Month: April 2017

I am hesitant to categorize squirrels as good things because we have such a complex relationship with them. If you are speaking to someone about squirrels and they use the word “cute” somewhere in a sentence, you should take care not to refer to squirrels as “rats with tails” because this will create a certain amount of tension.

We are surrounded by forest and therefore must find ways to coexist with our fellow creatures, great and small. A few years ago I found a baby squirrel on our driveway next to a downspout. Apparently this baby was attempting to climb up to the gutters, gutters I should add that are capped with expensive gutter guards installed years ago. These guards create perfect living quarters for squirrels and I guess this baby squirrel had fallen from its rooftop home on to the tarmac below.

I got a towel to pick the tiny thing up and placed it (the squirrel not the towel) in the forest nearby. It wasn’t long before the adults arrived and carried the fallen one off to heaven knows where. Oh wait I know where — they took it back to our house with the convenient gutter guards. I mean my god have squirrels no sense of decency?  I saved their child from near death on the pavement and what thanks do I get? Not even a simple thank you or tip o’ the old cap.

So next time you have that conversation about squirrels and the word “cute” comes up, never refer to the fluffy little assassins as “rats”. Refer to them as “ungrateful gutter rats”, then turn and race swiftly away to become a dot on the karmic horizon.

We could use some rain about now
The snow doesn’t really count
Because roots need warmth
Not icy tendrils to hunker under.

The sun is out and the tundra exposed
Bare and cautionary to see
Winter has done its thing
To hide as best it could;
But the surprise grows old
And predictable.

We are symbiotes you and I
Living together all these years
Like that time you took out
The old tree by the fence;
And watched the dogs
Run and play.

The bad lawn calls out for bag of mulch
And a helping hand with these weeds
that would grow in concrete if allowed;
oh, and some topsoil will help
The daffodils open and celebrate
The coming of Spring.

Such a simple word, hope.  The very act of believing it gone awakens it somehow.  Sometimes in those hours when hope seems lost, you will hear a song, see a sunrise, remember that silly thing you said, or look up at the beauty of the unattainable stars. Then, if you listen carefully the sound of hope rises like a great wind, all around us, each moment filled with memories pulling us back to the place where all things were possible; a place we never really left. We wait for hope to come round like a force of nature — to take us past the tough times and deposit us safe and sound on the distant shore — but in truth hope never comes to us.

It is us.

 

One of the advantages of living in Singapore or other country in Southeast Asia is the availability of amazing fruit, most of which I have been unable to find in the west.  The names themselves conjure up another world.

Behold:

Salak. Called the “snake fruit” because of its scaly outer coating, it houses a delicious sweet and tangy interior. It tastes a bit like pineapple, but then not. This is a characteristic of many of the fruits of this region; they taste like something you may have had before, yet are still unique.

 

Durian. Durian is known is Southeast Asia as The King of Fruits. It doesn’t smell like something you would actually eat. I believe the phrase “an acquired taste” was created expressly for the durian. The spines that form the outer covering of the durian are hard and sharp, and care must be taken in opening one. And one does not “eat” durian – one “has” durian.

 

Mangosteen. This is my personal favorite. You peel off the purple skin and expose the segmented fruit inside.  It looks all the world like a tangerine except the mangosteen segments are a brilliant white, a startling contrast to the purple skin. I could consume a dozen or more of these babies in a single sitting. The taste is an almost perfect balance between sweet and sour, a combination of strawberry and raspberry and peach and some elusive “other” flavor. The mangosteen is known as The Queen of Fruit in Southeast Asia.

If you happen to find your way to Singapore or Thailand or Indonesia or Malaysia, be sure to visit the open air produce markets, where you will find these and many more fruits to delight the senses.

As soon as you hear the sound on your roof you know it isn’t rain. It is hard and insistent like a stampede of tiny animals. The storm produces brilliant flashes tied to deep thunder trying its best to keep up. The hailstones can be cute little things, round and smooth as tiny cue balls, but sometimes they are ragged and rough like icy vagabonds hitching a ride to Earth. The largest hailstones can tear holes in the roofs of houses and dent cars at which point they cease to be mere novelties. Hail surprises because ice seems misplaced in the warm air of Spring; a remnant of winter swirling above us in the high, cold air.