The Chatter After Lights Out

New Life, Old Magic

It’s Spring again. Another 365.something day tour around our own little star. Isn’t it grand? Do you take for granted your travels on Spaceship Earth? Our home isn’t stuck on some foundation with a permanent address that can be viewed on Google Maps.

No, far from it. We’re traveling. We are travelers without knowing from whence we came or where we go.

The Old Ones know this. They take nothing for granted.

Except cookies and peanuts.

From yours truly.

Opie and Opette come to dine nightly, as does Vincenzi the Fox. Gladys and her crowd come by during the day.

Most recently we’ve been guested by Verne, one of Hecate’s kits. There are two others who also come by and say hello, although usually after we’ve shut off the lights and are in bed. We hear them talking; “Pass the peanuts?” and “Is that fresh water?” and “Any more cookies?”

And we’ll see them and other Old Ones through the year and through the years. All of them come to us. We’re a house of magic. So they tell us.

We believe. Old Ones don’t lie.

Say hello to Verne, all.

So Rude

Turning your back on your guests! And at the dinner table!

Life continues.

It may be the New Year according to at least one human calendar, The Wild doesn’t notice. Critters still must eat, Republicans and Democrats still must be hostile to each other.

One wonders how we Two-Leggers are from our non-human forebears. I mean, have you ever seen the childish behavior that gets in the way of getting things done along lawmakers and business leaders?

You have to wonder, are these really the people making the laws? Are these the people really keeping business running?

Case in point, dining.

Historically, meal time is where the most powergames occur. Not just in diplomatic and business circles, even among families.

Want to know a family’s true dynamic? Sit them around a table, see who gets to eat first, who gets to take the biggest helpings, who helps who with their food.

Want to know a nation’s dynamic? Go to a state dinner. Want to know a company’s dynamic? Go to a staff lunch or dinner.

I find such things fascinating. People spend more time figuring out the social signals than exchanging actionable information or eating.

Not so in The Wild.

You don’t want to talk to someone? Turn your back to them. Much easier and easily understood.

Sometimes.

My Dinner with Opie

Ah, dining under the stars with The Old Ones

We continue our parade of The Old Ones. Bill and The Girls continue their daily visits. They usually wake us about 7-7:30AM if we aren’t awake by then, clucking and clacking in the backyard, promenading to and fro, letting us know there’s no seed available.

The Flock

 
They’ve taught us well.

But this post is about my dinner with Opie (extra points to anyone who knows the homage) and more correctly, a gathering of The Old Ones for dinner.
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Ophelia the Opossum

Cute but not exactly cuddly

Happy Holidays, All.

Things have been busy here. Many visitations, many blessings. I’ll be sharing them over the next few days. I hope your holidays have been as blest as ours.

And now…

Behold Ophelia the Opossum, a juvenile female that’s been coming regularly to clear the table – or ground – when the raccoons and fox are finished.
Continue reading “Ophelia the Opossum”