Got Nails?

One topic that has been on my mind lately is nails – as in fingernails and toenails. When I was a child, I frequently heard tales about how a person's nails keep growing even after death, and that if you open a coffin years after the burial, the dead party will have nails that are a foot long or more. According to the myth, nails just keep growing and growing, like well-fertilized kudzu. I now know this myth is nothing more than just that, but the spookiness of nails still fascinates and haunts me. Sometimes, weeks seem to creep by before my nails experience any growth, and at other times, it seems that I am having to cut them every day.

Now, as if my mind has nothing better to occupy itself with, I find myself trying to figure out just what the nail growth algorithm is. For example, do nails grow at a steady pace of, say, two micrometers a day? Or do they grow erratically, sometimes not at all, within a 24-hour span, and at other times two millimeters overnight? Do certain types of food and drink affect the pace of nail growth differently? For instance, does chicken bone gristle act as a nail growth catalyst, while white chocolate or very hot chili sauce brings the growth process to a complete standstill?
I would google for an answer, but I really don't want to know any more than I already do. So I tried to analyze why I don't want to be enlightened about all things nail. Which made me realize: Postulating about nail growth is a very enjoyable passtime. Sort of like visiting Disneyland -- just toss out the world of the rational and known, and dive deep into the galaxy of the whimsical and unknown. Admittedly, this is not a highly logical or rational approach to life, but it is a lot more fun. Even adults need a playground now and then.

The Spaghetti People

My dreamworld has been active lately. A frequently recurring dream is populated with tall, very tall humans, 12 to 14 feet tall, spiked hair not included. In most of these dreams, the tall people are at a cocktail party at Georgetown University. (I can't figure that one out. I've never been there.)

The party is definitely elitist. No one under 12 feet tall is admitted. (Even Yao Ming wouldn't make the cut!)

I, too, am not an official party guest. I'm merely a disoriented moth fluttering from one light to the next. My main objective is to remain inconspicuous. There's nothing like getting swatted at by a 14-foot fellow nicknamed Slinky.

The tall people appear to be a calm folk. They largely live in a world of their own, almost a different species. They are known as the Spaghetti People because they are so long, thin and willowy...and intelligent and successful. They have no shoulders, chests, bellies, hips or butts to speak of. Their arms are as long as the average guy is tall. There is something worm-like about them, pliable and bendable, even though they have long, long backbones, giving giraffes a run for their spots.

In my dreams, the Spaghetti people never do much. At the party, they sip their cocktails, nibble lightly on party snacks, and drift around holding small talk with the other tall, tall guests. They all seem to know each other.

Every now and then, I spot a half-full (-empty?) glass left on a table, counter, or mantelpiece. Bravely (or foolishly), I swoop down for a quick sip. Where, I ask myself, do these long-bodied creatures ever find beds long enough to accommodate them? I take another sip from the glass, and decide to flap back up to the ceiling. My head suddenly starts spinning. The vodka in the glass was strong stuff.

Big Giggle Behind the Pearly Gates

This morning, eight zillion tiny locusts invaded my head, all chirping in unison over and over and over again a pesky childhood jingle that I have not thought about in years:

Great big gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
Chopped up monkey meat,
Petrified parakeet,
And I forgot my spoon!
And I forgot my spoon!

I simply could not get rid of it. I tried all sorts of tricks, including trying to supplant it with a second plague of locusts chriping another childhood jingle:

I found a peanut,
I found a peanut,
I found a peanut just now,
Just now I found a peanut,
Found a peanut just now...

But the first plague of locust quickly devoured the peanut clan, and went right back to chirping, chirping, chirping their pesky song.

When I was a child, I remember our parents trying to prohibit us from singing either of those two jingles. They somehow found the little tunes ungodly.

But I never understood that logic. In my concept of God at that time (and now as well), he was not such a dour fellow. In fact, he enjoyed a good laugh, and probably spent lots of time figuring out new ways to make his fellow heavenly holies laugh at our expense. Hmm, now that I think of it, God is probably the one who set this jingle loose in my head. So, God, all I can say is "Ha Ha."

A Cold Shower of Truth

Some things just don't turn out the way they are supposed to. The funny thing about it all is that before you get to that point, you fear that life as you know it is going to disintegrate into a vast plain of war-torn, smoldering wreckage and dark nothingness if your plans don't come to fruition, yet once your greatest fear comes to pass, you quickly discover that life is still flowing forward in all of its richness, and it's dragging you along with it. Within a short amount of time, you find yourself so busy dealing with your day-to-day life that the thing you once feared the most becomes a vague spot in the past. If there's any lesson to be learned from this, I suppose it might simply be that life is bigger than you are, bigger than any of us are.

Now you might be asking what brought all this on. So, I will tell you: After staying up very late watching tennis last night, I OVERSLEPT this morning and was LATE TO WORK. Somehow I was expecting to get shot or excommunicated when I finally did haul my slovenly ass into the office, but once I got there, it turned out that not a single person had noticed my absence! I was greatly relieved, yet at the same time a bit miffed. The fact that nobody had noticed made me wonder if any of them ever notice at all when I am there! Or could I just go hang out in the local Starbucks all morning and then show up for work just in time for lunch? And it raises the question: Does anyone actually notice the work I do? Or am I simply getting a pay check month after month simply for clocking in and out of the office? Hmmm, I'm now going to log off for a while so that I can contemplate and digest all this newfound lack of importance...(just in case there is anyone out there at all who is actually reading this).

Coos and Caws

One of the greatest joys of growing up on a farm was being surrounded by a wide variety of animals, both domestic and wild. Cows, pigs, horses, dogs, cats, raccoons, possums, skunks, rats, mice, rabbits, squirrels, snakes (I won't break them down into different types here; my mother liked all of them, I didn't), salamanders, catfish, bream, trout, coyotes, hawks, quail, dove, thrushes, hummingbirds, and the list goes on and on.

But now that I've become a city fellow, things are quite different. The selection of animals is much slimmer. And when it comes to birds, about 99% of the total is made up of only two kinds: pigeons and crows. But I have learned to make the best of it and now try to learn as much as possible about the behavior of these two birds by watching them when I get a chance. And I have learned that there are some major differences.

Crows remind me of hard-nosed, aggressive and perhaps slightly shady businessmen, closer to pushy used-car salesmen than slick corporate executives. Finesse and subtlety are traits they know little about. Their strategy is to haggle and confront, to grab and run. They are always dressed in black, often appearing slightly disheveled, the kind of fellows who don't know how to knot a tie properly and really don't care to learn. They study you with their glassy, beady yellow eyes, strut around right in front of you virtually demanding that you toss them tidbits to eat, even if you aren't eating anything. And if you don't immediately obey, they toss you a look of disgust and then flap away emitting a loud, raspy, unpleasant caw to find a better victim.

Pigeons could hardly be more different. First of all, they coo instead of cawing. It is such a beautiful, soft, gentle sound, one that would bring sleep to even the most severely afflicted of insomniacs. And their clothes are just as beautiful, ranging from gray, green, blue, violet, indigo, white, turqoise, well, just about any eye-appealing color, and always slightly different from their colleagues. They don't demand food from you. Instead, they politely, silently inquire whether you just might have something you could share. And if you don't, then it's perfectly OK. They gently tilt their soft eyes up at you, curious, perhaps suggesting that they would like to get to know you better, go home with you for a small meal. It is so powerful that I actually feel guilty for not doing so, and it's living proof that a soft sell is so much more effective than a hard one.

The Pisa Surprise

While in the town of Pisa, Italy, on New Year's evening, I decided to take a stroll through the Old Town district. I headed down the main tourist street, which basically stretches from the town's famous tower down to the train station, less than a mile from end-to-end.

A surprisingly large number of tourists were out that evening. Few stores and shops were open, but the night sky was clear and the weather crisp and cold, perfect for a short walk.

After about half a mile, I reached the Arno river, which cuts through the middle of town. I didn't pay much attention to it. I had seen it earlier, during daylight hours, and it had not impressed me. It struck me as an unpleasant gray-brown, muddy, slow-moving river, really not much of an eye-catcher.

So I crossed over the main bridge (the Ponte di Mezzo) connecting the two sides of town. In only a few minutes, I had reached the train station. I turned around to head back to my hotel, but I figured I might as well take a different street just to see a bit more. So I cut across town about three blocks and then headed back up toward the river. I was soon there, and without seeing anything remarkable.

To get back to the Ponte di Mezzo, I turned right and walked along the sidewalk parallel to the river. Right before I reached the bridge, I came across a young fellow who had a camera set up on a tripod. He appeared to know what he was doing, probably a professional.

I glanced up in the direction of his camera lens. But the chilly night air quickly swept across my exposed neck, so I didn't turn my head and eyes all the was up to the sky. Cold weather is something I like to keep on the outside of my clothes, and if I had turned my head up any higher, I would have felt the chilly night air rushing down along inside my coat along my chest.

What I saw was nice but not spectacular. The photographer was apparently taking snapshots of a small church bell tower. The tower was lit up, providing a soft, light rosy – though largely uncompelling – sight. The church itself was a small square structure connected directly to the other buildings along the city block. Just a bit of concrete and a bell tower, I thought.

I continued to the bridge and crossed back over. Because the night cold was now letting itself really be felt, I decided to take a short cut back to my hotel. This involved turning back down the other side of the river, which again took me parallel to the church and bell tower, just in the opposite direction.

After a few steps, I glanced down across the river, merely because it was there.

At that instant, the night suddenly turned richer.

The brownish, creeping river of day now appeared dark black and glassy under the night sky.
It had turned into a giant mirror. And there stretched across it's surface was a beautiful configuration in the form of a giant isosceles triangle. I had completely missed it on other side of the river when I had momentarily wondered what the photographer had in his lens.

The most distant point in the triangle was occupied by the mirror image of light-rosy bell tower. But then the true, greater surprise began. About a quarter of the way across the river surface toward me stood the middle point defining the vertex of the triangle: a single and very bright night star. And then another one-fourth of the way across the river in my direction, the crystal clear image of a brilliant white crescent moon made up the final point of the giant triangle.

Now that I am back from my trip, that is the one image that keeps coming back to me. Not only had Pisa shared with me one of the Europe's architectural wonders – it had also granted me one equally spectacular sight not mentioned in any of my travel books.

Almost Y'all!

One culinary experience I had not expected in Italy was REAL FRIED CHICKEN, and I got it at a Chinese fast-food shop in Florence. It was indeed just like the fried chicken from South Georgia. And it only cost about $2.00 for a leg quarter. That ended up being my dinner for two nights in a row. It was quite delicious. But I must also admit that the utter convenience of ordering fried chicken and having it in my hands 30 seconds later after years of not having any was the killer. Not even KFC is that fast.