If you read this little blog long enough, you know that I am way too compulsive to let my hair go unblown-out for an entire day, and surprisingly, during those 10- minute blow dryer sessions I happen upon some deep thoughts every now and again.
For instance, we are becoming one of those crazy homeschool families with the bugs and science projects strewn about the house. Kaydn Rye's latest project is a butterfly garden, which I got from Insect Lore. For some reason the price on this says $24.00, but I got it for probably $12.
But anyway, so the caterpillars come in the mail, which I thought was a really weird concept - to mail insects - and that morning as I'm blow drying my hair I start thinking of the caterpillars and cocoons, which Kaydn Rye somehow learned are chrysalides. So I started thinking of chrysalides. A chrysalis. Chrysalis. Ah, yes, Silence of the Lambs. That's where I know that term. You know, when Clarice extracts the moth cocoon, or chrysalis as Hannibal calls it, from the dead girl?
I think it goes something like this....
Lector:Was it a butterfly?
Clarice:Yes. A moth.
Clarice:Just like the one we found in Benjamin Raspail's head an hour ago.
Clarice:Why does he place them there, Doctor?
Lector:The significance of the moth is change.
Lector:Caterpillar into chrysalis, or pupa,
and from thence into beauty.
Our Billy wants to change, too.
I think that was the first time I'd ever heard that term, chrysalis. And don't ask me why I have thoughts of moth cocoons lodged in the throats of dead bodies, but I guess that's just the sort of stuff that floats around in there.
So from there I went on to how I would be Clarice right about now, discussing lambs and lotion with serial killers if only I would have stuck out the original plan of riding the job with the Department of Homeland Security all the way to the F-B-I.
But that was not to be. Instead I wipe butts and summarize odd and sundry jury trials for the reading pleasure of attorneys across the land.
After my wonderful blow dry experience, I proceeded down stairs to get at least a couple jury verdict commentaries written up before noon, and after that I figured I'd maybe get in my P90X sometime before 10 o'clock that night and I proceeded to the DVD player.
Instead of spending a magical 15 minutes with the wonderful Tony Horton, I hunched over the tv and proceeded to look out the window for probably five minutes.
There was a bird on the tree outside bopping his head around, and there were, of course, the carcasses of the many dead weeds in the yard that just won't completely shrivel up and blend in to the grass. Then I started thinking about my first fall in Memphis.
They have these abhoringly atrocious weeds down there called lawn onions. They really actually are onions, and they grow, everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. We knew nothing of how you must kick the onions in the butt before they grow butts, so we ended up being the clodhoppers with all the onions in our yard until we became smarter than the onions. I don't know how many times I had to spray those suckers before they finally curled up and died, but I actually remember one afternoon I was sitting at the kitchen table doing some work for most likely my Chaucer class (nothing says a great afternoon like The Canterbury Tales) when I became physically unable to function because of the sight of all the weeds in the yard.
So I went outside and started pulling them out of the ground, all 1 million, nine hundred and eighty six thousand, two hundred and fifty-four of them. I was probably out there for roughly three hours maybe, but once all the onions were pulled up, I had won a tiny victory for the South.
Looking back on it now though? I have to say, while there were at that time millions of starving people in the world just waiting for someone to stop on by with a loaf of bread, I was out in my yard pulling weeds for three hours.
That was about the end of the deep thoughts for the morning.
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3 Reactions:
Those are some deep thoughts! I have caught myself thinking while pulling weeds, that this act is so insignificant in life. Why do we spend so much time doing this? I never thought I would care about weeds - I grew up in the country. Now, I live in a subdivision, new houses, new lawns. There is something about working outside that I enjoy, but do the weeds really matter? No. But I don't stop.
I learn something new on the Internet every day - lawn onions? Never heard of them!
I had to laugh when I read the Chaucer bit. I hated Chaucer in college - having to read it, translate it, understand it. One big UGH.
I remember lawn onions! I have never seen Silence of the Lambs because it scares me so much. I have to admit that I skipped over the part you wrote because I was too scared to even read the lines. What is wrong with me?
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