When Turkeys Play Chicken
So you can be driving your mom-mobile, coming home from the grocery store. Your mind can be wandering and you’re enjoying singing along to the radio because you have some time to yourself. Not much is going on in this mundane moment.
Then something catches your eye and you can’t quite believe it but a turkey has jumped out of the bush on the left side of the road and is now strutting towards your lane. Now running. You calculate that–OMG–your trajectories will definitely meet. You inch over to the right hoping turkey will slow. You inch over more. No, it’s not going to work. The geometry and physics are undeniable.
Are you going to slam on the brakes and probably hit the bird anyway? Are you going to drive off the road and risk sliding into the rocks or trees?
You are seriously wishing for your mundane boring drive back again when some turkey- brained thought or instinct tells it to turn around. It races for the ditch on the side of the road from which it emerged.
Phew!
For both of you.
It can happen….
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
Of Politics and Poop
So last week I was out driving and I came across a municipal election sign with a toilet seat draped over it. How eloquent!
I laughed so hard I nearly drove off the narrow road.
I couldn’t take a picture of that particular sight, much as I wanted to. I felt it wouldn’t be fair to the candidate because there was no way to hide the identity of the beseated individual. But now that the election is over and all the signs have disappeared from the landscape, I keep thinking about this incident. It brings to mind a story starting point.
What if a kid saw someone had done that to his or her parent’s election sign? Do you want your parent to be mayor? Would this make you angry or make you ready to die of embarrassment? Or what if this happened to a teen’s election sign if they were running for high school or class president? Would you get to the bottom (pun intended) of who did it? Would you ignore it? Laugh it off? Stew in silence? Hmmm.
Okay, so you’d have to add a lot more. But it’s a start. Go run with it.
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
Me and Some Girl on TV
Driving home last night from parts further south, I was stopped on a minor highway between two small Ontario towns. Cars and vans and miscellaneous vehicles lined both sides of the road, and a huge blinding spotlight was illuminating spooky fog swirls up ahead. I expected a R.I.D.E check but that wasn’t it.
We weren’t moving at all. Cars in front of me turned around and went back. After debating whether or not to do the same, to trust the road sign at the intersection I’d just crossed and detour on a road I’d never driven on before, I too turned around. Oh, sure, now some guy puts up a road closed sign. But I also saw a couple other guys on the side of the road dressed similarly in odd whitish/grey outfits. I decided to ask them what was going on as I drove by.
The answer? Filming for some TV show, I was told. Then the guy said, “Hey, you look like Being Erica‘s Erica.
I laughed, said thanks, and went on my way. I was thinking either the guy needs glasses or it was the fact that
- it was dark out
- and drizzling rain
- and I asked the question through the passenger side window while sitting in the driver’s seat so he couldn’t see clearly
Still, it’s okay to be mistaken for the star of a TV show who happens to be only 32. Hah!
(I confess to recognizing “Being Erica” as the title of a CBC TV show but it’s not one I’ve ever watched. I had to look it up today. The premise sounds cool. I might just have to check it out now.)
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
G8…Gr8?
Between the natural world throwing us an earthquake yesterday, last night’s tornado off to the southwest of me, severe thunderstorm warnings here this morning (which amounted to only heavy rain, thankfully), and all the security and shenanigans associated with the G8, things here have been rather interesting lately.
Yesterday my kids came home excited to tell me about the military helicopter that landed across from the school and how everyone in a couple classroom portables abandoned their desks and ran outside for a better look. I guess some guy told them to get back and it took off again. The kids got a talking to from their teacher too.
And yesterday three very loud helicopters flew over the house a couple times. Those things are loud! The wildlife in my backyard was not too impressed. The low flying copters scared at least one heron and a turtle. I initially put the quake shake down to another flyover. Oops!
I know these things are necessary with an event such as the G8 and the important people attending it, but it’s a very odd juxtaposition to have such a technological military/security presence in such a rural region known for being a get-away-from-it-all vacation destination. Makes me appreciate the time when the peepers were my biggest noise complaint:
And I am fortunate that things will return to normal in just a matter of days.
G8?
Gr8
2 appreciate
1’s normal state
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.