it really was a sunny morning.

And while tradition suggests that Phil's seeing of his shadow means we'll have to wait six more weeks before we can shove our heavy coats into the back of the closets, I prefer to focus on the belief that a clear, sunny morning on February 2nd portends many more sunny mornings.

There is of course the cold to be taken into consideration. The clear skies of February 2nd had allowed temperatures to drop into the low teens. Prognosticator Phil no doubt lost a significant portion of his bodyweight shivering in that cold. Perhaps I will have to suffer a few more mornings of frostbite temperatures- but as long as the sun rises into a gloriously blue sky to warm the rest of the day I believe I can muster the necessary energy to endure.

Here's to a sunny six weeks!