Tag Archives: winter

A Sumo and a Sparrow Meet In a Grocery Store

Kroger is turning into my meditative place, like an ashram with a deli. I seem to have a lot of epiphanies there–about peaches and crushes, parking lot rage, or canoodling in the pasta aisle. This week, I cried a little in the produce section after I made three loops and realized that the Sumo mandarins are gone again. Maybe FOREVER.

About a month ago, in the grayest gray of February that ever dared to gray, I got annoyed during a traffic jam in the produce section. You know when people just leave a cart in the middle of the aisle instead of parallel parking it? Grrrr. As I waited in my cloud of righteous indignation, an Asian grandmotherish woman waited for the produce manager to peel an orange and give her a sample.

“See how easy they peel? They don’t look like much but they have a great flavor. Real sweet.” He held a half of the orange in one gloved hand and offered her a wedge. As soon as she put it in her mouth, she began to smile and nod. Her husband got a plastic bag from the roller and started pawing through the bin of oranges. And still, I waited for them to move.

sumoBecause I was forced to wait, the aroma had time to get to my sniffy little piqued nose. Dang–that DID smell good. And it sure didn’t smell one bit like February. I grabbed four of the knobbly oranges with the weird sumoesque topknot thingy aroung the stem.

The next morning, I plopped down like a dirty snowman on the couch at the beginning of another gray day. As I peeled the Sumo, Carlos climbed up beside me and we shared bite after bite. I swear that orange kept me from crying that day.

At night, the oranges stopped me from snacking on sweet stuff. In the morning, they started my day off right. For a glorious week, I ate them morning, noon, and night.

The next week when I returned to Kroger, they were gone. I asked the produce manager if they had any in the back. I NEVER do that. He returned with the news that the Sumos were gone and they probably weren’t getting any more. They had been too hard to sell. Too many people looked at the ugly outside and passed them up for a dependable old navel.

I cried, y’all. I stood right there in front of the lunchbox sized apples and sank into a citrusy funk. My inner monologue was pretty much, “Oh, RIGHT. I forgot that I can’t have ANYTHING nice.” Yadda yadda February yadda.

I moved on to Cuties, but it wasn’t the same.

Then the next week, like magic, the Sumos were back. I spent scads of dollars on two bags and hid them in the car and in my office so the kids wouldn’t gobble them up. I know, that’s pathetic, but you do what you gotta do to make it through February. I stretched the Sumos until the calendar rolled over to March.

Maybe this weird new hybrid fruit was catching on! This week, I had my hopes up that Athens had seen the true path and the demand for Sumos would carry us until springtime.

Nope. They were gone. Again. I made three trips around the piles of grapefruit, tangelos, mandarins, lemons, ugli fruit…nope.

Dammit.

Before I could get to feeling too robbed, I heard an outside sound there inside the Kroger. Chirping. Up in the steel rafters, right above the produce section, a tiny sparrow flitted overhead.

I’m sure someone (probably the produce manager) thinks of that bird as a nuisance. I don’t. Sure, it’s gonna poop on something eventually, but there’s a narrow chance of getting pooped on just about anywhere you go.

That little bird cheered me up. It really doesn’t give a damn about whether there are Sumos this week or not. It makes a meal of whatever is left over or dropped. Imagine the plentitude it has foundinside that store! No cats, no hunger, no wind, no rain. Always warm and dry. We could look at it and think, “Poor thing is trapped in here, away from its natural home.” Or we could look at it and think, “Dude…Jackpot!”

It reminded me of that little bird in Bermuda that I wrote about in A Life Made of Crumbs. Gimpy, we called him, due to his little twisted leg. Every afternoon at four p.m., he hop-wobbled around the terrace at tea time, making a feast from the crumbs we dropped from our scones and cucumber sandwiches.

Well, this story has gone on so long, it’s the middle of March. So I guess I made it out of February, Sumos or not. Jackpot!

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White Quiet

SONY DSC

It’s 2:22 a.m. on Thursday morning.  I fell asleep at 9 p.m. and woke at midnight.  Since then, I’ve been reading “The Golem and the Jinni” and trying to fall back to sleep.  But there’s too much weirdness in the air–our routines are off because of the ice storm.  I think my brain has tried to do so much prepping and planning for a crisis that hasn’t happened that I can’t turn it off now.  So let’s roll with it.

If I’m up at 2:22 a.m., might as well see that phase of the day that I usually miss.  I tried to get Huck to go out in the front yard with me, but he knows he’s not supposed to be out there without a leash.  I stood in the shelter of the garage while he waited nervously by the kitchen door.  The city is a pink glow behind the pines at this hour.

We went to the deck and he hurtled down the stairs and into the bright night.  It’s strange to hear the crunch of his steps.  I’ll try to remember that.  Smoke drifts from my new neighbor’s chimney.  I haven’t been over to say hello yet, but I enjoy the smell of his wood fires.  Oops–there’s Vivi’s jacket that I hung out here to dry the other day–frozen solid.  I prop it against the wall for her to see in the morning.  The bird feeders need filling again.  I wonder where all those birds sleep.

It’s so quiet that I can hear the river.  It truly does whisper.

One snowflake drifts down onto my cheek and I’m sure it’s a hello.

Huck is watching me from his crate, a white dog on a white cushion in a white world.  Nose as black as a polar bear’s and a pair of sleepy eyes.  But he’ll stay up with me if I need him.

But maybe it’s time to sleep.  Maybe some writing was what I needed to turn off my brain.  To find rest.

Good night.  Good morning.  Good day.

The Myna Bird

cold map

After spending yesterday at home with my kids due to the schools being closed for extreme cold, I saw this map and had a good chuckle.  HONESTLY.  How many times do I have to say “SHUT THE DOOR!” when it is in the single digits outside?  I said it to G when he went out in the garage to look for a plumbing snake.  I said it to Vivi when we came in the house, left the house, went out on the deck, came back in from the deck.  I even said it to Carlos but he gets a pretty wide path (having just figured out doorknobs).  If only I could train Huck to kick it closed with his back leg when he passes through.  

It reminded me of a story my dad tells.  Back when he was a country veterinarian, driving from farm to farm, he used to stop by this little crossroads grocery store in Meriwether County, somewhere between Luthersville and Hogansville (down the road from Hooterville).  The owner kept an old myna bird as a pet.  The myna sat on a perch by the front entrance and every time someone walked through the door, the myna squawked, “Shut the Got-dam DOOR!” 

Whenever things get crazy at Daddy’s house–between the dogs and the kids and the comings and goings–Big Gay says, “All we need is a monkey and myna bird and we could charge 50 cents admission here.”  Amen.

I am in the market for a myna bird if this weather doesn’t warm up and these kids don’t get back in school!