Birds of a Feather...

So here's today's episode - Mr. Ireland's Mum and Brother are staying over for a few weeks:

Akethan: Did i tell you about the bird juice?

Sister: uuugh

Sister: bird juice?

Akethan: Mr. Ireland's brother - K - said he needed a few things from the store - crispix, milk, white grape juice... so I picked 'em up and they were here for him when he got here

Akethan: after the first day or so - he finished the white grape juice off

Sister: ok

Akethan: everytime he goes for juice - he gets a new glass - at the end of each day there are glasses all over the house.... i keep

Sister: <~~~skerred

Akethan: collecting them and washing them and putting them away

Akethan: then -- yesterday i noticed they all had a red juice left in them

Akethan: i looked around and couldn't figure out where this red juice was coming from

Akethan: so when they were all sitting in the living room (Mr. Ireland, Mum, K)

Akethan: i asked - "Hey, what is this red juice - ?"

Akethan: everyone just sat there and then K got up and came over to look

Akethan: i asked - "Where is this coming from?"

Akethan: he stuttered that it was juice he found in a jar in the fridge

Sister: oh no

Sister: hummingbird food?

Akethan: puzzled i walked over to the fridge and looked inside and then bust out laughing

Akethan: he had finished off a gallon of hummingbird juice

Sister: oh my lord

Akethan: *can we have a 'grandma f memorial moment'*?

Sister: uhuh

Akethan: we were all in tears. he's mildly Rain Man - and got a bit flustered.

Sister: when do they leave?

Akethan: i said - now K, it's just sugar and water - no harm to you - don't get yer feathers ruffled.

Sister: i would say poor man but cant bring my self to quit laughing

Footnote = Grandma F - a dear soul who liked to sit on the sofa for days watching PRICE IS RIGHT - was found munching serenely on dogfood which my mom kept stored in an old Charles Chips can. She didn't bat and eyelash when I told her that wasn't a snackfood but kibble. She lived through the Depression, she informed me.

Mouse or Elephant?

I read today that "the recipe for a mouse is much the same as the recipe for an elepant."

Yet they differ.

Some in my family speak racism with comfort and ease.

I ask if my discomfort stems from my disagreement with their views or an echoic sympathetic twinge - an acknowledgement that this is the stock I am from; so is racism a part of who I am?

If someone's dander is raised at the lowering of another confederate flag, a flag stitched in haste to represent a potential new nation whose core philosophy was an independent will to preserve its historic industries. At the cost of human life and dignity. This new nation's flag was intended to wave high its own beliefs, its separate strengths and disparate weaknesses. And it's right to dominate the beliefs and strengths of another people.

It is a waste of fabric to continue to sew this flag in this day and age. It is only a "tradition" in its deliberate perpetuation.

And if you're angry that the general public cries, "Take it down and put it away."

Take it down and put it away.

"It's just something else that THEY'VE taken from us."

What is being taken from you? Your heritage? Something to be proud of?

Something I should be proud of?

I love you and admire you. I aspire to be like you.

I am you. Your recipe.

Are we mouse or elephant?

TETHERS

Six o’clock this morning when
Death caught up with us and decided
the whole world would go untouched
but for you my tawny friend

I think Death was a little spiteful
since we’d snatched seven hours from yesterday
when he arrived where you should have been
to find I’d stolen you away

Unbound you lay by my side at home
my belly against your back
breathing soft, purring low
my fingers across your pain

Six o’clock this morning when
I heard a small chime ring – I woke
in time to watch you steal away again.