BlackPearl of Shadow

[ismo]

Dept. of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (Or perhaps more accurately, No Attempted Good Deed Escapes Its Unintended Consequences): We have a good many packets of candy left over. While waiting for my dinner to warm up, I thought I'd pass the time virtuously by ripping them open and dumping the M&Ms into a dish rather than having an untidy heap of squashed packets. The packet went POP and small candies scattered everywhere, including INTO THE TOASTER. Oh joy . . . well, isn't there some kind of a device for removing crumbs? I found the little slide and pulled it out. Whoahhhh . . . what a heap of crumbs whooshed out! But not the M&Ms. They were too big to fit through the slit via which the crumbs exited. After turning the toaster over and shaking it vigorously for some time, another shower of burnt crumbs emerged, and finally the errant candies, none the worse for wear thanks to their patented sugar shell. I then cleaned up about half a cup of crumbs. A blessing in disguise, I suppose, since I have received a helpful reminder to de-crumb the toaster MUCH more frequently.

Today being All Souls Day, we drove out to the cemetery west of town to visit the graves of the Sparrowhawk's paternal grandma and grandpa, his step-grandma and grandpa, and his mother's sister and her husband, all beloved and missed people. The brass marker for his grandmother was nearly buried in the grass. Fortunately, we anticipated this and brought a trowel, clippers, and a whiskbroom, and with these I hacked away at the sod till it was nicely cleared off again. This is how people disappear. As I wrote in a poem once, "I think how fast the grass grows tall/On all our memories--/Of how the weeds erase a road,/As sleep smooths out the weather in a face./I think how grass hides bank and ditch and all/I think about the grass on graves." Anyway . . . Great masses of gray cloud moved across the sky, driven by a cold wind. Every now and then a brilliant flood of sun poured through and illuminated the trees on the drive home. The apple stand next to the road, where we stopped last time we were out this way, had closed for the season, so it was lucky that the Sparrowhawk got some last Saturday at the farmers market.

Tiny pellets of frozen moisture, not quite developed enough to be snow, spattered the windshield as we drove. I put my sweater on for the first time this year, and left it on for the rest of the day. It was cold out there!

Comments

reality: always with the helpful reminders

[siriosa]

hey. sometimes the reminder is "WHY IS THE TOASTER ON FIRE?"
just sayin.

[oracne]

I turned on the furnace last night.

Re: reality: always with the helpful reminders

[ismo]

Yes, the dance of the tiny candies was a much more pleasant reality check than "Hey, dumbass, yer toaster is on fire!" My reality check voice is rude and has a Jersey accent.

[ismo]

Ours is on too--in spite of the down comforter on the bed.