“So, how was your day?” I asked the son as I picked him up from school a few weeks ago. He drooped, looking shriveled from the heatwave outside.
“P.E at the worst possible time of day!” , he shrugged. My heart went out to the fellow and well, all of the students really.
Bay Area had endured a heat wave of 100 degree days for two weeks, and if I did not record the following, I’d be remiss in my writing as the Jotter of Events in the nourish-n-cherish household.
“Come on! It can’t be that bad! How about we get some ice cream?” I said.
His eyes shone. “Really?”
I nodded and asked him to invite his friends too. Afterwards, I asked him what the most exciting part of his day had been aside from the ice-cream (“Awwww!”)
“Nothing really!” he said, looking as morose as it was possible to look, with ice cream dripping on his fingers on a hot day in an air conditioned car.
The Goat Story
“Oh come on! It can’t be that bad- the most exciting thing of my day was when I saw a herd of sheep on my walk today. One of them had managed to slip out of the electrified fences. How it managed it, I don’t know. Maybe climbed too high up a tree and flipped over either side. Poor thing.
But you should’ve seen the panic! The sheep dog was going crazy seeing one of its wards had escaped. The other goats were all in a titter, all of them baying and boo-ing. The anxiety in the air – the poor things all wanting to help, shouting directions, and the lost goat all alone on the other side of the fence. It was heart-wrenching to see them all like that.
Then another dog comes on the trail, and this poor goat almost jumped through its own skin. The dog is excited to chase a goat on the trail. The owner of the dog is nervous that she can’t control her dog if he decides to lunge for the goat. The sheep dog is nervous and barking to high heavens at the excited dog, “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! My goat!”
The goats are all frisky and baa-ing away. All of them shouting instructions to the poor misplaced one – Keep left, go that way, try doubling back in this way! No! Not that way! This way!
The poor lone goat who escaped the fence, the poor goats fenced in and trying to help the escaped one, the poor sheep dog trying to find a way to bring in the wayward goat who is feeling more and more lost and panicked by the second, the poor dog owner on the trail trying to restrain her own dog, the dog clearly being stopped from doing the thing it most wants to do which is to chase the goat, and the onlookers all of us desperate to help the poor animals, but unable to do anything. The noise is incredible, you can pluck the emotions out of the air.”
I stopped to look at the son. He swapped his intent listening face to his mischievous laugh, “Are you kidding me? Huh! Get it? Get it? Lost goat? Kid? Never mind. But really amma! As far as exciting things go, this is much better than mine. I had to listen to teachers talk about transformative functions all day! So even if you had nothing else happen to you the rest of the day, which I know is not the case, you still win!”
I laughed. “Hope the little fellow got in with his pals. Never have I seen such panic in brown rectangular pupils.”
“I am sure he did – that goatherd comes by every hour or so, doesn’t he?” said the son. He looked marginally better having heard the goat story, and then went on to tell me about his day in a little bit more detail.
Nourish-n-Cherish 