One day a little country girl bunny with a brown skin and a little cotton-ball of a tail said, “Some day I shall grow up to be the Easter Bunny: you wait and see!” Then all of the big white bunnies who lived in fine houses, and the Jack Rabbits with long legs who can run fast, laughed at the little Cottontail and told her to go back to the country and eat a carrot. But she said, “Wait and see!”
A brief excerpt from a work in progress (and no, this isn’t about the Whippersnapper):
“As I’ve stated, Miss Winter, your grandmother’s will is quite specific.” He cleared his throat and straightened his back with an ostentatious thrust of the shoulders. “She made you her primary heir. Except for cash distributions to your relatives and a few minor items like your father’s bronzed baby shoes and so on, you are to receive all of her possessions. This includes the house on Willow Lane and all of its contents, the car, as well as a bank account that will allow you to maintain the house in good order.” He smiled smugly, as bearers of news they expect to be well-received tend to do. Little did he know.
My grandmother lived through the Great Depression, seven children, her husband’s early death, a (rumored, but still) alien abduction, and a long line of vicious Siamese guard cats named Fido. She was as hard-nosed as they come. And she didn’t give anything away, ever.
I could feel the walls of her trap closing in on me, but couldn’t see them yet. I just hoped that it wasn’t too late to escape.
“Ok,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “And I get all of this for the low, low price of…?”
“The stipulations are quite clear, Miss Winter. If you follow the letter of the will all rights and responsibilities to her things will become yours, but for that to happen you must officially take possession.”
Ah. Here it was, the sticking point.
He shuffled the papers around a bit, looking for the relevant section of text. “If you do not move into the house and reside there on a permanent basis for a period of at least one full year from today, the day after her death, all goods and monies will revert to my protectorship and be liquidated, funds to go to the largest right-wing fascist group in the state.” He looked up at me with a wry expression. “The final amount would be… considerable.”
This interesting article discusses space exploration as an extension of the frontier mentality, how humanity’s complications underly a lot of science fiction, and asks, “Are the stars better off without us?”
A few years ago, in an attempt to lose myself in something other than winter lethargy, I became enthralled with The Expanse, a space drama that asks: what if humanity became a multiplanetary species? What would happen next?
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“So much of the show is about resources and scarcity and the connection between economics and history”
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It’s easy to write off The Expanse as “just” science fiction, but the ideas that the show wrestles with are important. Science fiction both holds a mirror to culture and acts as a source of inspiration.
Calvin: I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! Want to see my book report? Hobbes: (Reading Calvin’s paper) “The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes.” Calvin: Academia, here I come!
I saw my first flower buds yesterday, in a planter filled with lovely little purple crocus plants. We still have a tiny bit of snow in the yard and my mother reports snow down south, but even so it’s starting to feel like spring.
It’s good timing, too. Today is Økodag, or Dancing Cow Day in Denmark, when the country’s 200,000 organic cows leave their winter barns and head out to greener pastures. This year is extra special as the event has been on hold for the past two years.
“The cows are so happy to be outdoors, to feel the sun and the wind, that they dance,” she said. “Out in the field, a cow can also go for her favourite dishes – grass, clover, various herbs etc.”
Does my yard look tidy? It does not. We left last year’s detritus over winter and it’s still there. A lot of our neighbors started raking and clipping and blowing and trashing leaves and other plant materials as soon as they could find the grass beneath the snow, but not us.
Instead, we have Mr and Mrs Cardinal out front, perching on the Joe Pye Weed stems as they hunt for lunch among the dried maple leaves. We have squirrels coming down into the back yard to gather up mouthfuls of pine needles for nest building. We have duos of doves, clusters of chickadees, and gaggles of goldfinches growing brighter by the day. We have, in short, life.
And while it may not always be pretty, it is beautiful.
Yesterday’s rain was doing a great job of washing away the last of the snow, and a little spark told me that spring might finally be here.
A few days ago I went for a walk through the neighborhood with Mr Man. A cool breeze but bright sun, and every other driveway was occupied by an optimist with summer tires. Mr Man shook his head. Too early, he said. He was right.
We woke this morning to snow. Big, fat flakes coating the ground, the trees, the everything in a layer of white. It won’t last, but we still have a few more days before spring makes its true entrance.
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