Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The Wolf Moon.  It is the night of the Wolf Moon, the Full Moon of January.  A friend and I will howl.  Here’s the plan for the howling.  We’ll find a place where there is not too much light, where the moon is clearly visible.  First one of us will howl.  We both will laugh.  Then the other of us will howl.  We both will laugh.  Then we will howl together.  We both will laugh.  Laughing and howling will be loud.  Details, if any, next week.

Around the Town (1).  The check-out clerk said, “Lord you are right.  It has been cold!  I’m  divorced, so I moved back in with my momma and daddy, and daddy, he was too cold to get under the house and close the vents.  He told us to leave the faucet drippin’ in the bathroom all night long.  Well, we went to bed and left it drippin’, but Momma got up in the night, used the faucet, and turned it off.  Sure enough the pipes froze.  We didn’t have any water, and I had to get a shower and get to work, so I just went to a friend’s apartment over there in that apartment complex and took a shower and came on to work.  I left in the middle of a fuss between Momma and Daddy.  They’re real old, in their ’60’s, and Momma had to go to work and said she shouldn’t be blamed ’cause she was tired and not thinkin’.  She said she had a lot on her mind, what with me livin’ there again and her workin’ and him not workin’.  She said he should have gone under the house and closed the vents, so it was his fault.  He had to retire ’cause he had cancer.  And so they were fussin’ and I just left them.  And the worse part was we had to pay a plumber $40 just to go out to the country, where we all live, and fix everything.  Cold!  I don’t want to see that kind of cold again.  Well, you have a good night, sir.”

Around the Town (2).  Two of us were in the restroom of a restaurant.  “You sound like you’re as bad as I am, bud.”  I was coughing and blowing my nose, suffering from head and chest congestion.  “I wish to God mine would turn into flu.  Then I could go to bed and get well.  But I just walk around like you and cough and blow my nose all the damned day long.  If I would get a fever, I could go to bed, but we’ll just suffer like this I reckon.  All right, you take care, bub.”

A Walk.  It had rained and rained.  I noticed that all the ditches of the town were overflowing.  Water ran across streets and sidewalks and pooled there.  I gave approaching cars wide clearance.  Weather report said that the river might flood that night.  It has been a wet time.

A Vow of Silence.  At lunch Sunday with three friends, one friend talked about one of her friends, a cloistered nun who took a vow of silence.  I surprised myself by saying, “What a blessing that must be, to be silent.”  A friend later asked me, “Don’t you mean that it would be a blessing not to have to hear talk?”  No.  I get tired of hearing myself talk.  It would be a blessing not to talk so much, to be quiet.  I will practice.

Thank you for reading.  I hope you will have a good week.