WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME??

I am addicted to the cancelled TV series Futurama. And since I don't own a TV, I've downloaded most of the episodes from the internet.

Anyways. I just found one I hadn't seen. It's called Leela's Homeworld. I won't bore you with the zany plot. But at the very end, where the mutant father tucks in his sleeping daughter, I started crying. Bawling is more like it, actually. And I cried and cried. And cried!



Is this my destiny? Am I eternally lost? Doomed to cry over chick flicks and sleezy romance stories??

CRUEL FATE, SAY IT ISN'T SO!

My wife shaved off all her hair.

Actually, I did. At her request. She just alway wanted to try it. So she did. A couple of weeks ago. And we did not think anything off it. Except that she looks cool. And sexy.

It wasn't until this morning that I realized the amount of shock this has had in the outer circle we move in. Not my friends, mind you. We seem to attract friends that go "cool doo" or "whatever". I don't think any of them where shocked. Or even perplexed. This is more like the people whose name you actually remember and you just meet every now and then. For example, we went contradancing the other night (yes, really, I kid you not). And we met our midwife. On the middle of the dancefloor. And when she saw the hair, or the lack of it, she just blurted out "Oh my god! Are you OK? Do you have cancer??"

I did not really give this another thought. There was some funky stuff going on at that dance, anyway. Until this morning. I went to the gym. With my daughter. And one of the women who usually takes care of her was obviously dying to ask me something. So, after a little dancing around the subject she said that they, i.e. the babysitting crew presumably, just wanted to know if my wife was all right. I did not get it right away, and just told her, matter-of-factly, that I was alone this morning because she had taken a trip back home to be with her mother on her big birthday. "No no," said the woman, "I mean, is she ill?" Then I got it, why she was asking, and after talking with her a little while, I finally really realized that people around here are generally really lost when confronted with something like this. Why would a woman do that, if she was not forced to? Never mind all the fat, clean-shaven male heads you see bobbing about all around here. No, she is a woman, for Pete's sake, and women just don't go around shaving their heads for no good reason!

I ask you, what could possibly constitute a more educating experience than living in a community that is fundamentally different from where you come from?

Did you ever take a bath with your clothes on?

I was brought up in a household where people just did not do that. I seem to remember someone telling me that was the kind of behavior that crazy people exhibit.

Yada-yada-yada. Or let me quote Mr. Flintstone: Yabba-dabba-do. No, actually, yada-yada-yada fit better.

I just came in from the rain. That warm, smooth, calm almost-summer rain. It is a privilege to live where the rain is warm enough to bathe in. Granted, it was a little brisk, it being morning and all, but it was great!

I can't wait until the river in the valley beneath my house is warm enough to swim in it.

Summer...

Funny about my diet.

Now that I am not fasting anymore, I have been going slowly back to eating the same food I always eat. Pasta with boiled tomatos, roasted garlic and fresh basil. Hot curry chicken on boiled rice. Fried noodles with vegetables. Lasagna.

I seem to be adding the things that are worst for me back into my diet last. For example, I didn't buy a McDonalds until last week, and it wasn't until today that I bought my first candy bar again. A Twix, incidently. And a small bag of black & white m&m. What's up with that, anyway? I haven't had it before, but it tasted just like the old, colored ones. Only looked blander.

The point: I missed much of this stuff while fasting. Some it I literally craved, like grilled cheese, and pizza. But none of it – and I mean none of it – stood up to expectations when I finally got to eating it again. Not even the pizza. It actually gave me a heartburn. Which I hadn't had in months.

Sad. So sad.

I actually feel a little bit like Captain Haddock, when he discovers (in TinTin and the Picaros) that he can no longer derive any pleasure from his drinking.


Dictatorial duck billed diplodocus!

She's pregnant!

No, not my wife. My biking partner. This is about the only excuse I would have accepted for her not riding this summer. Last summer it was she, and she alone, who was to thank for me surviving the 100 mile bikeride we went on.

So. Does anybody here like to ride road bikes?

A regular critic of these footprints wrote to me this morning, and declared that they had crossed a line. The line into "mushy fluff". Actually, isn't that what footprints do? Cross lines, I mean? Anyways. I was flattered. I thought I had crossed it a long time ago.

But in an effort to counter the rosy, carpe diem attitute that I can't seem to shake, here is a wonderful little story about the bringers of spring:

Anticipation can be just about the greatest thrill you experience. Butterflies in your stomach. It's a combination of a sudden onset of a possibility, that you hadn't realized that could be coming true, the waiting for it to happen, and the danger of it not coming to pass.

Take an early onset of summer, for example. This is where, in early April, you will get a few beautiful days and you become all giddy inside and foolishly think 'Wow! Summer is about to come!' You don't care about the fact that you always get a few good days, and then it's back to late winter/early spring for another month. No. You throw the socks into the laundry bin and dig your shorts out of a box in the attic. Just to be ready. And then you scuttle about for a few days, featherbrained, until you slowly realize that you were wrong. That it was just a wonderful dream. And you come back down to earth.

The same applies to those early messengers of spring. Those playful indicators that stimulate you and fire up that anticipation of bright, warm days. Birds singing, squirrels peeking out of their winter lairs, skunks rustling in garbage, spiders busily weaving their first webs of the summer, mice scurrying about, looking for food. You can feel Nature, tossing in her sleep. A glint in her eye, as her sleep is coming to an end. So you join in. Smile at the ever-warmer sun. Carry the busy spiders out into your yard.

And then those foolish pioneers meet their fate. On the pavement. I saw my first spring roadkill this morning. It looked a little bit like a chipmunk. An ex-chipmunk, that is. Or it might have been a marsupial. It had been run over a few times, so it was hard to tell. A couple of birds were busily picking at it. It was still fresh, the heat rising from it in the cool morning air. This poor, demented thing had obviously wandered out of its burrow, thinking that summer had arrived. Not being all that familiar with the dynamics of those deadly strips of pavement that litter the landscape, it wandered in its still slumbery state onto one of them and splat!

No more spring. No more twinkle in Nature's eye. She has already turned over to the other side, snoring profusely.

I refuse to remain the fool. I am going skiing. Seeya.

The music: Terry Snyder; Earl Palmer / Binga Banga Bongo