Just Desserts

We've been at this farming thing for 5 years now, maybe settling in.  Karen mentioned rabbits at dinner tonight.  Bambi (venison) I've gotten used to, and Billy (goat), Donald (duck), Chanticleer (rooster), Tom (turkey), I suppose Roger might as well be next.  I have yet to name a plant.  Maybe I should.

Before that seems very long ago.  Talking to some new friends on Saturday reminded me of 17 years ago and earlier, when I was their age driving to work each day. "You never regretted it, did you?" they asked, referring to dropping out of the corporate rat race.  Yes, no regrets, to quote a tattoo that's seen around these parts.  Maybe I should get one.

I've kept in touch with only one person from those days.  He's the only one I bounce ideas off and the only one I know who reads my books now and then.  No one around here except Karen has any idea what's in them.  What are all those rats up to?  Same old, same old, or have they moved on to new horizons?  Hey, any of you rats raising rabbits?

I understand a former boss has retired, appeared on MSNBC not long ago.  He used to convene all of us every Monday morning at 8 to review our weekly reports.  His language was worse than another former boss sentenced to 7 years in a penitentiary (mail fraud and racketeering; interstate transportation of forged securities) who kicked a hole in his office wall one morning and splintered a fake antique chair by tossing it across the room.  By the way, soon after he got out of prison, he was charged again, with a similar mortgage fraud scheme. He pled guilty and went back to jail.  The judge said during sentencing that his criminal activity could not be stopped "short of isolating him from all contact with humanity, like putting him on a desert island."

"Those were the days," says Virginia.