July 31, 2020

The Diet of Worms

What’s on my mind? This is the story of two goldfish, a thunderstorm, and the Diet of Worms - a 500-year-old double entendre that only nerds will get. Nonetheless, this really is about the (lower-case) diet of worms.


Two goldfish entered our lives in the Summer of 2019, thanks to three years of nagging dramatic sighing on my part. Goldfish need a home, and so my long-held dream of a garden pond came to fruition. I promised Himself the pond would cost next-to-nothing, but I’ve never been much good at calculus and abacus and stuff like that so I was off a couple of digits. 


A-ny-hoo, after two garden guys dug, graveled, leveled, lined, rocked, waterfalled, rocked some more, and planted, the pond came in at $3,100 and change. Maybe a couple of hundred dollars in change, but it’s only money, I cheerfully told someone who threatened to moi-duh someone else whose names Ive repressed. These goldfish are now worth their weight in ... well, gold.


Garden pond goldfish are almost maintenance-free. The woman who ran the watering hole where I bought the fish said: “People who feed pond fish do it for themselves, not the fish. Throw them a Cheerio now and then if you feel like it, but you don’t need to.” So we didn’t. 


A brilliant example of smart marketing: Pets that don’t need feeding (in an outdoor pond, at least).


We named our goldfish Big Fish and Little Fish, mainly because they were. They thrived on mosquito larvae, slime, bacteria, and whatever other other gunk accumulated in the pond. That was last year. This year, everything changed. 


Not knowing the sex of our fish, I read a post on the Mating Habits of Goldfish, hoped for the best, and got it. This past Spring, gelatinous eggs glistened on the underside of the lily pads in our pond, exactly as the Mating Habits of Goldfish post said would happen if a fertile male and a fertile female goldfish became friends with benefits. 


Both fish paid special attention to these eggs, even assuming a vertical position in their eagerness to lap-lap-lap them. I hadn’t progressed far enough into the Mating Habits of Goldfish post to know Big Fish and Little Fish were happily eating their young - not kissing them, as I’d assumed. In the unlikely chance an infant survived egg-hood, its parents’ fishy instincts would again kick in, programming them to eat any fish younger than two weeks. 


After dabbling in cannibalism, the (presumably) remorseful and grieving Big Fish retired to her/his hiding place in the pond, while Little Fish circled the now-lonely waters on her/his own. I think the Mating Habits of Goldfish post had something in there about the Sexual Identification of boy goldfish, girl goldfish, and gefilte fish, but it was too racy for me and I ignored it. Watching Little Fish do the butterfly stroke, we saw shed grown at least an inch since Winter, so we renamed her/him Semi-Big Fish.


Big Fish stayed in her/his hiding place two long weeks. I worried s/he might be depressed, or worse, might be holding out for another taste of car-r-rne! I also worried s/he might have lost her/his taste for pond gunk and Cheerios. 


Against my Delicate Feminine Instincts, I spaded the garden for a fat, juicy worm. Dropping it into the water, I watched it drift to the bottom of the pond. 


Having never seen such a thing before, Semi-Big Fish lazed toward the worm, upon which Big Fish rocketed from her/his hiding place to snatch the worm and race round the pond, the doomed worm trailing from her/his jaws like a streamer, with Semi-Big Fish in cold-blooded pursuit.

“Himself! Come! Come now!” I screamed. (Mrs. H, our neighbor across the way, dropped her dandelion puller and immediately snapped to attention. She, for sure, would have read the racy bits in the Sexual Identification of Fish post.) 


Pedal to the metal, Semi-Big Fish chased Big Fish ’round the pond, but the worm was almost gone. “Gimme a worm! More! More! More!” I  cried. 


(Head tossed back, a light sheen of sweat shone on the eavesdropping Mrs. H's smiling face).


Himself dropped four worms into the pond: Muscling Semi-Big Fish out of the way, Big Fish scored three. Over time, we denuded the garden of worms. “Not good for the soil,” Himself muttered.


“I don’t care about the soil! Our fish are starving!” (The post about the Mating Habits of Goldfish and the Sexual Identification of Fish also had a section on the Feeding Habits of GoldfishIt was there I learned goldfish are gluttons. They’d eat a schnitzel, if they could.)


Over time and a steady diet of worms, we noticed Semi-Big Fish had grown even longer over the past few weeks. Both s/he and Big Fish were becoming heavy weights in the Goldfish Dep’t. How big is big? Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to dunk my arm in that pond. We’ve now renamed them Very Big Fish #1 and Very Big Fish #2. 


Our frantic search for worms has left the garden looking like it’s been savaged by moles. We don’t care. Last night brought a thunderstorm, followed by heavy rain - a godsend! In an effort to escape drowning, about a million worms wriggled onto the driveway and the road. 


Himself scooped up as many as he could: They were about to meet their Waterloo. 


Pavlov, take a bow: Very Big Fish #1 and Very Big Fish #2 now circle at the precise moment Himself bends over the pond, a worm in his fingers. Even after they’re stuffed full of worms, they want more, more, more! (Which would definitely have interested Mrs. H, had she not gone to take a cold shower.)


We’re exhausted. Very Big Fish #1 and Very Big Fish #2 are still growing. They now control our lives. I vaguely wonder if they’d fancy a chunk of pot roast. It’s probably time to rename them, again. We’re leaning to Moby Dick.


© Nicole Parton, 2020

July 18, 2020

Donuts, Dilly Dogs, and Despair

What’s on my mind? A very nice woman on Twitter just wrote: “You know what I need tonight? Mini donuts.”


I could go for some mini-donuts, myself. It wasn’t her comment, but the 88 “likes” and many (unedited) replies it received. Among them:


“Are these, like, gourmet/indie mini-donuts or the ever accessible Tim Bits kind?”


“Like Fair donuts, the tiny, soft, deep fried ones that dissolve in your face. There's a little place near me that serves them all summer!” 


“every night” 


“I’m going to bookmark this so I don’t forget!”


“My favorite mini donuts are the ones with powdered sugar. I can eat so many of them it’s scary”


“They just disappear into my face!”


“Are you sure you’re not thinking too small?”


“I'm quite sure I'm thinking just right.”


“I may or may not be on my way to a donut shop based on this tweet.”


(Reader posts photo of glazed donuts)


“This is true EVERY night..”


“And now you have me obsessing over fair food... elephant ears, dairy barn ice cream and dilly dogs!”


(Reader posts photo of dilly dogs - a mustard-drizzled bun stuffed with a hollowed-out dill pickle stuffed with a wiener)


“Dipped in chocolate? Powdered sugar? Sprinkles? Oh god…” 


“Cinnamon sugar.”


“I actually just bought some a little bit ago! Hit the spot!”


“I bought donuts (not minis) today!”


“that sounds... incredible. and now I want some too”


“I need many”


(Reader posts GIF of woman about to eat a full plate of food.)


 (Reader posts GIF of sugared, glazed, o-ring cereal falling in slow motion.)


“Yessssssssss”


“YES”


(Reader posts GIF of cartoon cat, resting on a pillow at the foot of a cake-laden conveyor belt, with endless iced cakes falling into the cat’s open mouth.)


“Agreed”


As I write this on Saturday, July 18 at 6:55 pm PDT, Johns Hopkins University reports there are now 14,422,091 coronavirus cases, worldwide. Of that number, 5,206,074 are in mild condition; 59,910 are in serious or critical condition.


There have now been 604,818 deaths from COVID-19. Small children now have the virus. Eleven days ago, vice-president Mike Pence declared: “We are in a good place.” 


Two hours ago, the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is attempting to block a relief bill that would fund testing, contact tracing, and the Centers for Disease Control. 


And so we seek refuge in donuts. We are not ourselves. Or maybe, we’re too much like ourselves. 


Terrified of the crazed demagogue who is the President of the United States; overcome by grief and worry for the sick, dying, and dead, we say a fast prayer for exhausted essential care workers while seeking a momentary reprieve with a donut in one hand and a dilly dog in the other. 


© Nicole Parton, 2020


July 1, 2020

Canada Day: Celebrating “Nice”

What’s on my mind? It is in the nature of Canadians to be meek and self-effacing. Just look at the colors of vehicles Canadians drive! An official survey* of cars, SUVs, and pickups swishing past on a major Canadian highway, 8,406 vehicles were identified as fawn, taupe, oatmeal, cream, beige, écru, tawny, biscuit, grey, off-white, and (screaming ambulance ... doesn’t count) white.


* Methodology: Browsing through Canadian muscle-car mags, combing car lots, staring at parked cars, zooming along the highway, inventing stats …


Divergents from the norm? One car was teal, another, blue. WHOA! Scientific psychological profiling suggests their drivers are the rebellious, “out there,” pot-smoking type, typically basking naked in mountainside Vancouver hot tubs. 


My pencil broke midway through the survey, so I wasn’t (vroom-vroom!) fast enough to add summer’s muscular black motorcycles to the count, but my best guess is that there were there were 548, give or take 373.  


A few drivers (perhaps of the gangster persuasion) flashed past in shiny black Cadillac SUVs, (the better to stash the body in, my dear …) but they’re an aberration. (Who washes those cars every day? These guys probably have underlings named Rocco or Carmine do it: “I’m on it, Boss!”)


The SUV tough guys and motorcyclist maniacs aren’t “typical.” Most of the cars, pickups, and SUVs on Canadian roads look as pleasantly staid as their kind-hearted owners. 


Travel to the States and you’ll find audacious, brazen vehicles in candy-apple red, lacquered lime, jazzed-up purple (“I never saw a purple cow … I never hope to see one …”) and don’t-mess-with-me orange (reading this, Tom?). As much as I love Americans, I haven’t visited the US since the Madman of the South took power, and won’t until he’s gone.   


I am Canadian. I chose my citizenship; I wasn’t to the manner born. As a Canadian who arrived as a toddler and committed to citizenship as an adult, I am neither meek nor self-effacing. I am brash, loud, and sometimes sharp-tongued. I occasionally roil around kicking my legs, screaming: “Hah-hah-hah-harrrghhh!” which is not typically “Canadian.” 


The typical Canadian is kind; reaches for a hankie instead of a gun; considers family, friends, and neighbors; gives before taking; empathizes with those who suffer. Canadians help - even when those helped are nameless, faceless, sexless strangers of unknown ethnicity in countries never visited. Canadians do this because such traits are embedded in our DNA and in our tax system. 


“I’ve never met a Canadian I didn’t like.” If only that were so. But the mean and the selfish and the cruel and the racist are the minority. 


I think it fair to say most Canadians are “nice” - but we could be nicer. We all need to better understand and respect those who differ from us through heritage, language, ethnicity, sexual preference, and viewpoints, just as they, in turn, need to understand and respect us.


That is who we are and must aspire to be, in this place and dream we call Canada, all of us sharing rights and freedoms under the law.


On this Canada Day, just as we celebrate Canada and Canadians, we also celebrate the opportunities this country offers those who are honest and good-hearted; those who seek refuge; those who desire to make Canada even better, just as they hope to make the world a better place.


Today, we celebrate Canadians’ “niceness.” It’s a helluva place to live, this place I chose. And yes, I drive a cream-colored car.


© Nicole Parton, 2020