I have been taking the dog to the vet about three times a
week since May 12. Last Tuesday when I made the trip I saw a dragon, a whale, a
pig, and a hag, complete with hooked nose and jutting chin, chasing each other across the
sky. It was lovely. And then up ahead I saw something that wasn't quite so
lovely -- a turkey vulture in the middle of the road picking at the remains of
a very large snake that had tried to cross and was almost certainly run
over on purpose. I slowed way down and crept along to give the vulture time to
think things over and launch itself into the air.
And this was because some years ago when I still worked at
the post office, one of the women who delivered the mail on a rural route came
up on some vultures having lunch and frightened them badly. At least one of
them threw up all over the front of her car. She said it was horrific. I never
forgot that story.
From that point on I have always approached vultures on the
road very cautiously.
When I got home, I told Richard all about the vulture I saw
and about the woman at the post office. She had driven to a house nearby to
wash her car off, and the children who lived there later gave her a card
with a drawing of a vulture puking on her car. I told him about that too.
He hesitated a minute, and he said…
Don’t you remember you told me very same story about two weeks ago when we went to vet together and there was the group of vultures at the side of the road….
No. I did not remember until he mentioned it.
I guess I am now at the age where this sort of thing starts
happening. It is scary though. Very scary. Hard to know what is “normal” for a
geezer and what is not. I have always hoped that my mind would remain "sharp as a tack" as I approach old age and if I live long enough to become an "elderly elder." Now I am not so sure that is going to happen.
I will be making another trip to the vet tomorrow for
the dog’s last treatment. No telling what I might see between here and
there, but I will think carefully about it before I say anything to him…
