A Different Perspective on Father's Day

Before I really get into this post, because it's a bit radical, even iconoclastic, though not intentionally, I'd like to wish fathers out there a happy day.  They don't all have to be fathers of human children, but fathers that nurture animals, too, happen to be just as valuable and worthy of celebration--in my and many people's minds.  So, for fathers everywhere: have a few beers and lots of clams today to celebrate yourself.

On a sort of different subject and for purposes of letting all my followers, admirers (are there any?), and friends who know me well, I'd like to share a very strange thought I had while driving on Seventh Street yesterday.  I was thinking about Father's Day and what it actually meant.  Perhaps I was in a strange mood and not very sympathetic to the famous day that was sending those in traffic around me into a tizzy: pulling out in front of me, speeding to Macy's to buy a pair of boxers for dear old dad, and, otherwise, being rude, harried, and in a general frame of mind that was dissing everyone around them simply because they had avoided doing the Father's Day thing until the last second.  And now, everyone else had to get the hell out of their way in order for them to buy groceries, presents, cards, and whatever else for dad.

Okay: I get that part.  But, then, in my annoyance with the frantic crowd of last-minute Father's Day celebrators, and stopped at the light at Whitehall Family Diner where a lot of older men were shuffling back to their cars with their families, their bellies full of sausage and pancakes, I began to muse on the real nature of Father's Day--to my own amusement.

Now, I'm going to relay this hoping no one is going to rip me a new one because of being offended.  If you're squeamish, if you're so prudish and so "backed-up" that you can't take a joke, then stop reading.  If you want a little guffaw, keep reading.  I can't help the way I think.

So, as I watched, irritated with the traffic, all the men sashaying to their cars in the diner's parking lot, I wondered why all the fuss about Father's Day.  Really?  Why?  Becoming a father, much like a mother, is not anything gargantuan.  Most people have done the reproductive thing over and over again.  It's really no biggie.  Perhaps it should be renamed, I thought.  And then my mind began to imagine, and I began to chuckle to myself as the males and their families staggered to their cars.

I thought perhaps a better wish for Father's  Day would be "Happy Past Ejaculation Day!"  To me, at that moment and in the mood I was in, the name change seemed legit because, scientifically speaking, most men had ejaculated into a vajayjay at sometime, perhaps in the back seat of a Volkswagen Bus, on a rocky cliff off the beaten path at Hawk Mountain, in a drunk-lust fit in the back seat of a car.  You name it; it's been spermed around.  And for this Americans set aside a day for celebration?!  Okay: whatever.

(I apologize already for the mental imagery  I'm sharing with you and probably isn't appreciated in the same way that I appreciated it--with humor.)  I know people out there loved their fathers--so did I--and their fathers are long gone with only memories remaining.  I'm sorry for that, and I know your fathers meant the world to you--and me.  But in that single, solitary moment I, rather unemotionally, contemplated that concept of Father's Day.

Anyway, I think I'm onto something that Hallmark had never considered: a Father's Day card that a six-year-old could present to his or her father on his special day.  It would say something to the effect of "Happy Ejaculation Day!  Thanks for giving me life!  You rock, Dad!"

Chicken Mania

Most people know I live on a farm with horses, one pot-bellied pig, cats, and three dachshunds.  I have recently added two peacocks, Fred and Ethel, along with five chickens: Nutty, Ma, Ruby, Barrie, and Blackie.  Blackie thinks she's a peacock because she hangs with the pea fowl, but she does do her chicken thing by laying eggs daily.  So, if she wants to chill with the peacocks in her spare time, that's her business. Who am I to tell her she's a chicken?

Up until two days ago I thought the chickens were pretty neat and certainly advantageous because they gift me with eggs daily.  Every time I go to their pasture to visit and check their food and water and throw them "scratch," they chuckle at me and run in front and behind, eagerly anticipating their corn treat.  They are comical: running, not like an animal that has four legs, but one that has two legs.  They run as a human does, their heads bobbing from side to side while they yell and cackle: the most exciting time of the day for them--getting their scratch from their humans.

But two days ago when I let them out of the chicken pen to graze, Nutty did something remarkable, and her  gesture made my week.  When she came out of her pen, I tried to pet her as I always do.  Heretofore, she skittered from underneath my touch: I was a pox.  This time when I proffered my hand, she hunkered in the grass and allowed me to pet her back.  And she seemed to enjoy the experience much as my dogs do.  So, not satisfied enough that she was allowing me to pet her back, I decided to pick her up and hold her against me.  I was surprised that she didn't struggle to get away.

She let me hold her!

I can hardly describe the excitement, the flattery I felt from this chicken allowing me to cuddle her.  After all, she's only a chicken!  Most of us consider them brainless wonders.  Certainly they lack the capacity for affection.  How many animals do we all take for granted as I did her--not affording her personality or the ability to feel affection?  But she certainly does have the capacity for loving and being loved.  How cool--a chicken expressing love!

So, that leads me to wonder about other animals, wild and domestic, and their ability to love a human or, at least, enjoying the simple touch of a human.  I wonder about an armadillo and a turtle.  Could they feel my loving touch  through their hard shells ?  Would they respond to me with their own kind of love expression?  I know my pigs expressed love by sidling against me, nudging me with their snouts, and lying down next to me on the floor.  But, because of a pig's shape and physical incapacity, he or she could not wrap her legs around my neck and plant a big hug on me.

Animals must express their love in their own ways--according to their physical capabilities and according to how they express affection or companionship to others of their species.  Perhaps, if I were a dolphin, another dolphin would swim next to me and nudge me with its nose or flap its tail along my side.  And I would respond likewise.  And a horse is surely incapable of hugging me--I'd be afraid of being crushed to death in his love-grip.  But I do get nuzzles from my horses.

I have learned that affection is relative to the species meting it out.  And I am perfectly fine with that.  My chickens are teaching me new life lessons every day.

The world never ceases to amaze.

Tribute to Sadie

This week many of my Facebook friends have lost family members--furry, feathered, scaley family members, that is.

I see them grieving; I grieve.  Indeed, I feel their pain.  Because I have been through it often enough: holding and staring at the dead body of what once had been my warm, loving friend.

It's tough, I know.  Still, I never know what to say to make that person feel better: as though her world will still move on, as though the pain will stop soon, as though there's a reason to live.  Sometimes there's not anything to do but bear the misery until time dulls it.  The best I can say is, "I''m so sorry."  Lame, I know; but it's the best and most honest I can do--because there really is nothing I can say that will make the pain go away.

So, this week Sadie, the pot-bellied pig, died and left her owners empty, wandering their home in search of Sadie's presence: the surreality of death lingers as they expect their beloved pet to nudge against their legs as she habitually did at each feeding.  They hear her trotting around every corner, her little hard hooves clicking happily along the hardwood flooring.  Sadie's presence is everywhere, but she's not there.

Yes, I know that haunting sensation well--dread it, really.  I have had upwards of 14 pot-bellies, 7 horses, 20-something cats that I have mothered and accompanied into death through the years.  And I have had to endure that pain with clenched jaw, blinding tears, and overwhelming resentment toward a possible god.  

I am so sorry Sadie had to die so young and so unnecessarily.  Life continues to be cruel.  And I really have no thoughts at this time to ease her human family's hurt.

I have no words.