August 25, 2007

• Hey Old Hat, I like snails, too.

  OH RYC:  Snails sans shelter naked or homeless?  I think the answer is deceased.  When we lived in the rice fields of Izumo a few years back my son once rounded up some rather large snails and they spent the afternoon in his back pocket.  When he took them out the flattened escargot were escar-goners.  Ew.  But that was better than what daughter used to do. 

  She and her friend decided that they wanted to have a cemetery for deceased critters behind out apartment, but the ground was very hard and graves could only be dug for small carcasses - bugs and fish, and they even managed to entomb a small snake.  One day she and her friend brought home a cat that had been lying in a watery ditch for what must have been a few days.  They attempted a burial but somehow however they dug they could not go down far enough to get the soggy kitty mummy face covered in dirt, so it kind of glared out at all and sundry with a crazed psycho stare.  Having its emerged head patted by friend did little to change its expression.   I had premonitions that this was NOT going to go over big with the moms who would be bringing their little ones out to play in the yard the next day, so I suggested an alternate burial plot in the parking lot.  But alas, the parking lot ground was equally hard, and hub was indoors wondering when his supper was going to be on the table.  I think when they fill in rice fields for alternate use of the land they must do it with semi-cement.  I can't solve both problems by putting cat on the menu either, as the thing must be more than a bit gamey by now.

  How am I gonna get rid of this decomposing cat corpse?  The garbage was my only recourse, but the place where garbage is deposited for pickup was locked on non-collection days for purposes of sanitation.  "Um, Mr. Landlord, would you mind unlocking the garbage room door because I have something I have to throw away RIGHT NOW.  What is it?  You don't really want to know.  You do really want to know?  All right, all right it's a dead cat.  I really tried to spare you the knowledge.  Aren't you glad you asked?"  So poor kitty went into the trash and the landlord closed down the pet cemetery.  It was requested of daughter and friend not to bring home any more dead things which we were unable to responsibly accommodate, meaning, "No dead water buffalos, please!"

  I really do like cats.  We lived on the second floor in that Izumo apartment, Blossom Heights, also known as "Izumo Dejima," which I can explain if anyone is interested in knowing.  One night in addition to all the frogs crickety-croaking in the rice fields I head a chorus of mewing down below.  No one lived in the apartment below us at the time so I went down to find three tiny kittens abandoned on the first floor veranda.  How could I leave them there?  This time I did not call the landlord because we were not not allowed to keep live cats, either.  I brought them upstairs and showed them to cat lover (but not on the menu) hub, who says, "Aw, how cute!  It won't be any trouble for YOU to raise them and find them homes."   Do not give regular cow's milk to kittens.  It gives them the runs and you will have to deal with the results.  Good thing they were too small to fight back against the bath.

  We did find a home for two of the cats.  The third one we named Blacky because it was black and also because we did not want to become too attached to it, so we gave it a dorky name.  But attached to it I became, and because a home could not be found, I had to take it to a pet store in the next town of Matsue, sniveling all the way on the train.  Blacky did not like being in the box.  I had to pay for board to drop Blacky at the pet store, but I received a call a few days later that Blacky had found a new home with a family with the same last name as ours.

  I also raised a pigeon in Izumo.  I worked part time in the Mayor's office and his majesty the Mayor decided that he was tired of the increasingly boisterous nest just outside his window.  If he had just left it for another week or so the pigeon family would have left on its own, but he decided that immediate action was required and soon two pigeon chicks came inside in a box.  I took one and someone else took another.  I don't remember what I fed it, but this bumped-nosed birdy was happy and thrived enough to be able to leave the box and explore its surroundings at will.  Pigeon poop all over my house was not a sensible option, so Pipian took up residence outside on our veranda.  I hoped that as the little one grew that it would join its comrades in the wild, but Pipian knew where the meal tickets were and took up residence.  It would come and kick on the glass door every morning demanding grub, and showed no signs of unhappiness with its living quarters, which were becoming increasingly decorated with white polka dots. 

  How do I teach this little feathered fellow that it is really able to find food on its own and not turn my veranda into a terlit?  We were not far from Izumo Shrine, which has pigeon coops, so I loaded Pipian on my bike for a ride to said Shrine and deposited the birdy into one of the coops, hoping that it could learn to eat by example and that the other pigeons would not hen peck it.  We happened to visit the Shrine site a few weeks later, and there was a very tame pigeon with a bump on its nose, and I was comforted the Pipian must have made it.

  Anyway, here are the snails.

  

  I took these while playing with snails a few years back.

  

  They are being released back into the wild.

  

  I think snails and slugs have a horsey expression.

  

  I didn't count how many head there were.

  

  Farewell.

  

  Photoshopped snails

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