A Waxing Moon in Rabbit Season

In case you didn't know, I made it to Maine. I'm all settled in at the Godins' and working on figuring out job and other stuff. Things are going very well. I'm quickly making friends and gaining clear vision on my purpose for this season of life. I don't think I ever mentioned that I sprained (or something similar... I didn't go to the doctor) my knee about 6 weeks ago. Before you get too concerned, it's doing much better now. See, I just saved you weeks of worrying. I'm rehabbing it right now by riding my bicycle on my trainer down in the basement. I've been doing this and that around town and running into all kinds of people, including some pretty interesting neighbors, which brings me to a couple amusing anecdotes from this morning...


It snowed a good 6 or 7 inches last night, and it wasn't your run of the mill powder. No, it was the thick and nasty kind; the kind of snow you don't want to leave lying around for fear it will turn into cold, heavy concrete. I woke at 7:15 this morning to my alarm, the snow blower cranking up right outside my bedroom window, and suited up for shoveling. After clearing the driveway enough for Debbie to get out to go to work, we headed down the street to make our daily rounds. Second on the list was one of the aforementioned neighbors, Dennis (Not to be confused with the guy I live with, Dennis, or his youngest son, Dennis, Jr., who is off in NY in college). I don't know much of this guy's story, but I do know that he broke his arm last week and came over to ask us to clear his driveway for him. I think it's also relevant to what I'm about to tell you to mention he has a large round nose, a thick New England accent (they don't really say r's unless it's to add an extra 'r' after an 'a'. "Park the car, Brenda" becomes "Pahk the cah, Brender") and speaks slowly. Back to the story. Dennis got going with the snow blower while Joey and I started shoveling out around the deck. Everything was going according to plan until I heard a crunch-crunch-crunch behind me and saw brown chunks of something shooting out of the snow blower. We all stopped to see what we just destroyed. What we found was the remains of a decorative porcelain porch bunny. Neighbor Dennis let out a bellowing, rapid fire "huh-huh-huh-huh" laugh and blurted out, "Dennis is a wabbit killa!" I busted out laughing, and so he just repeated it again and again. "He's a wabbit killa! A wabbit killa!" (Go ahead and say it out loud.) I don't think he could have done a better Elmer Fudd impression if he was actually trying.

We did a couple more driveways before we made it to our last one where Bob and his wife live. Now Bob is quite an interesting guy. He's a Vietnam vet in his seventies and spent time in France as a translator for doctors. A few days ago, Bob took a spill on his front steps (wearing house slippers on ice is not a good idea) and bruised his back pretty badly. He saw me shoveling by the front door, so he peeked out to talk a bit. He was finely attired in an undershirt and boxers... of course his fly was open. I asked him how he was doing, and he gave me a full account of how he had hurt himself on the front steps last week. Well, as you may or may not know, no story about an injury is complete without showing off the scar or wound received from said event. So Bob starts to turn around and pull up his shirt while trying to hold the screen door open at the same time. He realizes that's not going to work, so he locks the door closer in place as to have free use of both hands. Both hands. That's when I realized what was about to happen. As he goes for his shirt with his left hand and his boxers with his right hand, I think to myself, "Am I really about to get mooned by an old man? Surely not. I'm practically a complete stranger. Surely, he wouldn't do.." And then it happened. I couldn't look away as the 72 year old, wrinkly, white, black, blue, green and purple behind was unveiled in all its glory before my unsuspecting eyes. He held his pose to make sure I got a good look, and all I could do was say, "Oh ya, that's bad". The conversation/exposition died pretty quickly after that, and I got right back to shoveling. Oh the joys of neighbors.