marel trout

October 1, 2006

Dear Gracie,

I am writing to thank you for your generous gift of the sack of diamonds and emeralds!

I have exchanged them for currency, which has amounted to 1.8 million dollars. I have wired the full amount to Old Auntie, who is refurbishing the village!

Everyone in the village has new shoes, new blankets, and lovely straw hats. The mail mule has a nice leather haversack and roller blades. Next week they are digging a well in the centre of the village. No more hauling water 18 miles from Tsrihtetaivella!

You will be pleased to know that the village is erecting a statue in your honor made in the traditional manner with straw and dung!

Yours in Gratitude,

Muffin Antipaloupikouidae

October 3, 2006,

Dear Muffin,

Did you know that toilets, they are actually white.

Me I did not know this.

Yours,

Gracie

October 6

Snooples and me, we are spending the day over at Vladimir Polesaw’s place. We are cultivating the corns.

Me, I am managing this here cultivator. It is rolling along behind Vladimir Polesaws plodding old horse.

Snooples, she is following and she is pulling weeds.

Snooples, she is singing a quiet song which sounds like MILCH COWS A-MOOING but actually I think it is TRAMMEL THE WHEAT THINS.

SNOOPLES YOU MUST NOT CRAWL UPON YOUR KNEES. YOU WILL GET RICKETS.

Snooples, she does not listen. Snooples, she is on all fours and she is studying some sort of creature which is trundling among the corns.

Good gracious it is a hideous green caterpillar the size of a house trailer.

STAND BACK! THAT CATERPILLAR COULD MANGLE YOU WITH ITS CLAWS!

The horse, he has taken this opportunity to stop walking forward. He is eating a old cabbage.

Snooples, she is picking up that hideous caterpillar. Snooples, she is putting that caterpillar in the pocket of her tattered sweater.

October 7
Evening

Am hunched over the dining room table and am parsing sentences.

Snooples, she is feeding pretzel twigs to that caterpillar. Which apparently is now a pet.

SNOOPLES WHY CANNOT YOU GET A COW OR SOME OTHER TYPE OF NORMAL PET.

Hyalophora cecropia

THERE IS NO NEED TO SWEAR.

sir william baffin.

LET US NOT CHANGE THE SUBJECT. A HIDEOUS CATERPILLAR: IT IS A HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE PET.

i shall name him sir william baffin.

Damn it I cannot get this sentence parsed. I shall cross out some of some of these here extra words.

The Viking way of life, with many individuals crammed into smoky earth-floored dwellings, would hardly have seemed to have encouraged the accumulation of art objects.

There. That that is better.

October 12

YOU MUST GET RID OF THAT CATERPILLAR THIS VERY DAY. IT IS THE SIZE OF A BEAGLE.

but he has made himself indispensable!

NONSENSE HE IS EATING ALL THE LETTUCES.

but i am teaching him the latins!

ENORMOUS WORMLIKE THINGS: THEY DO NOT BELONG IN THE HOUSE.

blackie, he is a enormous wormlike thing.

THAT IS DIFFERENT. BLACKIE HE IS A MAMMAL.

Oh damn it. Chessie, she has drunk the last of the Royal Crown sodas. Here is the bottle in the box of oatmeal.

October 13

It is the middle of the night and I am laying here with my pillow bunched all around my ears.

It is impossible to sleep. I shall shake Snooples.

THAT CATERPILLAR. IT IS MUNCHING LETTUCE AGAIN.

Snooples, she has crawled out of her bed and she is shufflng down the hall with that caterpillar in its mayonnaise jar under one arm.

October 14

We are leaving for school. Nini, she is handing us our lunches.

Snooples, she is still sprawled upon the sofa in her pajamas and her flannel robe. That caterpillar in its mayonnaise jar, it is underneath Snooples head.

I guess Snooples, she will not be going to school today.

I wonder what is in my lunch.

Oh it is fried tapioca balls.

October 22

Robins Implicated in Jewel Heist

John James Flinch and Thaddeus Corn, two robins in the Bassettville area, have been arrested in connection with the theft of over $1 million in unrecovered jewels.

The jewels were reported stolen from the estate of Mrs. Margaret Boast on Saturday morning.

The robins were apprehended along with several grackles in their loot-laden high rise nest after they were witnessed bragging about the jewel heist at a local tavern known as the Rusty Beak, located underneath an unconfirmed number of spiraea bushes in a remote area north of Bassettville.

“They were showing off these big Rolex watches they’d bought and were dragging around everywhere,” said Clovis Lightfoot, (Sylvia communis) owner of the tavern. “I’d expect that type of behavior from crows. But robins? What is the world coming to.”

Huh. I did not know that there was a new tavern underneath the spiraea bushes. I will have to tell Pia.

Well, I had better get back to mulching Ninis brussels sprouts with these newspapers.

October 26

Snooples and me, we are loading cabbages and punkins onto the wagon over at Vladimir Polesaws. The plodding old horse, he is eating a No Trespassing poster.

Snooples, she is morose. This has been going on all day.

SNOOPLES I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU ENJOYED WORKING WITH PUNKINS.

dead! he is dead!

NO THAT HORSE. HE CAN EAT ANYTHING AND NOT DIE.

no! charles darwin!

WELL YEAH BUT THAT THERE WAS A WHILE AGO.

no!

Snooples folds her arms and disconsolately kicks a small gourd which goes tumbling across the grass.

anyways! Snooples, she mops her eyes with her sleeve. my caterpillar: he is dead.

WELL A STUPID CATERPILLAR. THAT THERE IS NO REASON TO BECOME MORIBUND. ANYWAYS I THOUGHT HIS NAME WAS SIR WILLIAM BUFFLEHEAD.

Snooples, she is flouncing off across the fields in the direction of Vladimir Polesaw who is mending the goat fence. Snooples, she is squeaking at Vladimir Polesaw. Snooples, she is dramatically waving her paws.

I guess I will go back to loading these here cabbages and punkins.

October 28

SNOOPLES YOU MUST COMMENCE EATING YOUR SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS. NINI IS GIVING US HER CHECKBOOK AND WE ARE GOING CHRISTMAS SHOPPING AFTER SUPPER.

i shant accompany the expedition.

YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHICH NINI TRUSTS WITH THE CHECKBOOK.

it is out of the question. i am in mourning.

Snooples, she has pushed her dinner plate away and she is pressing her forehead to the table.

October 31

We are all setting on folding chairs in the yard. There are dozens of us. There is Ben wearing black lace from head to foot. There is Chessie squirming uncomfortably in a dumb dress with chimpanzees printed all over it. There are the chinchillas in their leather jackets straddling their motorcycles. There is Bucky Lawless and Bing Hampton. There is Porcine Abelmury wearing a white pillbox hat. There are all 18 of the gerbil kids from the trailer park. There is Walter Whitman and the Tooney Brothers passing a flask back and forth. There is Pia in a black velvet pantsuit cracking her knuckles and looking bored.

We are listening to Nini. Nini, she is dressed in a pearl gray evening gown. Nini, she is thunderously playing Mozart’s Mass Requiem upon the 60-foot pipe organ.

Me, I cannot believe we are having this here caterpillar funeral.

That caterpillar, it is in a weird little bundle which is displayed in Snooples red wagon up in front of the mourners.

Thank heavens the pipe organ, it has stopped its racket. Also here comes Father Tooney up to the podium.

Perhaps we can wrap this up in time to go watch Gilligans Island.

Birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. We are gathered here to pay our farewells to a highly respected

stop!

Snooples, she has stood up and she is wringing her paws inside her white lace gloves.

we cannot continue until charlie arrives! he is off birthing some piglets!

(uncomfortable silence)

Charlies Mini Cooper, it has just pulled into the driveway. Here comes Charlie wearing his tweed shovel cap and scarf.

What’s going on here?

charles darwin! he is dead!

There’s nothing wrong with this caterpillar.

but he builded himself this here shroud!

He’s just going to turn into a moth, that’s all.

a moth?

Yup.

oh. okay.

Nini, she has commenced some sort of loud ornate crashing music upon the 60-foot pipe organ once again. That song, it is somewhat familiar.

Oh. It is THE WAY WE WERE.