Please Happy

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Last week, we went to a Moth storytelling SLAM. I also listen to the podcast when I jog (picture me laughing out loud and/or sobbing while running up Sunset Boulevard in East L.A.). Listening to these five minute stories told on stage without notes has gotten me in the mood for campfires, for family dinners, for thinking about life as a series of short stories.

Then, yesterday, I get this email from a wonderful friend who works on a dairy farm. She is definitely Moth worthy. Enjoy.

Subject: Chicken Poo.

I went to close up the chickens last night and the door had fallen shut (because of the wind), so they had roosted under the chicken tractor. The field was being irrigated in about three inches of water. I had to crawl underneath the coop and pull the chickens out one at a time and put them in the door of the coop. (When the sun goes down, so does their brain, even with a visible open door, they won’t go in.) As they flapped their wings, they sprayed me with water and dislodged the crap balanced on the chicken wire floor above my head. I crawled around in the dark holding squawking chickens above the muddy water. Just as I was about to carry out the last one, I backed into the edge of the coop and a rain of chicken poo went down my butt crack! Aaahhhhh! SO over low rise jeans.

Photo information:
Chickens at Chatsworth, Derbyshire by UGArdener / © Some rights reserved.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license

I hate email forwards. Often just delete them, even (especially?) if they’re from my own father. But, this one, I love. You’ve probably seen it. I’m amazed. Amazed at Shakespeare’s immortality, talent, ubiquitousness. (Could also be amazed at our recent generation’s lack of those things, but let’s stay in the positive.)

“If you cannot understand my argument, and declare ‘It’s Greek to me,’ you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you , for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then – to give the devil his due – if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then – by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness’ sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! – it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

-Bernard Levin

This final thesis story is killing me. (Yes, you can graduate and even win an award without actually completing your thesis!) I have thrown tantrums, out-stared the wall and exhausted my Facebook refreshes. It’s time to work. Oh, wait. One last procrastination game I never knew about until today. Playing throw the frozen blueberries with Jake. He’s a much better thrower and catcher than I am.

And, it worked. The game transferred the blueness from my mind to my face. And I’m ready to work again.
Woo!

One of the most valuable lessons I learned from my co-leaders at our wilderness expedition camp was the post-pee self-butt-slap. See, I’d peed plenty of times outside before then. A favorite of mine as a kid: in my backyard. And on occasion in high school: in strangers’ yards if the party got too crazy and the lines too long. But, I had always done the “drip dry” method, and I had always walked away from the squat unsatisfied and un-dry. Then, my fellow guides told me, if you slap your butt a few times before pulling your pants back up, the drip dry method actually works.
Yes! It does!

Boys have it so easy, we thought.

While on a long hike yesterday, Jake told me about the through-the-shorts-leg method he learned about from his wild Australian uncle. It’s self-explanatory, I think. But Jake says this method is especially great given a certain set of circumstance: 1. When you have a drawstring that you don’t want to untie and 2. When you do not have a fly to unzip. Jake feels he missed out on years of convenient peeing by only learning about this method in his recent adulthood.

I write about these methods because they are valuable lessons that if taught early can save time and irritation. So, I’ll be teaching my children the butt slap and the shorts-leg approach. And they’ll be much happier every time I drag them into the woods – or the backyard – for an adventure.

Now, when you enter many journalism sites, this pops up.

Many media are switching to the public radio model … or the OK Go model … or the artist/patron model.