Lifetime Sulk

“I hate all injustices. 

The big ones make me furious. 

The smaller ones make me sulk.”

Daphne, “A Lifetime of Sulking,” 

from her blog My Dad’s a Communist, 

Wednesday Sept. 29, 2010 

(you can find it in the column to the right of this one)

When I read this in Daphne’s blog, it was like getting hit with a brick. “THAT,” I realized, “is why I’ve been in a funk for the past couple of weeks.” I’ve been sulking. Not over something new, just recent additions to small injustices that add up over a lifetime. 

I think many people eat when they sulk. That does me no good. Raw bell peppers and cauliflower  don’t have the same effect that donuts and chocolate would. So I just stew and snarl, mostly to myself. Katherine and Melanie and son Bob were kind enough to put up with me, or maybe they just plugged their ears and nodded and smiled and it seemed like they were being kind. Whatever, I appreciate it.

But I didn’t want to drag the rest of you along, so I have been waiting until the mood passed. The causes were nothing serious: new rules at work and another bout with Dr. Rockhead, the podiatrist. 

Because the podiatrist told me to stay off my foot, I didn’t get to hear either of the girls sing. I didn’t know how much walking it would entail and had a foot appointment in the middle of the day on Wednesday, so that messed up the plan to go to Napa, see Joan Tuesday, stay overnight and see Emmy Lou the next night.

And because I was supposed to stay off my foot, instead of getting the garden ready for fall, I’ve been sitting on my butt and reading a lot. I downloaded 3 books to my Kindle. All were about how to deal with doctors. My favorite is Empowered Patient by Elizabeth Cohen. I didn’t learn much new, but it was reaffirming. And having some suggestions for civil behavior kept me out of trouble.

I also watched a lot of Farscape on my laptop. I got a DVD of all four seasons. Right now I’m at the end of season 2. Beverly says DVDs of the old Highway Patrol shows are also available. I can see them for free on Hulu, not sure I need my own copies, they’re pretty corny.

Real life doesn’t stop on a farm just so someone can sulk. The leghorn's leg has healed entirely and very well. I tried to reintroduce her to the layer pen, but she prefers being in the house. Really. I'm not OK with that, but haven't been able to get out there and find a better solution yet.

There are 4 new baby pigeons. The latest were just hatched last night. 



The stupid parents left the nest when the eggs pipped and never went back to it. When I brought the eggs in, they were very cold and I could barely see any movement in them when I candled them. I put them in the incubator anyway, and they hatched. (Pigeons are the toughest critters on the face of the Earth.) I’m handfeeding them, so if I see you in the next two weeks, you’ll probably get to meet them because I’ll be packing them around with me. I’ve handfed baby pigeons before, but not from Day 1. It’s a challenge.

Here’s something you don’t see every day, a praying mantis eating a baby lizard. 



I watched her for a couple of hours, and she ate the whole thing. Where did she put it? It doesn’t look like there’s room in her body for all that food, does it? And lizards are pretty strong, not fragile like a mantis’s usual prey. It would be like a greyhound catching and killing an alligator. Then eating the whole thing.