Death Becomes The Grasshopper

Road Trip, Part Deux...

Yesterday, I related some highlights of my road trip down to Virginia to attend a wedding, with my daughter in tow.  Today, I'd like to relate a lowlight of that same trip, courtesy of a grasshopper who just couldn't get out of the way.  I shall call him "Puck", as in 'hockey puck'.  As in something that gets hit hard and caroms crazily all over the place when struck at the right angle.

It happened shortly after the air conditioner crapped out on my car.  The windows were down, and I was praying for some open road to pick up speed, get some air (hot as it was) in motion in the car.  I was leaning forward in the seat, anticipating that the cars in front of us were going to move, opening up some space.  which they did, to my relief.

The car in front of us had opened up about two car lengths of road, and I accelerated to take advantage of it.  I was watching the car carefully when I noticed this bright tan-colored blur strike the leading edge of the car's roof, bouncing high in the air.  I determined that it was an insect of some sort, and I watched it dive gracefully in a smooth parabola, heading downward...

It was then that we made the acquaintance of Puck.

Right into my windshield, with an audible thwack, did the grasshopper greet us.  It left a greenish smudge on the glass, and at first I thought the speed and wind would carry it up the windshield and over the car.  It carried it up the windshield, alright.

Then the poor bastard got lodged in the arm of the driver's side wiper blade.  Just our luck, trajectory and physics smashes Puck, then wedges his ass in tight in a notch in the metal.  And he wouldn't come out!

I drove as fast as prudent, hoping the wind would blow him out.  No dice.  I then turned on the wipers, hoping the centrifugal force would toss him out.  No such luck.  In fact, I think that wedged it in tighter.  I tried squirting the wiper fluid, and that didn't work.

Not wanting to pull over for a bug, I kept on driving.  The Wee Lass chimed in from the back, with helpful comments like "Ewwwww..." and "Daddy, that grasshopper is freaking me out!".  I tried to put it out of my mind, but it was too much in my field of vision.

So I drove the next three plus hours with a dead grasshopper's butt pointing right at me, frizzled wings vibrating in the laminar air flow over the windshield like some sort of bizarre totem designed to ward evil spirits away from unwary travelers.  Puck seemed to be saying to me "I'm coming for you in your dreams..."

I felt I should appease the grasshopper spirit when we arrived at our destination, so my plan was to gently extract the carcass and place it in a nearby flowerbed.  No such luck.  The wind and the heat had baked poor Puck, and when I when to pull it from the wiper blade, the dry carcass exploded like a puffball mushroom in a cloud of dust and exoskeleton fragments.

Alas, poor Puck, we didn't know ye well, but please know we tried.  Please don't haunt my dreams.

Secret Weapon: The Ponytail Bomb

Hooray, the sun has finally come out! The weather here has been on the ass end of suck, treating us to a kaleidoscopic array of cold, damp, grey and rain. Put it together however you like, it all sucked. I don’t mind cold so much, but cold, damp and gray just knocks the stuffing out of me. Today, however, it is cold, breezy and SUNNY: not perfect, but invitation enough to leave the cell, er, the house and pay a visit to the park at my favorite local lake. I dig these mini-vacations, even though it is winter. The outdoor forays I am privileged to take offer ample opportunity to observe the flora and fauna hereabouts. After hours and hours of staring at a computer screen, the walls and my own navel (just kidding about the navel), even bare trees and brown leaves are a tonic for the eyeballs. For the mind, as well. I took leave of my “home office” (read: dining room table, with computer) and hightailed my moderately out-of-shape self over to the lake for some fresh air and exercise, bird watching and leaf peeping. A short drive later and I was there.

Normally I take my iPod and headphones with me, for a little musical accompaniment. Today I decided to forgo the hardware and give the old ‘drums a rest. I have been listening to music almost non-stop since I got laid off, and this way I could listen to the geese and ducks and the wind instead of man-made noise. Lovely sounds all, and no fiddling with the cords and volume. No earphones also meant I could hear bikers and joggers when they were coming up behind me. I have only been startled to the point of embarrassment once (sorry, lady with the small child and big wheel stroller!) but today I wanted to be more careful than usual.

I have taken a lot of walks around the lake in recent weeks. I have noticed that after enough practice, it is very often possible for me to accurately guess the gender of joggers and runners from the sound behind me before I actually see them. Not perfect, mind you, but often enough to be amusing. So it was today on my walk. As I approached a particularly curvy, uphill portion of the path, I heard someone jogging up the path behind me. I guessed it was a female. When the person passed me, some things jumped out at me:

1) The jogger was indeed a woman. So my guess was right.
2) The woman had a very shapely physique. When you can tell under the layers of winter jacket (but with tights), it has to be good.
3) She was wearing a baseball cap, with a ponytail threaded through the loop.
4) The ponytail, and presumably the rest of her hair, was a deep reddish coppery hue.

I promptly forgot what I was doing and wandered off into the grass beside the path, nearly braining myself on a low hanging branch. I am sure it looked quite funny from a distance.

Now, I have no bias against short and medium length hair; some of the most beautiful women in the world (The Spouse, Halle Berry, etc.) have it, and I can dig it. But there is something about a well-shaped ponytail that just knocks the pins (and maybe the sense) out from under me. When combined with the coppery red (oh, lawd) and the ‘through-the-loop’ arrangement (duuuhhh, ohmygod, huuuhhh) well, you might as well just smack me with a billy club and toss me in the trunk. Yeah, I may have a problem.

It’s possible that this woman was really not all that and a bag of chips. As I never got the front view (she was jogging away, and I was walking. Jog? Uh, you mean me?) and the line of sight rendered that impossible, it could have been a case of ‘dreamboat body and shipwreck face!’. The glimpse I did get implied otherwise, though. But that was really beside the point. What really gets me is the overall look of it, and I am not really sure why. On one level, it is a simple case of attractive woman in my line of sight, a fairly standard condition amongst many of the males on the face of the earth. On other levels, though…I just…its…what? Maybe it’s the curviness of it all. Soft, feminine, rounded, these are all tropes that I key on. Maybe it is the motion of the ponytail. It reminds me of the ocean. And jaguars. And belly dancers. And horses. I mentioned that last one to a female acquaintance of mine some years ago, and she was mildly offended, leaving me to explain and defend myself. I didn’t do a very good job, at least in the sense of convincing her that I wasn’t saying that women with ponytails looked like horses, or were horses. And I was in no way implying that women were animals. It took me a while to dig myself out of that hole, I can tell you.

I believe I have it figured out now, at least in part. I think it befuddles and fascinates me because of the sum total of all those impressions: the femininity, the curviness, the association with oceans and jaguars and horses running. To my mind they are all exemplars of the beauty and the overwhelming mystery of Nature, and I cannot help but be impressed. I want to be a part of, submerge myself in this mystery. It makes me want to give thanks that I am allowed to experience all this beauty that is so good for my psyche.

So if you are a woman with a ponytail out for a jog in the park, and you see some goofball veering off the path and into the trees, don’t be alarmed or take offense. That will probably be me, out for a walk and communing with the Universe.