Tuesday, June 25--
4:51 p.m.-
The sunflower whirligig is spinning its shadow against a boat seat.
It's new, at least to me, and is on board as a result of my indulgent affection
for foundlings. It has kicked around the hardware store for two years, an
orphan ignored and collecting dust at a cashier's station for a year and a
half, then propped into a showcase display of gardening items to supply vicarious
vitality to seed pots and peat pots and dull-pointed cultivation tools. I
saw it there Sunday and the sunflower connection was made. A perfect enhancement
to my desk, fun for $1.59--before employee discount.
I bought a small rubber stopper and poked a hole though it and jabbed
the stem wire in and plugged it all down into an oarlock. It's friendly, and
when the propeller turns very fast it may assist our top speed. One, in a
boat as in life, can never have too many props.
(Those who wag scandalous fingers and mutter "eccentric"
are only jealous because they didn't think of it first.)
5:16-
Approaching the bridge I saw two guys swimming under it.
"You guys jumping?" (It's what teenagers go there to do.)
"No."
The one in red shorts must've realized that law enforcement personnel
rarely drive underpowered boats with a grinning dog and marigold pots inside
and a plastic sunflower twirling on a gunwale.
"Yeah, we were. Wanna' see?"
They mounted the bridge and walked to the middle on my side, leaned
over and while instructing, "You count to three," dripped water
on us.
They disappeared, I yelled out numbers, and they leapt.
5:53-
The wretched flies have driven us out of anchor. A late afternoon.
Humidity has dropped and the sky is clear cerulean blue. Irises yellow and
purple are blooming in marshy places. I'm excited to see the larger marigold
and the jalapeno plants forming tiny flowers. Must be the recent rainy waterings.
Hawkweed (monarch orange), and buttercup (intense pastel yellow), and
daisies with snow-white petals capable of certifying love relationships, or
not, are in bloom. (More accurate and cheaper than computer dating services
too.)
All Things Considered just aired a considered argument against the
drug testing of hair, which certain members of police forces claim is racist
and unfair.
6:54-
Back inside
the office, parked in the sun. Entering the channel from above we ambushed
a mother merganser and eight ducklings. Momma gave some sort of command and
the kids headed downstream in a tightly packed group. But then through miscommunication,
or mutiny, the little ones kept paddling but mom ducked into the reeds. (Pun
unintended, but since I've left it in place to give it some thought, it now
is.)
I shut off the motor and drifted. Ducklings dove at our same speed
and bobbed up like yellow Styrofoam corks. Along we floated on the current,
out into the sun. I set anchor and they continued diving and surfacing downstream.
Mom came out of hiding in the shade back upstream and circled, anxiously dabbing
her lipstick. A baby surfaced at her side.
6:57-
Then another bobbed up. Off on my right a merganser tot popped into
sight behind a grass screen, then dove, appeared beside the others up with
Mother. In a few minutes all eight had rejoined her fifty yards upstream.
How do they do that?
8:44-
Anchored in the wild rice channel. Humidity has risen since this afternoon.
My clothing, abbreviated though it is, is sticky.
Across the way at the boat landing, the neighbors have come with Georgie,
who's baying, and Ralph the yellow lab, or whatever its name--oh yeah, Shabby--is
excited about beer.
We've just returned from a trip to town to see summer life in extreme.
Parked a few feet from the boat ramps and watched whining electrical winches
load big cruisers onto trailers. A tiny dog on a leash trotted a portly woman
in shorts and high-heeled wicker sandals. A blissful baseball game was being
negotiated by boys. The scoreboard installed by electric company crews late
winter was imposing and highly visible to airline traffic. Home: "2O,"
Visitors: "CO." 
(Burned
out bulb.) Do scoreboard attendants ever lie later when the antagonists have
gone home?
A high-speed fishing boat zoomed past with a six-foot tall fishnet
(like a large butterfly net or ham radio antenna) stuck aiming straight at
the sky. It's the "Ultra Testosterone" model, manufactured for landing
hundred-pound sturgeon to milk them of caviar, but in these dignified waters
is mostly a ruse by unfulfilled males to show other fishermen and girlfriends
how vast is their insecurity.
We watched
a few minutes of boat landing shenanigans, then I noticed the sun being zipped
up in a cloudy body bag. Half an hour from the car, we splashed through high
wakes and zoomed back here.
EZ is intermittently sleeping and keeping an eye on a family of mallards
on a log to our left, when they settle down and stop wagging their tails.
The sky is settling darkness onto the water.
And my
God--thank God! --the pestering flies have gone inside to watch Survivor TV.
EZ has been mostly white-faced for the last year or two. Nobody knows
her age and she won't say. The shelter guessed it about five when she came
to live with me five years ago, but I suspect she's a year or two older. Until
the last couple of months she's been puppy-ishly full of vigor and always
ready to dance. Or run, or get crazy with fun. But she's gotten lethargic
lately. I don't know if it's her infected jaw, or old age finally showing
itself. It could also be cancer and not bacterial infection as the vet has
suggested.
Whatever her plight, she is at an age of sudden endings.
9:09-
OOPS. Sky growing dark. Rain is surely just off to the west. Bye.