Nov 21 2005 Ah, those enticing titles in spam I have received in the last week encouraged me to put some of them together into the following ode:

Impotency can easily be cured with no embarrassment
Don’t be inadequate anymore!
CHEAPEST WAY THAT WORKS TO BIGGER YOUR DICK next
You CAN have sex like you used to!
We have the convenience of ordering performance enhancers
72% of members got laid
Paul Silva efferent
Make all the stress go away
Connection dropped, sorry

Nov 16 2005 I’m not sure what to do with various animal sightings over the last few weeks. I have written before about the coyote. This past weekend was a fox encounter…well an almost encounter. I was in Babler Park riding alone. I had the feeling when I mounted up that I would see a fox. And I was apprehensive about that since the last sightings of foxes in those woods had been when my father in law had just been felled with a stoke and then, weeks later, right before he died. The fox (or foxes) I saw then was a small grey vixen (and I wrote a poem about this experience). So, after about a half an hour riding, and thinking about seeing a fox, I saw a family on a parallel trail standing looking over the hill to an area I could not see. The man had a baby on his back in a pack. They looked like veteran hikers. When he saw me slow as I came near them, he told me there was a fox nearby and pointed. I thanked him and rode on. I really did not want to actually see the fox.

I had heretofore always enjoyed seeing foxes. Big red males used to parade outside my office window, sauntering up through the pasture. As development has taken place around us, they have all but disappeared. We did see one small dead female (I have a poem about this, too) before the ones at Babler. Recently, right before my mother in law went into the hospital and needed a pacemaker, our housekeeper told me she had seen a grey fox up near my stable.

So, I am wary about foxes. But overall, they seem benign, even helpful. See, for example,

http://www.linsdomain.com/totems/pages/fox.htm
http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/ecolodge/197/fox.html,
http://www.crystal-cure.com/fox.html, and
http://www.betterliving.co.nz/content/theFamily/new-age/Totem-Animal-Fox.aspx

I hope I will get some insight into what I’m experiencing and what’s going on.

Nov 19 2005 I had not planned to go riding today, but it was sunny with the promise of reasonable temperatures and the prediction that tomorrow would be cloudy and colder. I cleaned up Rosie and headed for Babler State Park.

You could see the forest for the trees. You could see to the farthermost hills. Way off in the distance were the bluffs on the other side of the Missouri River. Beautiful horse farms and grand houses were clearly visible down in the valleys outside the park. Small ruins off the trail emerged from hiding behind summer brush. There are so many small stone sheds, buildings, rubble all over the park. I always wonder what they were when this was Dr. Babler’s estate.

I started about 10:00 and rode till just before noon. The fall/winter sun is at an angle that the trees cast long shadows. In the first hour, these shadows crossed the trail at right angles to my direction, giving the impression of railroad ties. As the sun arced a bit higher, the shadows were at an angle. With the brown leaves on the ground and the black tree shadows, it was like a rich layer cake.

Nov 08 2005 A good friend took us out to dinner for my birthday at a Brazilian restaurant. The food was good, but it was a weird experience overall. Our waiter came over and asked if we wanted something to drink. Three imported beers were listed with one of them Corona. So, I asked about the other two and whether they were light or dark. He said that one was light and one dark, but he did not know which was which. I told him to bring me the light one. He got about 20 feet from the table and said: “You want the dark one?” I told him I wanted the light one. Then, about two minutes later, he said again: “The dark one, right?” I said: “This is the third time I have told you I want the light one.”

When it came time to ask questions about the menu, he was clueless. This, it seems, was his second night on the job and he “hadn’t learned the menu yet.” So, with every question we asked, he had to ask someone else. And he had some really helpful explanations like: “We have two dressings. One is a vinaigrette we make here and the other is a creamy one we make here.” No clue what was in either of them. Time went by and we got our main courses. I had rack of lamb and the other two had different Brazilian fish. All dishes were excellent. Our friend had asked for beans instead of rice, but she got beans and rice. This was after the waiter asked another waiter how to note on the ticket that this was a substitution.

About five minutes after we had been served our main courses, the waiter showed up at the table and said something like this: “Would it be okay if you paid your bill now? They want to send me home and I cannot go with an outstanding bill.” I asked if it could just be transferred to another waiter and we could specify a tip for him. No, that was not possible, but he would be willing to stay until we were done. We told him we were not willing to pay in the middle of our meal.

While we were eating, he came by again to say how he had worked in a Vietnamese restaurant and how this place was all about celebrating life. Hmmmm. Then, while I was still eating, he wanted to know if we wanted dessert or coffee. We told him to wait until we were all finished. He came back. I asked for a dessert menu. He said that dessert consisted of three flavors of a custard cake and that they were out of everything else (which we learned was not true).

Our friend went and talked to the resident manager about our experience so far. About this time, our waiter brought the check. It was wrong. He had neglected to charge us for a main dish. Our friend sent it back saying that someone should check it since it did not seem right. After about five minutes, the waiter came back and said, as he dropped the check onto the table and made haste to get away: “You saved me from paying for that. Just keep the tip.” Funny. We had just been talking about whether to leave him any tip at all.

After he had taken the corrected check and a credit card up front, the resident manager came back with the credit card and told us the meal was on them and how sorry they were about our experience. Another waiter came over and wanted to know if they could give us some dessert or coffee. On our way out, I heard our waiter telling another waiter that he had been fired.