Leaves of Three, Let it Be

Any country girl knows what poison ivy looks like, and we've got handy-dandy, rhyming, old-world adages to remind us if we forget.

But there are a few things that most people don't know about poison ivy:
1) It can think, it can plot, and it is smarter than you
2) It has zombie qualities; if you kill it, it will still infect you
3) It wants to reproduce with human women, to make human ivy babies
4) If you let a goat graze on poison ivy in the spring, and you drink the goat's milk, you won't get poison ivy that season.

I don't have goats anymore, so I have yet to try out that last bit of country wisdom, but the first three I can attest to.

My big old farmhouse clocks in at around a century old, and I've got a couple azaleas in the front yard that might be able to claim the same. They're big. Bigger than me. Bigger than my car. So I thought, hey, I'll cut those back a bit, and clean out the poison ivy creeping all through it. Good thought.

While wearing shorts. Bad thought.

I cut it down, tossed the little wilted, poisonous remnants, and then (it appears) proceeded to sit on them at some point during the day as I circumvented the azalea. Oops.  Long story short, those leafy little buggers have a heck of a reach on them, and I've got poison ivy in places that it's not kosher to scratch in public.

So, does anyone have a goat that grazed on poison ivy in the spring?  That would be really helpful.

Those Little Moments

So I saw Super 8 (and yes, it's quite good, don't read further if you don't want it SPOILED).

The end scene, when our heroic little boy grabs his floating locket and it opens so he can see his dead mother's face, get his closure, and move on to bond with his father?.......

Yeah, well, amid all the snuffling and weeping in the theatre I turned to my equally dry-eyed boyfriend and said, "There's like whole cars being sucked up by the power of that magnet. Shouldn't that have ripped his arm right out of the socket?"

To which the b/f patted me on the head and said, "You're so easy to love."

Lesson: Don't take Mindy out in public.

A Flash From My Past!

My 8th grade English teacher is retiring, and she passed along a little bit of writing that won me a national award of some sort back in those days.  Initially I cringed at the thought of reading my musings from the pre-teen years, but it's not all that bad.  Having the self-editing skills that I do now, there are certainly some changes in order.  But - I shall present it to you in its lovely awkwardness.  And by the way, it was written from a prompt.  I'm not a vegetable type girl.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A CARROT

Wow!  I'm telling you I've had quite a day.  This morning I was lying happily in the grocery store.  Now, here I am in a refrigerator. My brother was pulled out of our bag a half hour ago.  I think the skinner got him.  I'd never believed in the skinner until now.  We used to tell horror stories about it in the garden.  It was fun and games then, but its deadly serious.

Let me clear this up for you, my name is Carl Carrot, and I'm in trouble.

The skinner is some kind of tool that the humans use to torture us.  It scrapes our outer skin off so that we taste better when we are eaten.

Oh no!  The door of the fridge is opening, cracks of light are slipping out, and a hand is slipping in. The hand has taken me outside the refrigerator. I am warmer, but I see the skinner lying on the countertop.

I'm being carried over to the waste can.  OH NO!  I see my brother's skin in there!

The other hand holding the skinner is coming closer... closer... the skinner is touching me!  A bolt of pain and fire runs through my body and I pass out.

WHOA!  I was out for a long time.  Oh my body... the pain... my whole body is burning and my top layer of skin is gone. I'm sitting in a crystal tray with someone named Cecil Celery.  Cecil says we'll get out soon.  I think Cecil is wrong. The table is covered with all kinds of food!  Everything I've ever heard of and more!  We are all surrounded by people, however, and we are waiting to be consumed.

I have heard rumors of a revolt.  I don't think it will happen.  The biggest food here, Teresa Turkey, is undoubtedly dead.

I watch my friends die, and there is nothing I can do.

Cecil has been taken.  I will miss the celery.  It was a good friend.

Most of the food is gone now and my burning pain has subsided.

The humans are leaving, except for three women.  They are staying to clean up.

My dish has been taken and put back in the refrigerator.

I have lost everything - my outer skin, my brother, Cecil, yet I will live to fight another day.

PS - I am considering suicide.  I may drown myself in the mayonnaise.