Goose Attack

Geese are on my side this morning, and I've brought scraps and left-over corn bread for them. Scary bastards. I feed them from the truck window, having been treed by them before. But I feel that these seasonal passers-by, need to be made welcome. Every year I swear never again. This year's drama: maybe three dozen of them, in a large half-circle, I throw well and I have them spaced out nicely, when a giant male jump/flies up onto the hood of the truck and starts pecking at the windshield, pooping on my ride. I hit the gas and he goes tumbling over the cab and lands in the bed of the truck, I stop and he makes a very undignified exit over the side. Have to stop at the self car-wash place on 52 near the Dairy Bar, pull into the first slot, closest to the change machine, get my four quarters, clean my wheel wells (they get caked with mud so badly that it throws off the alignment) and just fixing to clean off the shit, when a good-old-boy walks by to get his quarters, he drove into the second bay, a new big Dodge pick-up completely covered in mud, completely. He stops and looks at my little trucklet, then at me, and says, goose shit, I hate those bastards, and I have to ask how his truck got so completely covered in mud, he grinned, iconic, missing several front teeth, he's in camo, brush cut, and he grinned again, Forest Service roads at midnight, man, it's a rush. Seems he and a buddy like to take a twelve pack out in the forest at night, and hit the puddles as fast as possible on the intricate network of dirt roads in the 64,000 acres. You look ahead, he said, because until the wipers can clear a view, you're driving blind. Right, I thought, I want to do that. D was in and I am assigned to bring him up to speed on the weekly staff meeting. Being a liaison is not unlike being a docent. I swear I just saw the face of Richard Nixon on my damp coaster and it made me spill my drink. Fucking Republicans, excuse me Pegi, I struggle with this. This happens to me before I get to work, and I'm early, thinking to read for half-an-hour in the library, and everybody is already there. It's early enough in the cycle, the change-over cycle in the main gallery, that I don't have to prioritize, I can just do anything on any list, so I start doing things, D and I get a cup of coffee, roll cigs, get up to speed. We do a few things I need him for, and I'll be the judge of that because I'm still learning the ropes. In the permanent collection gallery, where we'd rehung everything, the lights were wrong, there are nine combinations of wattage and spread. Watercolors require low wattage and narrow spread, oils require greater wattage and wider spread. What you're trying to achieve is a balance. Glass and plexi-glass are different. Everything is different, the values, the colors. We joked then talked about a possible Stair Show, and I'm reasonably excited, I have to wrap my head around this. If we did something, it would have to be interesting. The day to day is interesting, but who gives a shit really. I want D to teach James how to cut mattes, so I wouldn't have to learn another thing, I'm tired of learning things, it's almost boring.