What did Mr. A, my ten-year-old trash picker, bring home this week? Wooden shelves removed from a throwaway bookcase.
What did he do with them? He laid one over two baseball bats to make a sliding balance board, something to fall off and break an arm.
He used the others to make a rabbit hutch for the rabbit that he is NOT getting. The rabbit hutch for the rabbit he's not getting sits next to the guinea pig cage for the guinea pig he's not getting, which is next to the homemade gerbil cage for the gerbil he's not getting, which is next to the chickenwire canary cage for the canary he's not getting. Do you see a trend here?
The tadpoles that grew into frogs and lived in a terrarium for two months have been set free at the pond near our house. E-Grrrl's pet beetles are also out in the big world making compost.
We currently have five giant grasshoppers, one sand lizard, one hamster, two fish, a Venus fly trap, a pitcher plant, and a cat.
***
Mr. A visited the pet store with his dad to pick up crickets to feed his lizard. When he returned, he told me about some mice he saw there.
"Oh Mama they were so cute! All gray and fluffyy and making nests! There were three of them, and the sad thing is they were going to be fed to a big snake."
"If they were my mice I'd name them Betty, Billy, and Bob," he said wistfully.
"Really A, I think it would make more sense to call them Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner."
***
My blogger pal Ashleigh is an English-speaking expat from Zimbabwe who lives in the Netherlands. English-language magazines cost a fortune where she is (about $10 an issue) so I offered to send her some of mine. Two issues of InStyle and one issue of Real Simple were dutifully packed up and taken to the Belgian post office where we were informed it would cost nearly $30 to mail them!
***
A while back, I bought a bottle of cologne for a friend's birthday, forgetting that due to overseas postal restrictions, I can't mail it back to the U.S. Sigh. It seemed the perfect gift.
Then I remembered E would be in the U.S. this month on business. He could carry it there in his suitcase and then mail it to her from his hotel. Hurray!
All was well with this plan until the latest anti-terrorism efforts made it next to impossible to get any liquid onto a plane leaving from Europe and heading to the U.S.
I wouldn't want E delayed by suspicions he is carrying a Lancome fragrance bomb in a pink bottle with a label that says So Magic!
***
Sometimes I think we give the murderous maniacs in the world a backhanded compliment by calling them "terrorists." That word gives them so much power.
Why don't we just call them what they are? Assholes with a capital A!
I'm sure it would be easier to rally people behind a War on Assholes, don't cha think?
August 11, 2006