The Minion
Last week Emily saw, was intrigued by, and purchased a
Venus' fly trap. She refers to it as her Minion. Her stated logic for this is that the Minion kills things for her. (When my dad was introduced to the Minion, he just made a comment about mini-onions.) Emily makes me laugh.
The other day I found a tiny spider in the living room and announced it to the household at large. Normally this would provoke Emily into escaping the room with high-pitched shrieks; this time, I suppose, she felt safe as she was, checking her e-mail on the computer across the room with the Minion perched on the desk next to the screen.
We decided it would be a good idea to feed the spider to the Minion.
Emily made me catch the spider in a piece of tissue and shake it into the Minion's container. (It came in this container, clear plastic with a lid, with the explanation that these plants prefer high humidity.) We all then watched the spider scurry around the Minion's container for a few minutes before Emily got frustrated.
She picked up the container, turned it up-side down, and shook it vigorously, screaming, "Earthquake!!!"
When the earthquake was over, we found the spider clinging to the Minion, just below one of its traps. The spider tested the footing ahead, thought better of it, and retreated back to the sides of the container.
Emily yelled at the spider for being stupid, informed it that it was now going to die a painful death in retaliation for its non-cooperation, and expressed her disappointment to the Minion at its own lack of aggression.
I got bored shortly thereafter and went upstairs.
A short time later, Emily ran upstairs after me, shrieking in maniacal sing-song, "It ate it! It ate it!"
I expressed interest, and examined the Minion to see the closed trap while Emily stroked the Minion's container, telling it, "Good Minion, I'm so proud of you!"
We have also discovered, in a separate incident (which still makes me laugh when I think about Emily's startled reaction), that the Minion will bite anything when provoked. Emily was testing its reflexes with her finger. Once she got over her surprise, she was extremely pleased with the Minion's reaction time.
--
Labels: everyday
Is anyone listening?
In general, as I share my various musings here, I really try to avoid sounding pretentious. I think that sometimes I fail at this goal. Maybe most people have zero interest in what I have to say, or maybe they find me irritating; maybe these and/or other reasons can serve as an explanation for the glaring lack of comments on my posts.
(Am I whining? I'm sorry if I sound like I'm whining. I love to complain, but I hate to sound whiny.)
Pretentiousness is a common pitfall for those who write to a perceived audience. Various people (my mother among them) have related a certain distaste for the writings of Henry David Thoreau, for example, citing an air of pretentiousness as their primary complaint. (Their other complaint, if they make one, usually contains the word "boring.") Admittedly, this may be true; Thoreau often hopped up on his little philosophical soapbox, sometimes entirely for the sake of doing so, and sometimes as an aside in the middle of an exposition on bread-making. In my own way, however, I enjoy these little tangents as well as the more mundane material in which they are couched.
(Yes, I read Thoreau. For
fun. I'm one of
those people.)
Well, at any rate, I suppose I don't have anything to say that is of great importance; I'm not famous, so there's no celebrity factor to coerce the interest of the masses. You should feel free to take it or leave it, I guess. My family may actually be the only people who ever read this. And, really, I'm okay with that possibility.
--
Labels: literature, ponderings
Where were you?
Five years today have passed since September 11, 2001. I was a senior in high school. I remember that while driving to school that morning, still mired in my usual waiting-for-the-caffiene-to-kick-in early-morning funk, I spent the first five minutes of the trip flipping through my favorite radio stations, trying to find a station that was playing music. But they were all talking, blah, blah, blah, and finally I gave up.
Then, as I was driving south on highway 119, coming down the hill to the intersection at Valmont Road, the news finally sank in. I stopped at the traffic light, had a moment in which stunned realization dawned on me, and drove the rest of the way into south Boulder listening to the news bulletins on AM radio.
When I arrived at school, I was reluctant to leave the car (and the radio), but I had to go to my 8:32 calculus class. I listened to one last breaking news item and turned off the car.
The classroom, full of seniors and a few juniors, was a-buzz with conversation; every student to walk through the door delivered the latest news they had heard. And so it happened that I was the one to inform them all of the plane crash at the Pentagon.
That entire day exists in my memory as permeated by a deep sense of surreality.
I grew up in the NYC metropolitan area. The New York cityscape, for me, has always been defined (and still is, because this is the way I remember it) by the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Now, when I see photographs of the Manhattan skyline taken within the last five years, it doesn't look like Manhattan. Something is missing.
I am one of the many who had no real personal ties to the attacks. My best friend's father was in Manhattan that day and watched the towers go down; that's as close as I came. I was lucky, I guess.
Still, it seems to me that 9/11/2001 has been one of the defining days of my early adulthood. I felt compelled, after all, to recognize it today.
--
Labels: ponderings
