This Really Happened

Today, while walking within the urban confines of the city of Syracuse:

• I was startled by a jackrabbit right in front of me near the Franklin Square P.O.
• then another one by Onondaga Creek
• stood on a bridge over the creek, a bridge not trespassed by 90% of said city's residents
• while walking, picked up litter: Newport 100s box [they are ubiquitous], a meant-to-be funny, naughty greeting card, a pizza box
• was rewarded warmly by 8th graders exuberantly "graduating" from a city school
• saw a three-legged dog and was spared heartbreak after listening to the owner tell the dog's story
• saw my cat almost kill a sparrow
• I rescued the sparrow
• but the cat had the final say
  
• ultimately
• what -- save sparrows and kill ants?
• I would've shot the woodchuck digging up the backyard but have no weapon
• would I have?
• saw a man with red glasses; he said he has many others, many other colors
  

antie-septic

Weird, isn't it, how -- now that I'm not as avidly hunting them -- I hardly ever see ants on the counter or cabinets. Is it me? Or is it Memorants?

Adios, Bloomsday

Ave atque, farewell goodbye, draw to a cathedral close, this halcyon Joycean protean day nominated in the wordwomb of Bloom, passing by his Ulysses-sired sirens, bleating sheepishly.

Harpyhappy bloomin' Bloomsday!

Harvests of harpy happy blooms of bloomer bombast as we walk the Dublin streets with Leopold Bloom again in our mind in our eyes in our words, avoiding stumbling on the curb the cobblestone of too many consonants, mate.

Today appropriately enough is also the anniversary of the start of this august (no, it's June) and sometimes jejune blog.

Happy 5th Blogger Anniversary to The Laughorist and my nom de web, Pawlie Kokonuts.

out on bail

Were you stopped in your tracks by my last post, titled "arrested"?

Alas, no criminality is implied, inferred, intuited, imagined, initiated, conjured, conjectured, or ANTicipated.

I am out on bail, id est, carried free, unburdened, bucketed, transported away from the heart-stopping goldfinch vision of reality to the quotidian tasks of "this very day," a phrase of Soren Kierkegaard.

arrested

a flicker

a flash

blurred

goldfinch

stopped my breath

forced me to stare

a shining living bauble

of yellow

delight

more saffron than

sunflower

than lemon

pulsing

radiance

caught

Antagonist Update

Did not see or maim or kill any ants today, although reports indicate other family members cannot make such innocuous statements.

Antie Maim

I did not knowingly or deliberately kill or maim any ants today, to the best of my antcollection, I mean, recollection.

I saw one or two ants on the cabinets in my background or peripheral vision today and chose to ignore them. So then, the Battle of Antitthem was put on hold.

lobster? or crab?

"I should been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas." -- T.S. Eliot in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

And would such scuttling claws pinch their pincers to pick up any scurrying underwater ants?

(Just aiming for the high-brow, even if it's a stretch scientifically.)

antics, again

Getting either more spiritual or lazier (not necessarily opposites, right?): killed only two ants today.

But I think I only saw two ants. And how many did the ant traps silently and slowly execute?

Maybe, just maybe, the next ant I see, I'll say, "Hi, as you were, keep walking; plenty of room here on the planet for both of us. Leave our cereal alone, though."

ants in my pants -- not yet

This morning my daughter goes to eat her Honey Bunches of Oats breakfast cereal and decides to throw out the whole package, upon finding bunches of ants, honey, in the cereal. Cereal killer, those ants. Or us. I thought it was an extreme, um, antic, to discard the whole contents ["contants"??], but, hey, the dog had just thrown up on the kitchen floor. We were under *ant*icipatory duress; she had a bus to catch.

Maybe we should surrender in the sense of simply regarding the ants as food, sans chocolate.

Or live in "peaceable kingdom" harmony with the ants. Let it / them be.

It is futile to crush the happenstance ant crawling into or out of the cabinet and to fight off the low hum of guilt as I rub my fingers together to expunge the dusty insect remains. As with most wars, strategies need to be reconsidered.

Are the ant traps working but more slowly than anticipated?

What about the Ortho Home Defense Indoor Insect Killer ("use with confidence around food, children & pets")? ("Made with pure orange peel extract.") Is the "confidence" noted on the label for the welfare of the food, children, and pets? Or confidence in the death of the ants? I sprayed some on paper towels and rubbed the walls and cabinet doors and edges. Hey, maybe it chased the ants into the cereal boxes and other boxes! By the way, the plastic container with tight lid? -- the one I told spouse and daughter to buy to protect against ants? -- it sits in the cabinet. Empty. Bare. Naked. No cereal or anything else in it.

Stay tuned to see if this blog is crawling with more antie-bellum words next time.

antsy

Why do they so annoy me?

Will they swarm my bread?

What are their numbers?

I've killed perhaps 28 ants today, or maybe 17. I think two have gotten away. "Gotten away" means gleefully slipped into the cabinet, running under and around glasses, cups, mugs. Smirking?

How have I allowed this to become a real-life video game?

What is the source of my murderous pleasure as I squash them, rubbing the dust of the ants off on my clothes? (Awkward question; lots of prepositions.)

The ant traps are so much less direct, so much more passive. They require a certain degree of patience -- and faith that they will work.

They are ants.

They say I am human.

Can I write this off as some macabre and quotidian fiction?

May I?

Who would expose my lies?