Sunday, October 11, 2009

Not Ria. Ria.

Early this year, a few of our cedar trees become covered with these orange goo sea urchin creatures. Going inside I did what I do with most every question I want to know the answer to. I googled, "orange goo cedar tree". In seconds I came up with the answer: Cedar Apple Rust.

I sometimes worry there's an account with my name on it at google headquarters. In it is a record of every search query I've ever typed in: "orange goo cedar trees" "good rat diet" "cat kidney failure sudden death" "sudden death adult', "how to make a rat hammock".
Anyway, later that day I showed pictures of cedar apple rust to Laura.

"Weird," Laura said. Her hands on her hips she looked closer into the back of my digital camera. "Can you zoom it in," I did. "Do you think it's Ria?" she asked.

Later that night I told Mom about it. Mom said, "well there's lots of cedars around let's see if there's any of this goo on the neighbor's trees."

We walked across the road, up the bank just beneath the trees and looked up. Nothing. The only goo was in my trees.

"Ria?" Mom asked. "Ria is that you?"

Lately, I find myself thinking exactly that, a strange bubble in a photo, a scrap of paper with an 'm' on it in a library book, a pileated woodpecker, the phone going dead, a feather in a bag of bath products, the radio going off, rainbows.

Ria is that you?

1 comment:

  1. Hi, Sabra and team, I, too, ask the same question-to the hummingbird who always looked in on us through the window all summer, to all the random flowers we never planted that just would pop up one day in our garden beds, and to the beautiful doe who walked right across our front windows into the back and stared into our dining room on our birthday weekend as Maria's favorite aunt, Maureen, exclaimed in delight. We love you, Maria. Aunt K

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