Sunday, July 7, 2013

Naaaaaaaaature! Goulet.


So the other day Teens and I were driving home, and during a red light, a butterfly landed on her windshield wiper and stayed there, even after we started moving again.  Pretty soon, we were going almost 40mph, and this little guy was defying the laws of physics or gravity or inertia or something (Science was my worst subject in school) and still hanging on somehow.  It was some real Teen Wolf showing off on top of the van shit.  I'll be a sonofabitch if he didn't stay on the wiper for over a mile, all the way until we stopped again at the intersection pictured above, when he casually flew off like he was riding a bus and we just arrived at his stop.  I don't know if he panicked when we initially started moving and just froze, or if he takes rides like this all the time just for kicks, or if it was some sort of butterfly frat house initiation (Pi Butta Phli?  Sorry, had to) or what the deal was, but it was bizarre.

Anyway, it was a fun moment, made even more special by the fact that I desperately needed some positive interaction with animals and nature.  Others things that have happened within the last week or so:

1)  We had a bird's nest fall in front of our house, so we had three dead baby birds literally at our doorstep, and a fourth that survived for almost 24 hours (we were giving the parents a chance to rescue them) until I had to put it out of its misery with a friggin' snow shovel like I was the creepy neighbor from Home Alone

2)  During a round of golf, I was buried in the trees, and needed to hit a punch shot that stayed extremely low to the ground for about 60 yards- not an easy shot to hit.  I executed the shot well....except for the fact that there was a rabbit about 40 yards away, and I plugged him right in the side.  The rabbit was hobbling a bit, and his buddies will probably nickname him 'Titleist 3' since that is now branded into his fur forever, but he ultimately seemed OK.  But in the meantime, my ball ricocheted off him into the woods, and I ended up making a double bogey on the hole.  Can I get a ruling on this one?

3)  Our back yard runs into some woods, so we constantly have rabbits, possums, foxes, etc. running around our neighborhood.  However, they all (understandably) run away the instant a human comes near, so we never really get a lot of up-close interactions.  So I'm chilling in the driveway, enjoying a chew after mowing the lawn.  I see our neighbor and his young daughter transfixed in their yard, and I glance over to see that a little bunny has moseyed up to within five feet of them, not scared at all, just maxin' and relaxin'.  It's a magical moment for a little girl....until I walk over to within about 25 feet, spit, and the loud splatter of my chew on the driveway scares the rabbit and he takes off, back into the woods.  The daughter starts crying, the dad shoots daggers at me, and I slink away like an asshole.  Awesome.

I hate animals.