Today is my sister’s birthday. If she were close by, we’d celebrate the occasion with appropriate local shindiggery. But we have to be satisfied with a long-distance electronic “wave” to one another, inasmuch as she lives roughly 2000 mile away. Fortunately, though, she dropped in for a visit a few weeks ago. Unfortunately (and coincidentally), when she dropped in, I was in the hospital. It all worked out, except my plans to spend time giving her the grand tour of modern day Hot Springs Village and environs went to hell in a handbasket. Such is life. Happy Birthday, sister sibling!
A tendency toward familial distance is one of the lamentable aspects of modern mobile society. On the other hand, mobility can provide modern humanity with insulation from our parochial past and opportunities to explore the wider world. I can only imagine the discomfort of still living in the environment of enforced bigotry of modern-day Texas… well, no, I am afraid I can do more than imagine it… But that is enough reflective reality for now.
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Several years ago, my late wife and I accompanied my very same birthday sister on a Road Scholar tour of Provence, followed by using a villa she rented outside of Avignon as a base from which to explore. My oldest brother and his wife, along with the next-oldest brother, joined us at the villa. Not long ago, I came across photos I took during the adventures. Cheese shops. Streetside seafood markets. Mountain villages. Ranch and seaside scenes from the Camargue. It was an extraordinary experience. Gazing at a photo of a huge cooking container (that looked like a wok) full of shrimp paella made me hungry. And an image of a monstrous pot of fresh mussels did the same. My health…or lack thereof…won’t allow me such adventures nowadays. Quite the shame.
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A thousand years hence, giraffes will have evolved to become tree-climbers. During their evolution, the long-necked creatures will have migrated to what is now called northern California, where they will spend most of their days foraging in the tops of giant redwoods. When humans ruled the Earth, before the giraffes adapted to a radically-changed environment, human experimentation with inter-species genetics led to breeding of hybrid creatures which combined the least appealing characteristics of pigeons and hippopotami. That god-awful mistake will have led to unspeakable scenes of public parks awash with foul-smelling statues drenched in slippery goo. In that future time, animals and a few trees will not be the sole examples of mutation, though. Venus flytraps will have grown in size to compete with redwoods and their carnivorous appetites will have become absolutely ravenous. It will not be uncommon to see Venus flytraps clamp their jaws shut around ten-thousand pound cattle and to hear the plants’ digestive juices convert the animals to rivers of liquid fertilizer…nutrition for the forest floor. In this distant future, children will be fed a diet of sugar-coated isosceles triangles for breakfast, thereby eliminating time-worn questions about the value of geometry. All other humans will subsist on beet borscht and brontosaurus jerky. It’s all true. Just ask Alice.
