Snippets

I let the dogs out into the back yard while my wife was drying her hair tonight, just as full dark settled down onto the green slopes. Looking north, I saw a series of silent flashes, looking just like artillery does from a distance. But the boom-boom-booms never came, never rolled towards me. Silent and silver. Heat lightning.

I opened the door and called to Mrs. Orr, and she came outside. After we watched for a minute, I took two chairs down into the yard and we sat for a while and watched the quiet light show, including the lightning bugs that danced in the woods and along the fenceline. We both saw a meteor streak by overhead, southwest to northeast, and though we watched for a bit longer, we never saw another. After a bit, we came inside. We had barely settled in when the sky opened and a hot squall ran across the ridge, driving sheets of rain against the house and rattling the loose things around the outside. In a minute or so, it had passed, and I could see the lightning bugs outside again, undiminished in their night-joy, tracing their neon letters through air that no other man was watching.

***

We finally got Mrs. Orr’s car back from the body shop, and they did a fine job. She actually looks better than she did before the poor deer crashed into her, with her new headlights and un-bug-spattered front piece. My wife had been driving it just a day or so when she came to a certain area in town, and out of some bushes to her left, a doe stepped onto the road and scampered across. And then my wife saw something move in the greenery where the doe had appeared. A little buck fawn wobbled out, bleating at the woman behind he wheel, and tottered towards her. She was quick enough to grab her phone and snap a photo. And here he is progeny of the car-killing race of sleek, moist-nosed beauties. Be careful, little feller. The roads are not for your kind.

***

Some time back, we’d heard of a Tex-Mex joint a few towns over, run by a couple of Texas gals. We were in the area and decided to give it a shot. Well worth it, too. They’re a bit proud of their food, as they say, but it was extry-good. The meal added to our homesickness for Texas. Our family there have been experiencing horrific heat, and naturally, their central A/C bit the dust on them. They purchased window units as an interim measure until they can have the system replaced. The cost quoted to them for the replacement was absolutely obscene. And according to the veracity-rich Tapioca Joe, this is all Mr. Putin’s fault. Dadgum those Russians. Don’t they know the US won the Cold War?

***

A woodpecker flew into the front porch this morning, hanging upside down from the joists and looking for a place to drive his beak home. I shooed him once, and my wife shooed him a couple more times. He finally left, chattering an amused whackle. We both agreed that my mother, were she alive and here with us, would have pitched a pure-D coniption fit. To my family, a woodpecker pecking on a house is a sure harbinger of the death of someone who resides therein. We shall see, my red-headed friend. We shall see.

***

Our tomatoes are doing well, though they have been wilting in the intense heat and requiring more water than usual. The early ones we’ve plucked have been very tasty. The sun truly does produce sugar, it seems.

***

And now it is time for darkness and sleep and silence for a few hours. May we all rest and recuperate from the day, in this age of coarse and petty meanness.

~ S.K. Orr