Uncommon Encounter

When I was twelve, I visited a Native American museum in Taos, NM. On one wall was a circle of wood. On it, written in a spiral that culminated in a crude print of a dragonfly, was a description of the role that dragonflies played in the lives of warriors of this tribe. I wish I could remember the tribe. Basically what the spiral said was that the warriors tattooed dragonflies onto their body for protection. It said that when dragonflies feel threatened, they fly very close to the ground and beat their wings so that the dust from the dirt swirls around. This enables them to dart off to safety, effectively escaping their predators. I couldn't tell you about anything else at the exhibit. But what I can tell you is that I have felt the absence of this tattoo on my body since reading this. Almost twenty years have passed and I still feel naked and unprotected. I've planned it out in my head a million times but have never taken that next step. Someday I will.

With this piece of art, an obsession was born. Dragonflies intrigue me. I have a huge collection of dragonflies that ranges from art prints to stained glass pieces to greeting cards, etc. The list goes on. Matt has gone as far to say, "Slap a dragonfly on any piece of crap and Devon will buy it." Thanks, Matt! But seriously, I can't resist a dragonfly.

My interactions with dragonflies have been limited though. I've watched many a dragonfly flit by and have watched in happy awe. At Squam this year, I was walking along with Matt and a dragonfly landed on my shirt! It stayed for half of the walk to the dining hall. Very cool.

But big experience arrived a couple of weeks ago at one of my client's houses. They have a pool and while dipping my feet in, I noticed that a number of bugs had made the unfortunate mistake of ending up in the pool. I saved a couple of ladybugs and then I noticed the dragonfly and just about died. I was so sad. Since they didn't have a pool skimmer, I'd been using a styrofoam floaty tube to wrangle them in. I worked for a while at pulling the dragonfly closer and eventually got it close enough to gently lift it out.

Carefully, I placed it on my hand (in what I would realize later was an upside-down position). I sat with it like that staring for a good five minutes. I had never seen a dragonfly up close before. What a luminous creature! Its wings had a gossamer sheen and it's eyes! Oh my god, it's eyes! They glow. They radiate light. They reflect. Amazing! And it's little face looks like a pansy or a monkey (another serious obsession)! Unreal!

As I sat there staring at it, I realized that its body was very very very slowly expanding and contracting and repeating the motion. In and out it slowly went. Realizing it was alive and that I'd saved it from drowning was such a powerful moment. I brought it over to the table and set it down. I finally realized that it was upside-down and I carefully turned it over. As it breathed in and out, sometimes fast enough for me to realize that it was panicking, I separated its chlorine covered wings. As they congealed again, I would separate them again.

When I felt it had dried enough, I transferred it to a leaf and found a good hiding spot for it to recover. I checked the next day and the leaf remained, empty.

I'll never know if it escaped but in my head it did. And my dragonfly obsession? A million times bigger.

Here are a couple of images and a couple of videos of the beautiful creature.



The hiding place!


Notice how fast it's breathing (watch the end of its body).



Look at its beautiful monkey face!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tiny Flier

I am going through the huge process of organizing my photos and I came across one that I meant to post. Hell, I've meant to post a ton of stuff but man have I been busy.

I took a trip to the train station a month ago (?) and I noticed at stop lights that there was a fly on my window. Mind you, I think flies are filthy disgusting creatures. Blarf. But there was something different about this little one. While it wasn't busy barfing on my windshield, it appeared to be going for a ride. When the car slowed to a stop, it would turn its body around so that it was facing the top of the car. As the car sped up, it would turn its body around and hold on for dear life. You could actually see the wind whipping through its little leg hairs.

Sure, I thought, that's cool. See you later. But I got to the train station and picked up my lovely passenger, Aimee and I pointed out the fly, expecting it to be gone by this point. Nope. So she watched with me as we drove to The Shoe (naturally) while this little fly continued its dance, flipping back and forth.

When we came out to go off to dinner, it was still there! It danced to the the restaurant and by the time we came out it had flown off. But it had spent at least an hour on my windshield. Every time I started driving again, I waited for the force of the air to push it off and it held on tight. What an invigorating experience it must have been for this tiny little thing. How fascinating that at any other time, I might not even have noticed it was there or would have wanted it to move on as quickly as possible. Instead I've have a memory of a fly holding on while it whips through the ride of its life.

Here's a blurry picture of the little dancing fly, facing up in the "stop" position:

Apparently Tabitha IS smart!

When not shoving her face into paper bags, climbing into cardboard boxes or licking plastic bags, Tabitha is apparently a genius at tricking Piper. Last night, Matt watched as Tabitha looked on at Piper who was in the window. She wanted a space in the the window but Piper is rude. So instead of giving up in sadness, she decided that biting him on the tail was her next objective. His response was, "ow" and he jumped down, chasing after her. Here's where her smartypants exceeded expectations: She ran past the table, made a sharp left and came back around, and then jumped up into the window sill, leaving Piper in a befuddled mess. Superb.


(Tabitha working the "bag on head" look.)

I say "Whee" a lot when I'm driving.

It's a pretty good indication of how I drive.

I went to my parent's house the other day. A couple days before there had been a snow storm in which I made tracks up the driveway once and in the meantime, an ice storm had followed. This left the obnoxiously un-plowed driveway with a car track covered by about 2 inches of ice surrounded by icy snow. Adding insult to injury, the town had plowed about 2 feet of snow into the end of the driveway turning it into a roller coaster. Not easily deterred, I made a go at it, coming in from the right and got stuck in the driveway. Backed up, went forward, stuck. Backed up, went forward, stuck. Repeat far too many times. I had the peddle at full force the throughout all of it causing the engine to rev like it was preparing for a drag race. Snow was kicking up everywhere. I then decided that that if I burned through enough snow using this strategy, I'd be able to make it up the driveway. No dice.

A normal person, at this point, would park the car and walk the 50 feet up the driveway. You'll be shocked to know that I am not a normal person.

I put the car in reverse, shot out of the driveway onto the road, positioned my car dead on so that I'd have a straight path and gunned it like my life was over. As the car careened up the driveway, narrowly missing the fence, it rocketed along the icy path, kicking up what looked like pounds of snow in its wake. Finally, it cleared the house, obviously getting close enough to induce heart attacks, but I had arrived. This is when I saw the squirrels running in terror, literally diving for cover. I opened my door, wafted in the smell of burning tires and stomped to the house muttering, "I'll show YOU what a beetle is capable of doing."

Things that should definitely be left in parking lots...

Really, I'm good at this, REALLY!

I wrote this email to a good friend of mine (who's also a dog walking client) after my experience today. I went to meet another client who happens to live 2 doors down from them:

"I'm sure your husband told you about the surprise visit from me, two dogs and [her] daughter. I knocked on their door and two of the dogs barged through the door, went barreling past me across the street and then up the street in on coming traffic (both ways of course, one of them actually stayed stopped in front of a waiting car) and then ran right into your driveway where Digger met them with unbridled excitement and Coco growled and barked at them. To make things even more exciting, [your husband] came outside and one of their dogs ran into your house and ate some of your doggies' food. They had no collars on so catching them from the beginning had been shockingly impossible. I was very happy to meet [your husband], although he probably thinks that I'm an incompetent idiot."

Good times!

Colin Hay

A couple of months ago, Rachel texted me and told me to listen to Colin Hay's song "Maggie". I went to YouTube, searched for it and found a video. I then bookmarked it and never found the time to watch it (lame).

Tonight at the theatre, we had Colin Hay. What a phenomenal show that was!

First off, he played a song at the opening of the show and then talked for a solid 15 minutes. And he was hilarious. And then he started in with the songs. And they got more poignant and sadder. And I kept listening and thinking, This one? Is this the song? It's pretty and it's making me cry! It's got to be! And I'd send off a text to Rachel.

And then he played the first verse of Maggie.

"When I first set eyes on you
First you beat me up then you kissed me too"

And as the chills swept through my body, I knew it was the one. Wow.

Here's the YouTube that I failed to watch:



I recommend not following in my footsteps and instead, watching it toute suite.

The other highlight of my Colin Hay evening was when I was making a kind of subtle but kind of noticeable lighting change and he sort of stopped talking for a second, cocked his head up at the ceiling and said, "Nice lights." I cheered (obviously) and yelled, "Thank you!" and he said, "Nice lights for a singer/song writer." He was clearly used to lights of a different sort. After the show, when I met him, I thanked him for saying something and he thanked me for doing them.

I was talking to his tour manager, Ace (really nice guy) and he said,"You know how many times he's mentioned the lights in the two years I've been with him?"
"Tell me!"
"Never."

When Colin Hay walked back through the theatre to do the meet and greet, I said that it was nice meeting him.

"You too! And tell your friend I say 'hello'"

Rachel, Colin Hay says 'hello'.