Roadrunner, Road Kill

I found that while grieving for Buddy Boutts, it was helpful to keep busy, and as part of my campaign to be occupied at all times, I did a lot of exercising. I didn’t just GO to the gym, I WALKED to the gym. Unfortunately, on the second day of this fitness marathon, I turned the corner and came upon the body of one of our neighborhood’s roadrunners. If you don’t live in this part of the country, you don’t know how pleasant it is to share your space with these handsome, industrious creatures. Their distinctive gait makes them look as if they are always in a hurry. I love to see them dashing along with a lizard draped in their beak. They sun themselves on the big landscaping rocks, bobbing and flicking their generous tails in a rich, but incomprehensible language only other roadies can fathom.  Their feathers look as if they are etched, so perfect, so chiseled out of desert colors.

 

Somebody ran my feathered neighbor down. The bird was lying at an intersection, a place where a driver should have been moving very, very slowly to honor the stop sign and round the corner safely. From the look of things, I think this driver accelerated to hit the bird. Gives a whole new meaning to the term, bad driver. May the curse of the roadrunner be on you, mister. May you run around in circles, never finding any rest. May all your meals taste like the desert sand. May your tongue feel like the skin of a lizard. May a demolition derby truck with those really enormous tires roll over you until your innards go splat.

 

I tried to condole with the roadrunner that lives near my house. I’ve been feeding him Vienna sausages because I understand he is a carnivore. He likes the way they roll down the driveway. Gives him a fitting chase, so he can feel the thrill of victory. When he gets one, he looks like he’s smoking a stogie. When I told him how sorry I was for his loss, he studied me for a moment and then gave me a slow tail flick. I think he understood and will pass along my sympathies to the others of his kind who grace our community.

 

 

For My Heavenly Buddy

Yesterday, our valiant Standard Poodle, Buddy Boutts, collapsed and died. He was only ten and my entire household is in deep mourning. Buddy was a rescue who joined our family in 2002. I am too emotional right now to write so I am posting an excerpt from a piece I did earlier this year, called Ode to the Pack, a tribute to all my rescued dogs. This was the part about Buddy, who now runs with the angels. It doesn’t do him justice, but it will have to do for now until I can get over my shock, grief and pain and write about this magnificent creature without getting tears all over the keys.

Buddy Boutonniere (a.k.a. Buddy Boutts)

The others said they didn't know I would get so big. They kept me in the yard and went away. The man who tended the trees gave me water, but he did not always come. I was thirsty so I chewed on the pipes that carry the water. They were mad when they got home. They took out the grass and replaced it with concrete. It burned my feet. But now, I live in paradise.

Your topknot explodes in every direction like the mane of a tenured professor. It shades your soulful Gallic eyes, rimmed in kohl and perched above that Cyrano nose, long as an alpine ski slope. Your great ebon nostrils flare as you drink me in. You sigh like a lover. I hug you to me and listen to your heart. I can just make it out over your pants of joi. An extravagant ear falls over my eyes and I marvel at the transparent magenta of the underside, edged by its ecru tendrils.

How could anyone call you Standard? Poodle Grand Prix is more to my liking. You are the very Vente of poodles. When you walk, your tail salutes as if you were on parade. When you run, you float above the earth like meringue. When you sleep, you drape your long torso and limbs with the grace and abandon of a Delacroix model. You chose the chaise lounge as your bed. What else? The plush rose velvet and satin pillows are your métier.

My sensitive boy. My artist in canine raiment. So easy to hurt. So capable of jealousy. Cher, you are too thin. You cannot live on love.

Rain in the Desert

The golf gods were kind today. They held off the rain until Bonnie and I finished eighteen holes. They did not, however, hold off the humidity, and we soldiered around dripping, clubs slipping in our hands, through the 30% haze. At one point, I think it was on fifteen, I looked down to address the ball and a big pool of perspiration flowed down into the backside cup of my sunglass lens, turning the grass into a viridian sea and the ball to jetsom. We desert rats are not used to such conditions.

When I returned home, I knew that it was going to rain for real because the pest control people arrived and sprayed all around the perimeter of the house. The rain is now washing all the pesticide away so the crickets should be happy. They always sound happy, but, then, how can you really tell with a cricket? Of course, there was that Jiminy Cricket guy, who just bubbled over with song all the time, but he was a natty dresser and had a steady job with Disney. He was happy because he had an agent.

Next came the heating and air conditioning expert to tell me what has gone wrong with two of my four units. Ah-ha, the report's just in; one has lost all its freon and the other's digital thermostat has gone to that great circuit board heap in the sky. The technician has been here for two hours and has begun humming. He's not as on key as Jiminy, but he told me he worked at an airport in his younger days. I think he has lost the upper register. Despite the occupational problems, he seems happy. I am beginning to think he has an agent too. He doesn't even mind going outside to look at the equipment in the drizzle. The meter is running. $ $ $

Do agents work in the rain? Or are they like taxi cabs? Poofffffff. Okay, it was a rhetorical question. I know, as a lowly scribbler, I don't deserve an answer.

The best thing that will happen today is that my solar panels will get a good cleansing. Tomorrow, assuming the sun returns to the desert, my little energy meters will be spinning at an accelerated pace. Not enough to pay for the technician's visit, mind you, but twirling in a positive direction. The number won't be as stratospheric as my handicap, but one wouldn't expect it to be, because that's at the level of the national debt.