Glow Dog

So humom and I were listening to "Fresh Air" and a lady came on to talk about her book, Frankenstein's Cat: Cuddling up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts.  Humom said it sounded depressing.  Incredulous! This I must hear.  So we heard all about scattershot mutant mice and medicinal goats, and I was sadly disabused (isn't that a great word? doesn't mean what you think though) of my notion of F's cat. But wait! Science has something great for us Malamutes!

The cat lady, Emily Ants, starting talking about Glow Fish. These are not fish = food, but rather fish that hupeople keep around the house to tease cats and us dog people.  These Glow Fish are combined in some unthinkable way with other beings to glow in bright colors!

Well, finally science has come up with something the discerning Mallie and MRMer can use.  Hand over a couple of these Glowy Fish and let's see if we can gain the capacity to glow in the dark!

-- no morning or night jogger need ever worry about his/her pulse rate again
-- every school production of The Hound of the Baskervilles will have them screaming in the aisles
-- when you need to go out at night and go and breathe gently into humom or hudad's sleeping face, you're guaranteed to get RESULTS!
-- need to cross a dark road? not in a big hurry? no problemo
-- looking for that special surprise for the mailman? Just go to the window and smile
-- night mushing! arooooooooooooooo

Being of the stealth Mallie variety myself, I look forward to disappearing, as I do regularly, just to tone up humom's system, y'know, and then, when she's yelled herself hoarse, looked for me everywhere and is about to cry, appear exactly behind her, pulsing with a gentle glow, halo firmly in place.  Ah, science.  --- Missy out

Polipoli

A student told my class her mother believed dinosaurs survived in the mountains.
She must live upcountry.
Descending the coils of Polipoli
Slowly lowering like a stage dea-ex-machina
Not disembodied but out of character, enthoused
Stepping, if one can, from cloud to cloud
In the silence that has always been and always will be, oddly moist,
Constantly shifting, just out of sight
In the distance just a hint of something enormously huge, enormously dark
Perhaps spewing lava? on the horizon
Gradually appearing in the mist
Apparitions
Enormous skeletons of seamonsters
Filigree naked bird-fish, delicate but evocative of flashing muscle
Floating upright, adrift on land --
Or is it land? this fairytale place
Could be another dimension entirely
Were it not for the stones under my feet

Ugly

When I first came to Maui I thought it was ugly. I mean really. "Welcome to our beautiful island. Enjoy the view of the power plant as you enter the city. What you are choking on is burning cane... " The Barbieland perfection of Wailea, the Texas Hill Country aridity of the badlands not in cane or corn -- where was Hawaii? Then I drove upcountry. Blue-blooming trees shading tiny ponies; cattle grazing among prickly pear cacti; a lavender farm with cafe for tourists. Two oceans, islands and that floaty feeling. Everywhere lava rock. At the top of the volcano, observatories to stare at the stars.