Mokie See, Mokie Do

A couple of day's ago, I caught a short segment of a TV documentary about monkeys (rhesus monkeys, I think) and I have been thinking about it ever since. The show focused on a troop in which one of the females had a new-born baby, perhaps only a few days old. I will call him "Mokie" here.

Mokie appeared to be a tiny, fragile, wobbly little being -- all arms and legs and a large, big-eyed head. He clung as well as possible to his mother, who was closely and constantly surrounded by other female and young, adolescent monkeys romping and playing.

So far, nothing extraordinary. But then things really got interesting. It soon became apparent that Mokie was one of the most, if not the most, highly coveted monkeys in the troop. His aunts, siblings, and young cousins were intent on having him for themselves, and they kept trying every trick in the Book of Monkey Ruses to get their hands on him.

His aunts were particularly effective. Their favorite ploy involved the monkey social skill of reciprocal grooming. First, Aunt A would sidle up beside Mokie's mother and begin to pick through the fur on her head, neck and shoulders, supposedly to remove any lice, fleas or other parasites embedded there. Since this behavior apparently mandates that the mother monkey then perform the same ritual on Aunt A, Aunt A soon lowered her own head to allow the mother monkey to reciprocate.

This, of course, meant that the mother had to release her grasp of Mokie. At this point, Aunt A or one of the other aunts nearby would subtly put their hands around Mokie and pull him away.

As you would expect, Mokie's mother didn't let this go unnoticed. She quickly grabbed him by his hind legs and started pulling him back toward her.

But Aunt A didn't instantly yield. What resulted was a tug-of-baby between the aunt and the mother. Mokie hung helplessly in mid-air, his big eyes bulging with fear, as the two females tried to win control of him. I guess baby monkeys must be pretty tough, because Mokie never screamed, and he appeared to be almost rubberband-like, indeed exhibiting a high degree of elasticity.

Fortunately, the two grown monkeys seemed to know just how forceful this tugging could become without injuring Mokie. After a few moments, the aunt finally let go, allowing the mother to pull Mokie back to her chest.

This scene repeated itself again and again as the various aunts or adolescent monkeys tried to refine their methods of monkeynapping.

All the while, Mokie seemed fully bewildered by the entire affair. When possible, he tried to escape from all of them, including his mother, as best as he could on his wobbly, new-found legs. But he never got more than a couple of steps away. Either his mother, an aunt, a sibling, or a cousin would quickly grab him up and claim him for their very own, at least until his mother regained possession of him.

As fascinating as all of this was, it brought up an even more intriguing question, namely why exactly did almost every monkey in the troop want to have Mokie for their own? My first thought was simply because he was so cute and adorable. But I quickly discarded that thought. That line of illogic had too many holes in it, with the main one being that I had know idea whether a monkey's idea of cute is the same as a human's.

So I came up with a list of further questions:

Is the monkey in possession of Mokie considered more valuable to the troop as a whole? In other words, do the monkeys try to get hold of Mokie in order to increase their own status within the troop?

Does being in possession of Mokie give the possessor a sense of purpose in life? Hmmm, sort of doubtful, since that would mean that most monkeys out there go around feeling that they have no purpose in life. Having seen troops of monkeys from time to time, I never came away with the impression that they were concerned about their purpose, or lack of it, in life

Does the monkey in possession of Mokie feel more needed or more loved? Who knows. This line of thinking would first seem to suggest that virtually all the monkeys in the troop feel lonely, unneeded, or unloved though fully accepted within the troop. But who knows whether a monkey feels any of these things (even though I personally think they do).

Is the holder of Mokie offered more free food or benefits than she would receive otherwise? Could be, because such treatment would increase that monkey's chances of survival under unfavorable circumstances.

Does the holder simply enjoy the warmth of having another being close up against her? Probably not, since most monkeys already live in warmer climates (the Arctic Monkeys not included).

Do monkeys have a "motherly gene" that automatically compels them to want to be a mother as soon as they see a baby monkey?

Does being in possession of Mokie automatically dissuade the chief male monkey in the troop from wanting to copulate with that female? In other words, does that female want to avoid having sex? Actually, this is plausible, because being a pregnant monkey and then having to care for the baby until it reaches a certain age would certainly put a female monkey under a lot more stress than remaining motherless.

Would a female monkey from Mokie's troop also try to gain possession of a baby monkey from a distant troop? Hmmm. This question brings up all sorts of issues regarding the genetic drive to further only your own genes. Maybe Dr. Leakey could answer this.

Do other animals exhibit the same behavior? Maybe some, but certainly not all of them. Which thus raises the question as to why some animals do and why some animals don't. Or is this really nothing more than my original question above?

Is this behavior the result of some pointless genetic mutation that embedded itself long ago even though it serves no purpose at all? Oh me. This is getting way, way out there. This question feels like it belongs in the same category as questions such as "Why do monkeys exist?" and "Why do humans (and, most disturbingly, myself!) exist?"

What would be the impact on monkey populations if this behavior ceased to exist? Would monkeys eventually vanish from the face of the earth? Or would they somehow become even more prevalent than they already are?

How would monkeys from the troop respond to a human baby or a kitten or a baby anteater or a baby platypus? Restated, do monkeys know just to stick to their own species?

Now I am really confused. Even after all these questions, I am no closer to an answer than when I began. All I can definitely say is this: If I, too, were presented with the opportunity to gain possession of Mokie, I would do so in the blink of an eye. Just don't ask me why.

Oh Venus!

Last night I dreamed I was a French tick.
I crept onto the clay,
found my way down your bodice,
sank my teeth into your bellybutton.
By the time anyone noticed,
I was the size of an olive.
No worry: Gil was there.
He plucked me off,
took me to the lab,
popped me open.
Nostrils wide, hairy and hungry,
he sniffed the red,
lifted a joyous eyebrow,
sampled you with the tip of his tongue.
The next time he hits a close ball,
betcha the boundary will bend outward.

Tiny Fat Dogs on a Lazy Man's Salary

The check-out lady acts like it's my fault
the scanner won't read the turkey's barcode.
"Have you tried bug spray?" I suggest.
She glares.
I smile.
I'm not going to eat the thing anyway.
It's for my two chihuahuas.
They'll stay full an entire week.
I glance at the turkey.
It looks like the rest of us:
Once you take the frocks and head off,
it's hard to tell one from another.
Could be why they're so cheap.

True Grits

While at work, er, I mean at the bus stop today, I tried to think of all the phrases I know containing the word "rice", and to replace "rice" with the word "grits". Here's what I came up with:

Condoleezza Grits, Grits-a-Roni, Sushi Grits, Chinese Grits, Grits Pudding, Fried Grits, Chicken-and-Grits, Grits University, Steamed Grits, Grits Paddy, Wild Grits, Basmati Grits, Anne Grits, Grits and Gravy, Long-Grain Grits, Mahatma Grits, Brown Grits, White Grits, Grits Noodles, Boiled Grits, Puffed Grits, Grits Porridge, Grits Gruel, Parboiled Grits, Minute Grits, Grits Terrace, Grits Plantation, Grits Shortage, Jasmine Grits, Saki Grits, Patna Grits, Black Beans and Grits, Pringles Grits, Grits Pilaf, Spanish Grits, Curried Grits, Creole Grits, Grits Cakes, Edgar Grits Burroughs, Jerry Grits, Grits Krispies...

And there are sure to be more. But I've gotta go back to work, er, get on the bus.

Two-Day Layover

New York leaves me wishing
for more hair on my face, palms, back
to soften the slap, the whips of Brooklyn,
the splash and acid of Lower Manhattan,
the clack whack clack as I travel over
the Williamsburg bridge
on the bottom of the J train.
It strips me to the bone, fries my flesh
no matter how many layers of silk I put on.
This wonderful city wasn't born for me.
It offers no paths
I can herd the cows down
at sunset.
Sure, SoHo has its golden heifers
dressed in jade, in pearls, its lily steers,
but the barns float twenty feet off the ground.
My cows just won't go there.
They beg back to Fort Worth.

scrubbacious

My fascination with low tech is still sailing forward. The latest object of admiration for me is the wash cloth. Yes, a simple household wash cloth, frequently stored on a bathroom shelf. Now there's an object that didn't have to wait for the advent of electricity to get invented.

Which leaves me to wonder, who did invent it and when did they do it? Must've been many millenia ago, perhaps even before we humans first ventured Out of Africa.

So assuming that humans have been around for at least 50,000 years, it is only natural that one of the first ones had an impulse to free themselves of weeks of grime and mud for some special occasion. So what did they use? A leaf (maybe even a fig leaf?)? A squirrel pelt? Or, if they lived near the beach, a freshly scavenged sponge?

Since we don't have any good records of those early years, maybe I should just zoom ahead to somewhere in Egypt around 5000 B.C. Given how inventive those folks were, I'm sure at least one of them must have devoted him- or herself to devising the perfect wash cloth for some finicky and fussy pharoah or pharoah's wife. And I assume that the cloth was made either out of papyrus or cotton or crocodile skin since there was an abundance of all of them down at the river.

Well, whoever first got the patent on wash cloths, I can only thank them. They are such useful things. And not only in the bathtub. They are also perfect for a lot of other tasks. Cleaning the window, wiping the dust off the TV, cleaning up the jar of jelly dropped on the floor, substituting as a handkerchief to blow your nose in, wet and cool to place on your forehead during a spat of nausea, stuffing closed the mice hole in the pantry wall, and so on and so on, the list is virtually endless. Just think what life would be like without them.

round round round x 100000000

High tech is wonderful, even very, very wonderful. I have become so addicted to it that my right hand automatically takes the shape of a mouse when I think about net surfing.

But high tech still has one formidable rival from the low tech world: the electric fan. Amazing how bearable a fan makes life when the weather is hot or the neighbor is loud. It cools down both your skin and your eardrums. Sleep is able to creep back in your bed. Sweat is able to beam up off your skin. And for so less money than a hard disk with keyboard and monitor.