Around Here

It wasn’t quite a picnic, that April in the park. We sipped our cigarettes and lay daydreaming on the lawn. We talked of local gossip, of broccoli and queens, of phalaenopsis strategies, of beauty and of brawn, which book was best, whose ox was gored, how to sauté a spear, Tuttankamen at the Met, the busboy at The Ranch, when, in a random pause no wider than a wisp of smoke, a mockingbird’s outlandish song came flying off a branch. A gaudy cornucopia he spewed across the air; its gush, its bald exuberance waylaid the funny bone. Trills and squawks he rattled off, extravagantly long, then stopped. Our smiles remained. The mockingbird was gone.

It arrived in my mailbox today... my avidly anticipated prize package (One World, One Heart drawing) from her grace herself, Blue (the spa girl), our favorite gorgeous creature of the deep. Along with the Harney & Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice tea, came a pack of dermologica hydro-active bath salt, a foot brush, and assorted notes and notions. I glommed on to everything at once of course. Delayed gratification isn't my strong suit.