Everything

I can appreciate the expression "can't see the forest for the trees" but I've always wondered if the other way around is perhaps more profound: can't see the trees for the forest.

It seems to me that our lives are like stories but in the thick of them the plot may be unclear and so it's the details, the particulars, the fine points, that mean everything.

Chicken, out.

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Why did the chicken cross the road? Good question, because I hit it with my car on my way to work.

The whole thing took seconds but I recall everything in slow motion. I saw that prairie chicken emerge from the grass at the side of the road. Like all those Roadrunner cartoons I watched on repeat as a kid, its back legs spun like wheels, its neck extended as forward as possible, so fixated, so intent on reaching its destination, like any moment it might catapult like a missile.

Despite some part of me cheering it on, I knew what was imminent because that chicken was simply too far from that elusive other-side-of-the-road. Why the rush chicken? Why did you need to cross the road at that precise time? Were you being chased by Wile E. Coyote? Was an anvil about to drop from somewhere? What’s on the other side? An important meeting? A manicure? The pub? A KFC protest? Who knows, because even though that prairie chicken reached the center line (narrowly avoiding an oncoming truck)...boom: feathers. Chicken, out.

Sorry chicken.

Later at work, I pulled it out of my grill and threw it in a dumpster. Now that’s a bummer of a Friday.

I must say there are things we can all learn from that chicken. We all recognize the meaning behind “running around like a chicken with your head cut off,” and yet, based on this incident, I can tell you that even with his head attached that chicken looked super frazzled. Peeps, getting from point A to point B shouldn’t be so stressful. Just what is SO IMPORTANT on the other side of the road?

Not much. Most of what we worry about never happens. But stress (the result of an overloaded nervous system repeating "imminent threat imminent threat") compels us to believe the best time to cross the road and get to the other side (whatever that may mean to each of us) is yesterday. Some would argue against this vehemently, but let’s be honest: we all have the same amount of time every day. Until suddenly, we don’t. So if you get my meaning, slow down chickens. Slow down.

Let's talk turkeys, shall we?

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Even though I’m terrified of turkeys, I once read a storybook about a turkey living on a farm. It’s almost Thanksgiving and so naturally, the turkey is a tad worried. While being chased by an axe-wielding farmer, the turkey disguises himself as various other farm animals to avoid the axe. For example, he rolls around in the mud pretending to be a pig. The farmer sees through this and every other one of his ruses but just before the axe can fall, turkey’s farm friends yell, “Run turkey RUN!” Spoiler alert: the turkey manages to dodge the farmer and the family has grilled cheese sandwiches for Thanksgiving.

Three things about this little Thanksgiving yarn:

1. Grilled cheese sandwiches are pretty great.
2. Turkeys are idiots.
3. All turkeys must die.

Okay that last point might be a tad harsh but it’s borne from my hatred for turkeys (at least those not basted with butter, stuffed with bread, and about to be served on a platter with potatoes and carrots). Anyway, here’s something else I think we can all learn from this story:

1. Thanksgiving is not a turkey. In other words, not every year goes as planned. Be together anyway. Be thankful anyway. Celebrate having enough instead of having more.
2. If your friends have helped you out, tell them. Go back and tell them. You may never get another chance.
3. Sometimes the turkey can’t be killed. (Stay with me here.) In other words, chasing those elusive whatevers in our lives may be counterproductive, even futile. Is it really what you want? Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate goals. There’s a time to persist and there’s a time to reinvent. And if I’m wrong about this one, if you choose to persist, then go ahead and blow that turkey’s head off.

(If you're a Canuck like me, a happy Thanksgiving to you this weekend!)

Just so you know, the answer is no.

La Maison du Bagel
Montreal, QC, Canada

Are all bagels the same?

Yum.

Things one should never outgrow:

sudden rainbows.

#alwaysasurprise

Have you seen...?

We don't know WHAT TO DO?!?!

Our flowers were plantknapped [sic] right out of the front yard! *gnaws on fist*

They told us not to be "heroes," aka DON'T CONTACT THE AUTHORITIES but we had to do something. They even used the word "deadhead." *lip trembling* 

We hope they contact us soon. PLEASE.

Memory Lane Meanderings

    Lots of guys love hunting. I'm not a hunter though. Yet, I've killed several animals. (Don't hate me.)
    Every single animal I killed was by accident. Well, except one. Okay, two. But I only considered killing one and I didn't! But one other may have died later. This is all sounding very shady, isn't it? Let me explain.

1. I was about five. My cousins and I were playing with the new batch of kittens, unsupervised. Were any kids supervised in the 1970s? Anyway, I recall climbing a ladder to our attic, and I'm sure I dropped one of the kittens we were basically handling like toys. Remember Lennie Small in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. It was sort-of that kind of thing, minus the mice or men. Anyway...
2. When I was about ten, my Mom let me have one of the fuzzy yellow goslings as a pet. I made a little fence in our farmyard. I dug a small pond and filled it with water. Classic farmboy stuff. After school one day, I returned home to discover a bantam rooster carrying around my gosling in its beak. That bastard rooster broke my goose's neck. I went completely postal and killed the rooster with a two-by-four. Yeah. Childhood anger issues.
3. My third animal death, again involving a kitten, occured when I was about eleven. Let's just call this the La-Z-boy recliner episode. 'Nuf said. Yeah. Grimace. Not pretty. I had a complete anxiety attack.
4. I hate turkeys. They peck. And they like to hang out in schoolyards. All puffed out with that disturbing wattle. They're terrifying. Believe me. Barely a teen, I returned home one day and one particulary agressive gangsta' turkey was waiting for me on our front step. So I chased it away then it chased me away then I threw a rake at it and broke its neck. Yeah I freaked. Not proud.
5. I ran over a dog while on a date. We witnessed its prolonged death throes. She cried. I dry-heaved. The farmer came out and shot it. Worst. Date. Ever.
6. After years of cleaning the fish bowl that my children repeatedly assured me they would clean every Saturday, I contemplated the perfect goldfish murder: a few drops of bleach. My conscience wouldn't let me though.
7. We hit a moose. Little then, my kids were in the back seat. It floated, spectral-like, across the road on a foggy March night. In the split seconds before we rolled it into the ditch off our bumper, I debated: death by snowpacked ditch or death by oncoming traffic? I chose the moose. After we determined that everyone was unhurt and our vehicle had sustained only minor damage, I remember asking my kids: what did I say? My six-year-old son explained that I yelled MOOOOOOOOSE and my eight-year-old daughter noted that my wife yelled F*!K three times. Ah yes, family moments.