It’s penultimate February. Tomorrow, tigers pounce, to devour the month. And then on Saturday, the hordes of rabbits (bearing leeks and daffodils for St. Dafydd’s Day, purely as ornaments, since both are toxic to rabbits) that have been massing at the month’s borders will stream in and overwhelm us all. Sandra Boynton has a cartoon for Rabbit Days (of course she does, bunnies are adorable, and SB is an artist of the adorable), which she last posted on Facebook on 1/31, just before the last onslaught:
Boynton writes: The new month approaches, so I am once again sharing the highly scientific fact that if you say RABBIT RABBIT! as your very first words of the month, they will bring good luck all month long. Additional irrefutable fact is that in worrisome times, the more rabbits mentioned the better.
Sing out, Louise! Now is the time to loudly chant RABBIT RABBIT RABBIT — Marche is icumen in / Lhude sing rabette — as a mantra of protection, a prayer for salvation:
From the fury of the Muskmen free us, O ye rabbits!
(From my 11/2/12 posting “Sark”:
the prayer A furore normannorum libera nos domine (‘From the fury of the Northmen [or Norsemen] release [or free] us, O Lord!’) [is] attributed to monks of the English monasteries plundered by Viking raids in the 8th and 9th centuries
Save us! Save us!)
Worrisome times, times of anxiety.
Escape into domesticity. Wednesday morning was spent in computer vexations (entailing restarting my Mac three times) and power vexations (a new electric meter was installed, which entailed a power outage, so yet another restart for the computer), tried to get some difficult writing done (a recollection of my first male lover, from 55 years ago, who has probably died, but I’m not sure, and I don’t know what the hell to do), and eventually moved to a challenging task I knew I could accomplish: take the last of the ivy clippings my perfectionist caregiver (the project was just to cut back the stems that were going to flower and then fruit, but J had to make it all beautiful) chopped down a couple weeks ago and turn them into into little compost bits. The fifth bucketful of tough stems and big rubbery leaves, to be cut up with various sharp-bladed implements, taking two to three hours of sweaty, messy, and deeply satisfying labor per bucket.
For the first time, I didn’t cut myself on any of those sharp edges. I have learned how to do this task withour harming myself. I’m proud of that.
The job itself was of no particular use to the world or to anyone other than me. For a little while, though, I was away from the looming threats, just cultivating my garden — feeding my plants and sweetly growing old.
Still in this haze of domesticity, I went on to make myself dinner. Not something quick, but, like the assault on the ivy clippings, a demanding project aimed at my pleasure. In this case, turning a bunch of Chinese leftovers into a soup: chili prawns (with several varieties of very hot chili peppers), delicately sauteed bean sprouts (both of these sliced up into bits), and brown rice — plus beef broth and soy sauce, all heated in the microwave. It was fabulous (and there were leftovers for two more meals).
And then to bed.
The wave of anxiety. I wrote to Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky this morning:
Slept 8:15 to 4, very soundly, but awakening in some anxiety about facing a world in which so many people in government now think that I’m an animal that would be better put to death. This translated into fairly high first morning vitals [blood pressure and heart rate], but after half an hour of calming [meditation] exercises, my vitals are fine.
I’m now firmly back in the world. J and I did a long day of useful work, separately and together, and got to talk of many things, some of which were conspicuously not about the agonies of life in Muskland: where else can you get a dip into inalienable possession (re My child is not a child) and the noun placard (re the disabled placard I have from the state of California)?
February 27, 2025 at 7:33 pm |
You’ve reminded me of something I haven’t thought about for a long time. When I was a little girl (many years ago now) my mother used to tell me that if, first thing on Easter morning, I said “white rabbits” before saying or even thinking anything else then whatever I wished would come true. I’m sure I tried it many times but it never worked, probably because I could never manage not to think before saying the magic phrase!
February 27, 2025 at 7:43 pm |
It turns out that there are several bits of verbal magic associated with rabbits, some of them apparently connected to the rabbit in the moon (as some see it), others with Easter, others with beginnings, others with fertility / fecundity, and no doubt other things I haven’t thought of.
February 28, 2025 at 7:17 am |
The adorability of rabbits is somewhat mitigated if one is trying to grow things that they like to eat.
February 28, 2025 at 7:55 am |
Indeed. Gardeners have in fact been moved to murder bunnies. It’s a harsh world out there.
February 28, 2025 at 7:36 am |
From Hana Filip on Facebook:
Bingo! And this oscillation continues, as I intend to post about in a while.
February 28, 2025 at 8:16 am |
Here I admit to having inserted an (unattributed) allusion to the Bernstein / Wilbur operetta Candide in this posting. With a nod back to Voltaire, in fact. I am given to this sort of fooling around.