Can't go over it

Can't go under it

Gotta go around it

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard are having some trouble because the water level in the creek is very low.  We need rain here, for the ducks, and to ease the grass fire threat all across North Texas.  Also to justify my lounging on the couch reading for days at a time.

The ducks' legs are one of my favorite colors.  I'm calling it carnelian today.  Another day I might call it pimento or coral.  I had some gorgeous tights that color just the other day, well, actually in 1969.  They went with this outfit and a lovely peach blouse with a fancy ruffled front that was STORE BOUGHT!  The wool outfit was lovingly and perfectionistically made by my mother.  Fritzi could do amazing things with remnants, but she tended to ignore that wool MAKES ME ITCH.  Not that I am bitter!  She also knit a sweater vest to match the tights.

The ducks look a tad silly, like first grade soccer players whose socks reach all the way up to their shorts.  The Woolly Mammoth's first grade team included a player who will not be named.  That boy's socks always went way up in his shorts, but were not enough to protect him from tiny scratches.  In a less enlightened time we might have considered this child a wimpy, weenie, cry-baby especially when he wouldn't quit sobbing for the team photo.  Get over it!!  I think I offered to buy him a Slurpee if he would quit blubbering and say "cheese" so we could all go home.

I saw that kid at a burrito restaurant recently.  He is about twenty-four years old, and completely covered with tattoos.  He has piercings on every visible surface, and probably some that were hidden, thank heavens.  Somewhere over the years his pain tolerance must have risen.  Somewhere in this ramble of ducks and needles there's a point.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder