Dirty Jobs

Loud noise outside, I was curious, might as well get up and pee; at first I can't see a thing, flooding the dark with light, then notice that the grill is turned over, something afoot. Not a fool, I get the .22 and the big flashlight. Don't know where I'm going with this but I had cleaned up, a full bath in the sheep-watering trough and unguents to heal the sundry bites and rashes, some Gold Bond Powder, and I'm kind of crouched, outside, waiting for the next thing, an alien or a secret agent, it's a feral cat, a tri-color, she shows herself. I don't want a cat, I'm clear on this, I don't do litter, clean up after, any of that, but a wild cat might be acceptable, like the fox, we might be neighbors. I toss her a piece of pizza and go back inside. Her court. Nothing is what it seems. That Wedding Chapel on Rt.125 is a joke, eventually there will be a punch line, an Emu goes in to a bar, something. Always difficult to get back to sleep when I go outside in the night. I think I thought I saw, and, as Cage pointed out, it's real hard to hear nothing. Credit Bob and Jana, I don't have to wait until the weekend to read up on Shelley's death and disposal. Cremated in the presence of Trelawny and Hunt, the heart simply did not burn, so Trelawny wrapped it up and took it to Mary, it was finally buried with the body of Shelley's son, Florence, 1889, 67 years late. Recent article posits something called 'progressively calcifying heart', which must have something to do with writing you heart out. Finished Skip's book again, will read it twice again in a couple of weeks. Back at the museum, D is off for several days, building furniture, I set Mary (is the girl's name) to work on my usual chores, start bagging mulch, breaking that task into doable units by putting away things or throwing them away, from the downstairs hall, where the kids waited to do their bit. A really big mess. The Brit was very strict with them, each had a chair with their name on it and the "Moms From Hell" who kept them seated, but they could play with anything that didn't make noise; also, it was dark, because two doors open onto the stage and they were kept open for the frequent entrances and exits. Classroom also totaled, an unbelievable 55 gallons of garbage. Cleaning clears the mind. That was the sign over the door of Dufus Dreyfuss's classroom, "Zen, and The Art of Mopping", "Shit Is Just Shit", "Loose Change Is Everywhere". His courses were well attended. He was a dapper little Irish dude, knee-pants and funny socks, awful vests that often had a pocket with his smoldering pipe sometimes emitting the occasional puff of smoke when he got energizied and pumped his arms. He had an affected manner, lecturing, that was much imitated, and he knew his shit. Used a cane, and pointed with it, when we were in the field; I was there when he died, we were examining a treatment plant, and he got excited about a perfect 'v' of geese flying overhead, pointed them out, did a little twirl, and tumbled into the sewage. Heart attack. It was just too much, the treatment plant, the geese. Dead calm on my way home and no one at the lake so I stop to watch the ducks swimming. When It's dead calm and the lake surface is a mirror, the intersecting v's are a delicate pattern on the surface, it looked like it carried meaning; five ducks, and somebody must have just fed them because they don't care if I'm a food source or not, which means they just ate big time, and they are swimming away from me, across the lake, and all their little wakes are interacting. I roll and smoke two cigarets, seek higher ground, they finally reach the other shore, and half the lake is engaged in the ripple-effect of their passage. An ephemeral piece, that fades back to mirror surface, I can almost hear a cello, you might never actually see the ducks, just a pattern on the surface of the water. You could slow it down, if you wanted to, add music, but it was beautiful, just the way it was. A perfect mediation between work and home, reintegration into the natural world, which is where there is no light pollution and not a sound that isn't natural, that's all I require. I forgive my fridge on a regular basis, I need it, and my computer makes noise, which I quell, with ice, and a fan that makes noise, but you know what I mean, mostly what I hear is bugs. My windows are open, I don't have AC, I live by the wind, whatever breeze, -brother, could you spare a dime- D off working, during his vacation, to make ends meet, everybody, it seems, with new kids, fucking vectors for disease because they have no immune system. My kids were healthy because they drank raw goat's milk. Fuck your antibiotics, I believe in pre-treating with biotics, poison ivy, right, no problem, if you drink the milk from a goat that ate it you'll never get it, Trust me, the homeopathic thing is very real, I just don't understand it yet, but if the squirrel runs across your roof does it mean anything?