stinky

Jax found something dead in a ditch and it became his new favorite toy ever. Our dog smells like a rotting corpse. And he keeps dragging various sections of this dead animal to different parts of the yard, so you never know when you'll encounter the stench of decaying flesh. And I swear, he rolled every inch of his furry body over the smelliest bits of whateverthefrickdeadanimal it was so he could carry it with him wherever he goes. Which naturally makes a girl think of e. e. cummings because it is April, which is National Poetry Month, which leads to me wandering around outside quoting the words of dead men in reference to dead animals in my yard.

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

And speaking of smelly--my sons all wake up with the most powerful breath on the planet. They could peel paint off a wall with their morning breath. Because I worry about them offending their classmates and teachers, I'm always nagging to brush your teeth every morning before they leave the house. I tell them I don't want you to be the stinky kid nobody wants to sit next to. They tell me I don't care, Mom, it doesn't matter. Well, yesterday I learned they are right. It doesn't matter.

I subbed in 3rd grade (and yes, I rocked the lessons on perimeter, writing with adjectives, qualities of good leadership, levers, renewable and nonrenewable resources with a huge eco-women emphasis on reducing our use of plastics, and a bit of art with paint at the end of the day--holla!) yesterday. People, those kids STINK. Almost every kid in that class who talked to me about knocked my socks off with their fetid breath. Apparently when all the kids have stinky breath, no one's going to take offense, which is the logic my children have been using all school year. And I guess I've put my kids at a disadvantage by insisting on good oral hygiene because when your own breath is minty-fresh, you totally notice when other people's is funky. Maybe I need to rethink our morning routine ...

KIDDING! But I should buy a super-sized box of breath mints to help that poor teacher out. If I had a dime every time I wanted to offer one of these kids a piece of gum or something just so my eyes wouldn't water when they talked to me...

Despite their poor oral hygiene, they were a good class, cheerful and focused and willing to work hard.

Spill it, reader. What's stinky in your world today?

Posted in: because we're all carnivores, SMELLS, Team Testosterone, totally unadulterated bragging