"Snail"

I enjoyed some spectacular spring-like days in February before getting socked with more snow and cold in March.  I used those unusually lovely days taking out my frustrations on my yard, whacking on a slowly rotting tree.  I stirred up a lot of angry ants and a bunch of mildly inconvenienced armadillos.

"We don't have armadillos in Ohio!" my friend said.  Well, yeah we do.  What would you call them?  Um, maybe potato bugs?  Pill bugs?

I looked up potato bug images and found some ugly, icky things.  Quite unlike the cute little armadillos.  Further research informs me my armadillos are actually woodlice, which doesn't sound cute either.  My friend pointed out what I already knew, if I had armadillos, I had rotting wood.  Since they're living in a slowly disintegrating tree in the back 40, I don't really care.

And yeah, my friend the eternal ray of sunshine pointed out that when the tree is gone, the armadillos are going to move somewhere, most likely my garage.  That's probably an astute, practical observation, but I'll deal with that at some unspecified time in the future.

I know I'm not the only person with affection for armadillos (woodlice, not the mammals that can give you leprosy).  Lots of little children have cupped the gentle little bugs in their hands and pretended to gobble the pill bugs.  They curl up into little balls, and neatly tuck in their legs so they're not creepy on ticklish hands.  Well, sometimes their little legs flutter like a feather, but that's just cute.

I also find tiny snail shells in my garden, but I have never found a living snail.  I find this very mysterious.  I have plenty of slugs though.  I think slugs and snails must be related, but the snails seem far more considerate about enclosing their slime in their own self-contained packaging.

I gently moved some worms out of my way and think I must not have changed very much since I was an intent child examining the local fauna in my environment?  My dad was good at encouraging my interests.  We had a lot of field guides to study, and sometimes he took my study subjects away for bait.

I'm just rambling with pleasant memories and associations.  The book I've been working on has a much different tone, and maybe I just need to contemplate quiet, childish play?  I was going to write a novel, but my non-fiction idea insists on coming into existence.

I looked up how many pages I have to type to create a book, but the advice is not to count pages, count words.  That's easy to do in a Word document under "tools".  Average books have 55,000 to 175,000 words, with the average about 80,000 words.  So far I'm over 21,000.  Woo hoo!  1/4 of the way there!  Okay, not all of these words are the best words, so it's going to take a lot more work, but I'm humming and happy about the process.

I've actually been pleased the weather turned back to winter.  It keeps me inside and typing.  I'm worried my budding pear trees are in trouble, but we all need to sacrifice a little in creating.  If I lose them, I guess the armadillos and tree snails will have something to eat instead of my garage?

"Totem"

I was a little kid the first time I heard about totems, and they made perfect sense to me.  Different animals have different types of personalities, which reflect the kinds of personalities of people. 

For instance, I am dog-like.  I protect my territory, love the people I love, and am pretty straightforward about all of it.  I like to play, lay around, take walks, cuddle..  I’ve made progress with cats in recent years, but being doglike, I bound up and cats run in the opposite direction -- which means I have to follow them since now it’s a challenge, and the cats try harder to escape.  Being doglike, I can sulk when the cat won’t play, but then I’ll forget about it because I found a ball.  Then the cat will take an experimental swipe at me when I’m not looking, and then I want to kill the cat.

Tell me people aren’t the same as animals.  I sat next to a writer at a dinner this week in Texas at a national conference on religious fundraising.  I thought it would be fun to talk with another creative.  After all, I was sick of statistics meetings, have too much to write at work, and she’s supposed to be trying to get my business -- but this woman is a cat if I ever saw one.  My direct questions aimed at drawing her out made her retreat.  I gave up after she turned mute and avoided eye contact.  Ignoring the mute was easy since I had another dinner companion who is a dog if I ever saw one, and not just any dog, she was a yappy happy beagle.

Watching the animals we feel attraction towards can tell us a lot about ourselves.  For instance, even saying I’m dog-like doesn’t mean I’m a beagle.  I had Dalmatians for years because they suit me.  They’re bigger, don’t talk as much, make beelines towards goals when they have them – and all of this is just splitting people into dogs and cats.

I saw an armadillo this week.  I thought it was a groundhog at first, but I noticed the armored plates on its back and funny face.  I also saw a giant crow chasing a bird across the sky, and a giant dragonfly protecting its territory.  They say it takes all types, and while we can split people into dogs and cats, some of us are like the armadillo, the dragonfly, or the crow.

It seemed everyone else at the conference was content in the chilly air conditioning and vast indoors of the hotel complex, but I wanted to see outside – even if outside was miserably hot and the grounds are so manicured that actual wildlife seems unlikely.  Seeing the armadillo seemed remarkable in that setting. 

I’ll admit I’m tired as I’m writing this post, so this bird is just something I did quick a while ago and never found a reason to do anything more with it.  I don’t particularly relate to little green birds, but someone out there does.

  

Since I’ve actually put my feet in another state, I updated my map for my invisible RV.

You never know who you’ll talk to at conferences.  Bet you didn’t know Pope Francis was in Grapevine, Texas!