Morning Glories

(Not morning glories.)

It wasn't that long ago that I ran into my neighbor at the Walgreens. Maybe a week at most. She warned me in her rapid, mumbled way that there were rats in the yard. Her dog had killed at least one of them. Be careful, she said.


For I don't know, about a week now, I've been noticing a decidedly putrid smell wafting about the steps where I take my bike on and off the porch, next to our neighbor's lovely weed patch. There also seemed to be more flies about the house. Peering into the densest foliage on the unkempt plot, I tried to see where some dead animal was drawing these rats and flies, giving rise to this unwelcome olfactory experience which had come to mark my departures from the house and my arrivals back home. Couldn't see anything, and I feared to wade into their mockery of a garden uninvited.

This morning, taking out some recyclables, I happened to look at the morning glories that had sprouted up the side of the steps leading up to the back porch. I like morning glories. I hoped to see signs they had begun to twine around the banister and flower. In a way, they had another kind of present for me. Under the sun-drenched leaves of the climbing vine lay a dead rat, his head crowned in the jerky metallic thoraxes of a half dozen flies. "Ah-HA!" I think I said.

I said a little good-bye, scooped our flattened furry friend into a crate & barrel paper shopping bag, and stapled it shut. He is now labeled a size "C" rat. At least tonight is trash night.

The moral for me is clear: *Possibly* in my own back yard, so check there before peering over the fence suspiciously. I don't know why I've been getting so many presentations of this lesson, but it seems like I keep getting better and better chances to learn it.












-Dr. S

Do / Don't

Don't laugh at him. He's training to be spy.

Don't stick your greedy little uncontrollable vine fingers breaking through the asphalt beside my house.
(I will come back at night and water your ass from a boiling kettle.)

Don't use this one.


Do unleash a plague of bubbles into the air above the ice cream shop.


Don't get in the way, Silvia!








Do find a place to store the cat when not in use.


Don't move the camera when taking pictures of the Big Dipper.


Do the bubble thing again.

o End Transmission o

Dinner at Claudio and Anna's... without the Claudio and Anna

It was bound to be a beautiful party.
... if a little, um, unusual. Such are our friends.
The women in the kitchen were working so fast, they looked a little blurry.

(oh no, wait, I've got clearer shot of that tomato-chopping massacre.)
Outside and in the livingroom, hungry beachgoers worked on the beer.
Only Kaca was unable to maintain happiness while dying of terrible hunger. She had enough difficulty pretending to be the kind of person who can wear colors other than black. Forgive her.

Dan was so hungry, he started to glow an eery glow.








I no longer had the energy lift the camera away from my feet. How long have these damn bikes been here?

___________

Suddenly, from inside the house the moans of starving party-goers were replaced by muffled laughter and compliments about bruschetta.
Appetizers began to flow out of the tomato-slaughtering room.
Garlic breath and hunger assuagement (assuagence?) began to dominate the atmosphere.

__________

Meanwhile, a crack team of chefs were still preparing the Italo-Hungarian tomato sauce. These cats were so cool, they still had on sunglasses with their aprons.She looks right at home with enough chopped tomatoes to drown a rhino, doesn't she?So then, in a zoo-like atmophere, the following:
Imagine: The Italians are all yelling directions to each other (there are four of them at least, and the Hungarian guy is in there, too.)
Some crazed Uruguayan is echoing them from the doorway, shouting, "No! No! No! No!"and everyone in the room is laughing and moving around each other. Chaos.And then out of the churning, steaming moil with the clamoring cacophony of many voices,as if the very heavens and the earth itself were making passionate love, until at last their passion subsides, a miracle was born. Brimming over the pot was such a meal as to make a wise man cry.Dinner was ready.

___________

Then "Oooooooooo!" transmuted to "Mmmmmmmmmmm!" as the good little students all lined up
as if it were the most amicable cafeteria in any university anywhere.Dinner without our hosts. Though they are dearly missed, we must munch bravely onwards.When the company had climbed their pasta mountains and looked out from the summit, it was time for desert.

Scary, isn't it?

We rose to honor the PhD of the hour by singing to him off-key. Really, horribly off-key. See how he suffers?
Then we did it all over again for the birthday boy. When it started up for the Frenchman's brother who was in town for a bit, it started to get out of hand.
True to tradition and in the epicurean fashion to which we are accustomed, we set out the house selexion of alcohols, and commenced to duel with our livers. On the porch, more time with friends.
Why is Manu confrontational?Don't know, but it makes Tibor ashamed. Or he hates the flash in his eyes.

____________

About 2pm, the party really picked up. Five or size characters stuck around, anticipating. And then it happened. The Swede walked home and back. When he cast a shadow on the walk a few minutes later, he had his banjo.
After that, well, if you weren't there, there's no use trying to explain.

-Dr. Go "Explainer" Science