Black Dog

Friday morning I accompanied my cousin up to Logan to pick up her new puppy which was arriving from North Carolina. Normally I'm against that sort of thing on principle - don't they have puppies on Nantucket? But I'm not against three hours of conversation with someone older than four. Plus Priscilla's in the clear, her last dog did come from the island.
Not to mention on the way back she stopped at Bongis Turkey Farm in Duxbury so I could load up on turkey pot pies. I got three big ones. Three is a respectable amount. Approach the register with four and you have the feeling the cashier is looking at you suspect. As in, "Why would anyone need four turkey pot pies?
And the puppy? Very cute!
Our second brush with the animal kingdom this weekend came this afternoon. This being our third day of rain showers, Ken went out during one of the breaks to mow the lawn. We all followed to make sure no irreplaceable backyard toys got chewed up in the mower.
In moving the blue tarp which was along the side of the house, I spied a garter snake. This caused a lot of excitement, and it wasn't until Ken tried to move it with a stick that we realized it was dead. As far as the kids were concerned, it was better dead since being dead meant it wasn't going to slither off any time soon.
C wanted to know why we couldn't keep it, after all dead pets are so much easier to care for. H ran around the yard yelling "Sssssss" and pointing, and C picked the snake up, moved it out of the path of the lawn mower, and told me how it felt rough. I stood by trying to contain my repulsion and kicking myself for not noticing the snake was dead before alerting my overly inquisitive family. It wasn't like C was knee deep in road kill, but still, who wants their kid picking up dead things in the yard? On the other hand who wants to squelch their son's potential future career in Herpetology just because dead snakes give them the willies?

song: Black Dog • artist: Led Zeppelin