View From the Bushes

First, I have a confession to make: I don't think I'm smart enough to "get" a Tom Stoppard play on the first viewing (though I didn't have any problems with Shakespeare in Love). Maybe I'm not being fair to myself. Maybe there wasn't really anything else to get. Of course, my disappointment at my ignorance was quickly overtaken by rage when I ran over some debris in the road. As could be expected, my first thought was, "I hope that damn debris doesn't cause a flat." If I had engaged in more temperate thoughts maybe I would have been okay. As it was, I obviously got a flat.

I really hate changing tires, probably because it hurts my delicate girlie hands. It was the first time I had occasion to use the spare on my van and I had never realized that it's under the van. In my humble opinion that's a terrible place to put a spare tire. Not only was the tire filthy (remember I'm a delicate flower) but it was nearly as flat as the tire I was replacing. Fortunately I was both close to a gas station and close to home, and I was able to limp to an air hose.

On a completely separate note, I was reading from my Bathroom Reader and there was a little note at the bottom of one of the pages that mentioned a mushroom which was 3.5 miles in diameter. Generally speaking, the Bathroom reader books are fairly accurate, though they have made mistakes in the past, so I started looking for independent confirmation. It turns out to be true, but not as spectacular as I had originally thought. In my imagination, I saw this huge mushroom with a ten story stalk, spreading out as far as the eye could see in an even more enormous cave. You can see why I thought it might be ficticious.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross