|
My parents are back in town this week in their ongoing quest to get the last of their belongings divided up between their nomadic destinations that they are now calling home. One of the things that Stacey and I have always shared with my parents was the love of gardening. With the geographic areas that they are now calling home not what you would call garden friendly, our garden, has in essence, become their garden as well.
The timing of their visit was perfect. It is blackberry season in our vegetable garden and this year has been a bumper crop. We’ve been picking berries like crazy and freezing them in mass. Our hands are stained purple and we were rapidly running out of room in both freezers. So when my mom and dad come to town they helped alleviate the glut of berries. My dad by eating them, and my mom, whom I have mentioned in the past is Martha Stewart except with better judgment, through more creative means.
So while my mom was here she graciously offered to make a batch of blackberry jam. At the same time she gave me a tutorial in the fine art of jam making and hopefully we can try it when she isn’t around. It was not as hard as I thought it would be, but it was certainly time consuming. Hopefully, once we have a weekend to ourselves at Casa Dunn we will give it a shot and our results will not stain the entire kitchen purple in the process.
My son recently started a summer baseball league in order to further prepare himself for the big step up to the high school next year. Little did we know that this team was going to hit the ground running. After one practice on Thursday we had two games over the weekend and we were off. On our way to one of these games we, my family and I, had an encounter of the insect kind that had us all shaking our heads.
For some reason around our house, we have always attracted grasshoppers. Not just the little tiny green ones that like to munch on my rose plants, but the big ones. You know the ones. They are about three to four inches long and are ugly brown in color. Even though they don’t bite humans, and are harmless to everything except plants, ever since I was a kid they have always creeped me out. Even though I knew they could never hurt me, every time I would see them I would immediately look for something large and heavy to use in terminating their existence. Hopefully, something with a long handle so I didn’t have to get too close.
So imagine my distress when my family and I were sitting in our car, about to leave for Alex’s game, at seeing one of these beasts perched on my car like a hood ornament. This thing was huge. I mean I have seen people pass off smaller creatures as dogs. His size, combined with his naturally hideous appearance, had everyone in the car squirming. But there he sat and we were late so he was about to get a free ride off our property to the black asphalt of no man’s land of Rosemead Boulevard, where I hoped he would meet his ultimate demise.
I am sure he was one of the vermin responsible for chowing down on my green beans, peppers, and tomato plants. Based on his size, he may have been the only one. Oh, if my vegetables could speak. Nothing gets that big without eating a ton and this was definitely the Godzilla of grasshoppers. Nothing would make me happier than to see him filling a tire tread instead of him filling his belly in my garden.
Our journey was taking us to a ballpark in West Covina. A destination I was sure Godzilla would never reach. I figured, if by some incredible stroke of luck, he made it all the way down Rosemead Boulevard at speeds of 40 plus miles an hour, he would certainly be toast once we hit the 10 Freeway. Surprisingly, he held on. Before we knew it, that is where he, and we, ended up. Heading east down the San Berdoo Freeway.
We all were staring in amazement. Well, my wife and kids more than me because I was driving, and at the same time, trying to psychically make him explode. But this big arrogant bug defied us as our speed increased. Actually, he casually adjusted himself into a position head on into the wind as if to maximize his enjoyment. Of course, this was pissing me off even more because he appeared to be enjoying the ride. All I wanted to see him do was fly off and become windshield dressing. I was now up to 80 miles an hour and we were just about to pass the 605 freeway and he wasn’t moving a muscle.
That is when the inevitable happened. Traffic came to a grinding halt. At this point I found myself fighting off the burning desire to grab the baseball bat in the trunk and pummel the plant eating monster into mulch right there on my hood to make sure he didn’t continue his reign of terror in Baldwin Park or West Covina. As far as I was concerned, our time together was over.
And then the unexpected happened. Just as the traffic started to move again, as though he could never top the ride he had just experienced, he made a kamikaze jump into the cars passing us to the right. Since we were still on the freeway, and once again on the move, we couldn’t witness his fate. Being a betting man, I’m sure he won’t be reducing any more gardens to ruble like the original Godzilla did to Tokyo.
I can hardly wait to see the letters I get for this one. They’ll probably come from the People For the Ethical Treatment of Grasshoppers and the Talking Vegetables of America.
|
