Muskrat love.

Dear reader, I want to speak to a specific subset of the population, so if you are not part of that population, feel free to skip this blog entry. I want to speak to any of you who may be rodents. Especially those of you who live in the fields or forests abutting a high-speed highway.

I had a delightful ice cream outing afternoon with the Chocolate Whisperer and the Breakfast Czar. We chatted and ate ice cream, enjoying the early summer weather.

On my way back from our outing, as I drove my normal way home. I viewed some horrific sights. Mile after mile I saw rodent after rodent lying still on the side of the road. This has got to stop. Dear reader, if you are a raccoon, opossum, squirrel or even a capybera , you must learn how to safely cross the road. Or, better yet, instead of crossing the road, stay where you are.

Is this a status thing? Do you feel that your dam, sand hill or acorn-filled nest is inadequate? Have you by any chance talked to a flying squirrel who soared in with wild stories of gold-lined nests, servants delivering mixed nuts on silver platters and dams made from the finest teak? Remember, flying squirrels have a propensity for gossip. Rest assured, the grass isn’t greener on the other side of the freeway. Trust me on this. And stop trying to keep up with the Joneses. Your maple and elm twig dam is fine, mighty fine. Your acorn stash is remarkable. And that sand mound, well, I’ve never seen a sand mound so sandy…or moundy. Good job.

So please, please, stay home and stop crossing the highway. But, if you really have a need to cross the highway, be careful and look both ways or better yet, take a traffic safety class from your local police department.

humor

Dear Reader,

I hope you don't mind if I get a bit personal here and let you in to Agatestone's psyche. OK. As I've said before, I really value humor. I am always attempting, sometimes unsuccessfully, to make my e-mails and other correspondence as humorous as possibly. But this week, that has not been the case. Let me give you an example. In the past, an e-mail from Agatestone might look like this:

Dear Breakfast Czar, Joke. Joke. Joke. Issue I’m writing about. Joke. Funny observation. Sign off.

But now, my e-mails are starting to resemble this pattern:

Dear Chocolate Whisperer, Potato. Potato. Potato. Issue I’m writing about, peppered with many grammar errors. Potato. Unfunny observation. Sign off.

I don’t know what’s wrong. Maybe I need to take vitamins or something. How does one activate one’s humor gene? If this keeps up, I may have to think about becoming a dramatist. Don’t get me wrong, I respect drama and writers of drama. I just don’t know how I could go on, writing about the wind on the Moors. Orphans dealing with chiding and unfriendly headmistresses. Famines, floods, and then another famine, family discord, and one’s wife getting pissed at you because you gave her jewelry to your concubine in early 1900’s China.

All those situations I like to read about, but not necessarily do I like to write about them. But, perhaps this is my fate dear reader.

True confessions Friday.

Here’s my deep dark secret. When I’m eating alone, salad becomes a finger food. I only use a fork and knife to devour salad when I’m in the company of others, or out in public. As is well known, the Breakfast Czar and I are not admirers of salad dressing. So, when I am alone and eating a salad with my fingers, rest assured there is no dressing on it. My dream salad is a dry salad. Not dry like an arid desert, but dry as in not covered with oily residue. Kind of like a sea lion that has escaped unscathed from an oil spill in some faroff Alaskan bay.

Why am I bringing this up? Because today I carried out a salad for lunch. It was a fine salad, but I had this incredible urge to eat it with my fingers. I didn’t. I resisted that urge, as I was at work and anyone could have witnessed my bad manners. But, I had that urge nonetheless.

Paschal lamb.

Somebody needs to explain to me Easter iconography. I decided to decorate Easter eggs today. It was on a whim. I figured my mother would enjoy doing an Easter craft, as the family Agatestone wasn’t doing anything else to commemorate the holiday. So, I went through the page of stickers with which we could decorate the eggs. I understand the spring picture-endowed stickers, such as a little lamb, a butterfly and two smiling daisies. What I don’t understand is the sticker depicting a turtle bedecked a red hat and licking a tulip. A mouse wearing red polka dotted bandana, being carried aloft by three balloons. A smiling snail wearing a red and blue hat, and lastly, a bird shod in black and white saddle shoes and also adorned with a hat, this time red. What does a mouse, snail and a turtle signify in the Christian tradition? And why are all the animals wearing various colored hats? Anyone?

Maple cream.

I observed an extraordinary feat recently. I was lucky enough to witness a cousin exhibiting her fluency in assorted filled chocolates. Without availing herself of the map or legend usually provided on the box, she can look at a piece of chocolate and describe what delightful surprise awaits you. How wondrous and enviable it is to have such powers.

One of the four questions.

Although we’re in the thick of Passover, the Seders are now behind us. The Seders went smoothly…for the most part. Confusion did arise as to whether our ancestors were wandering Arameans or perhaps, wandering Armenians. And I’m not quite sure that the debate over Aramean vs. Armenian was sufficiently cleared up to everyone's satisfaction.