salmon and ladybugs

Friday, feb. 28, 2003   |   0 comments

Listening to an archived Fresh Air interview of Mister Rogers this morning, I burst into tears THREE separate times. I’m pretty sure that if Mister Rogers had died next year, or two years ago, I’d be choked up about it, but I feel as though there’s something unique about “these times” and “this world we live in” that leaves me especially vulnerable to Mister Rogers’ particular brand of thorough and consistent goodness. I mean, was that man not a baby angel? Sent down from heaven?

Last night I made myself a salmon steak and steamed up an artichoke and dipped every glorious leaf into a vat of lemon butter. Holy shit was it good. Marbles was very interested in the salmon, all jumping up on the table and pacing back and forth and chirping at me. So I gave her a small sliver and she marched it over to the back of the couch to eat it. Only instead of eating it she dropped it down the crack between the wall and the couch. And no matter how hard I searched, even though I pulled the couch out and patted down the floor and the wall and checked her paws for hidden slivers of pink meat, I couldn’t find it. But I’m guessing that in a few weeks, when that salmon really starts to ripen, I’ll have no problem locating it. No problem!

In other news, I saw a businessman walking down the street with one arm held stiffly out in front of him. At first I thought he’d had a stroke or was holding a puppet, but when he got closer, I could finally see what all the fanfare was about: he had a little pet ladybug sitting on the back of his hand! Could there be anything more magical than a businessman walking down these mean, city streets with a ladybug on his arm?

There was also a dead person at my bus stop, right out in front of Old Navy. That wasn’t quite as nice.