Sunday, February 24, 2008

If You Give A Girl A Cookie

I was looking at pictures of Saturn in the newspaper and reading about how satellite photos are revealing all sorts of unexpected gases and flashing light in Saturn's atmosphere and it got me thinking: Is this what earth looked like before life, or Is this what a planet looks like after all life is wiped out, or Maybe the gases themselves are life. And then I had to admit we earthlings are so limited in our fantasies of alien life forms, always assuming they will have eyes and mouths and heads just as we do.

But maybe life on other planets comes in entirely other forms. Maybe the gas is life. Maybe viruses are alien life forms. Maybe fog and clouds are.



This all of course got me thinking about Kurt Vonnegut which got me thinking about high school which got me thinking about my own childhood, which got me thinking about how fast life goes by, how one day I was on the front lawn with my Klick-Klacks (careful they don't chip lest a shard shoot in your eye) and the next I was a single mother living in a two-family house.
This of course got me thinking about real estate, how I would like to move to a larger home but can't because Betsy is absolutely in love with the little girl and boy who live upstairs, considers them her house-siblings, which is wonderful given she is an only child, and so here I am.

Which got me thinking,which I always do, about how you never ever know what course your life will take, how one day you might find yourself choosing to stay cramped in a two-family so that your kid can shout upstairs and have an instant play-date, which got me thinking about new cars - if I can't get a new house, then maybe I can get a new car - which made me wonder just what kind of car I would get and my first thought was it has to have room for the dog which reminded me I hadn't blogged in a bit and in the meantime a dog has come into our lives.

Well she might.

She's in foster care in North Carolina because there just was not a dog in all of New England or the mid-Atlantic that I could cathect to as much as this little girl who is small and gentle and calm and in need of a home and did I mention lives in North Carolina.

But how to get her here?

And walking her in the winter? When Betsy refuses to leave the house? When I'm sick?

And the expense. Note: check price of pet insurance.

Phone homeopath and acupuncturist to get me in tip-top shape.

Can you change the name of a dog who already is a year old?

Possibly adopting this dog also got me thinking about long walks in the Arboretum, deepening the already infinite love my daughter experiences in this world, and dog collars and leashes and steaming doodies in plastic bags, which got me thinking about recycling and plastic in general and the state of our ozone, which got me thinking about atmospheric gases which got me thinking about Saturn again.

There's got to be life out there (Saturn's moon, Enceladus, is 99.9% water ice). Lord knows, I hope its frontal lobes are smaller than our own.

5 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

Nice post and it got me to thinking...
Mostly- why do people get dogs? And why do I have four?
Hmmmm.....
And could I send them up to Saturn and let them become part of the atmospheric gases?

RaJen said...

my brain works in about the same way. we adopted a foster dog - when she was SIX. Her name was Muffin. We changed it to Maggie. She's nine now. Was thankful we changed it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/29475359@N00/495531596/in/set-72157600086526205/

Anonymous said...

Maybe my contacts are fogging up, but did anyone else notice that the clouds in the left hand photo look just like a large Easter bunny?

Are You My Mothers? said...

Oh, it's most definitely a bunny. From the great planet Hare.

Janet said...

Well you needn't worry about changing the name of the dog as that is really easy (at any age).

Say new name + feed treat. New name + treat. New name dogs looks at you feed treat.

- The Queer dog trainer.