Greetings
from the Fire Swamp
“Buttercup:
That's the fire swamp! We'll never survive!
Wesley:
Nonsense! You're only saying that because no one ever has.”
From:
The Princess Bride
Welcome
to Swamplandia! After five consecutive days of steady rain,
everything is under water. And today's forecast includes the
possibility of snow. Woohoo, bring on the locusts and the scabby
plagues! Liza is refusing to wade into the back yard to conduct her
business and I really don't have the heart to make her. Her belly is
in contact with the ground as it is, with those three-inch legs and
all.
I
know. You folks in the northern reaches are going, “Oh, please!”
and slapping your heads. We have it good down here in bayou country;
no snow to shovel, no icy roads, no tires with chains. We do. “We
are blessed,” as we like to say around here. In July we will
appreciate the fact that we had six feet of rain in January. We'll be
able to water our flowers without fear of arrest by the water-police.
One year the drought was so bad that the rich folks over in the Tiny
Kingdom, who can afford to do whatever they darn well please, had to post
signs that their “grounds” were being watered from private wells
and not from our reservoirs. We resented them even more as we watched
our parched lawns turn brown and then black. We 'holier-than-thou'
Southerners are not above a little ill will when it's well deserved.
Squirrels
are coming to my front porch in spite of the feral cat who lives
there. They look like drowned rats, little hats in hand, tails all
bedraggled, begging for a cat-food hand out. I give them stale bread
and send them on their way. “More! You want more, you say!”
I
guess all this wet is going to my head. I can't seem to be serious
this morning. Hope all is well with you. I'll try to do better
tomorrow, provided Liza and I have not taken a page from Huck Finn
and made a raft to travel down river. We'll let you know what we see
along the way.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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