Hiccups

I realized last night that I've never seen an animal having hiccups.

Why is that?

It hardly seems fair.

At this time of year

the sunset lies down
upon the curves of the river

the clouds turn pink
the water
turns golden

the fire
passes away

The Sun Came Out

Some people would say it has been raining here continuously for the past week. That is not strictly accurate. It has been continuously overcast for the past week, and frequently raining.

I saw the sun this morning, I really did. But it's gone now, and looks to stay gone for a few more days. One misses it when it's not around.

What kind of tree is that?

The kind whose leaves change color before any of the others. They are yellow now. The leaves look a little like beech leaves to me, but the bark is not beech-like at all.

None of the other trees have started to change yet.

Elephants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my god! Elephants!

I left my office to get some lunch, and found that the road was blocked off. I looked up and down and didn't see anything that looked like an accident. There were about half-a-dozen motorcycle cops spread out along the road, which usually means something like a parade, or a police funeral.

Then I noticed that a fairly large number of people had come out of their office buildings and were standing around. "They must know what this is," I thought, but I didn't know so I started walking up to the mall.

I looked down the road and saw something coming. It was large. At first I thought it was an inanimate object, like a boat (although it was not shaped like a boat.) Then I thought it was a large horse, or a team of large horses. Then. I realized. It was a bunch of freakin' elephants!

I pulled my sunglasses off to see better. Oh, elephants! Walking along, trunks holding tails, just like they are said to do. They had hair or straw or something on their backs - it was straw-colored, unlike their elephantine dark-gray skin.

I counted them. Nine elephants. Two were much smaller than the others - not quite baby elephants, but close. They smelled like elephants. I could smell them all the way on the other side of a two-lane expressway. (By which I mean, they smelled like plant-eating animals which spend most of their time in enclosed spaces and are not absolutely clean. They smelled a lot like horses. But they weren't horses, were they?)

They walked along. I could have walked along to keep up with them, but I didn't think about it. (And let's face it, I couldn't possibly have looked where I was going.) They walked along and started to move out of my sight. I was headed in the same direction as them, but I couldn't really keep up with them.

There were some people with them, but no signs or decorations, so I don't know why they were there or where they were going. If I have ever seen elephants before I don't remember it. Certainly I never saw them like this.

ELEPHANTS. And I was just thinking I didn't have anything to blog about this week.