Happy day...in these most interesting times, it is important to be good to one another, be you a stranger waiting to become a friend or otherwise. $8 postage is a smalI price to pay for the pleasure of smiles, the squeals of childish joy and a permanent happy story to tell about how there was this random guy on a fish web site who sent this flock of plants. If we can help one another get through a day by creating a happy memory, life becomes somehow better for those brief moments of time.
Speaking of creating a permanent happy memory for random people, some folks get to a point in life where they are told to go to a doctor and have a tube shoved up the old hoo-ha. A close friend of mine is one of those docs, and he is a bit staid and stoic and seems to tolerate me because he never really knows what I'm likely to say or do next, and the bit of randomness I provide him adds spice to his life. My wife often says that she should have her cervical spine replaced with a swivel for all the slow head-shaking I seem to cause her to do. So on this day where I was to be violated in a prison-shower sort of way, I decided that some joy needed to be added to the world. I had my wife use black magic marker and she drew two arrows pointing to that special spot and wrote enter here on one cheek and on the other, a big red heart with my friend's name below it.
My friend told me that they pretty much were in processing mode and I was wheeled in, and when they were ready they rolled me on my side and flipped back the sheet. Everything came to a screeching halt. And then the sniggering started in the slow way that it always does when someone knows something that the rest of the people in the room are about to discover. Apparently 15 minutes passed, perhaps with picture taking and pointing and knee slapping phone calls, and everyone else in the waiting room had to wait just a little bit longer while I had an extra dose of Versed to keep me down in the rabbit hole of unconsciousness.
But you know, in just that moment, with the power of a sharpie pen and a weird sense of pride, I created a permanent happy memory for everyone in the operatory that day. One day down the line some nursing student or intern is going to ask about a weird or most memorable case, and it will undoubtedly come up. The brain will gush dopamine and the story lives on. It was not without risk to me, of course. Can you imagine what my experience would have been like if I had been arrested and jailed before the ink wore off? Are you annoyed now by that string of images?
Back to the point of it all, I do communicate with my plants, the same way we all communicate with the fish. If you did not know, plants are rather musical in their communications, and so this flock has a hive-mind and telepathically conveyed their feelings about the journey in a slightly modified song. Here is a link to the song (
), and here are the words that go with it. Feel free to sing along!
Watching, waiting, rising, falling
Listening, feeding, drifting
Touching, feeling, seeing, believing
Hoping, sending, leaving
We couldn't say why we are red root floater-i
If we tried to eat a million nitrites a day
We see the shadow coming closer
Then watch it drifting away
Watching, waiting, rising, falling
Listening, calling, drifting
Touching, propogating, seeing, believing
Hoping, sending, leaving
We couldn't say why we are red root floater-i
We are traveling 1135 miles today
We see a shadow coming closer
and finally clean water hooray!
Finally clean water hooray!
