Reflections On a Windsheild

Friday I drove to Tennessee. It's an eight and a half hour trip and, normally, I put the car on cruise and put my mind in "the zone." But this time the traffic, construction, and weather were such, I was forced to focus on driving.

A drive so boring, I was driven to study the bug splats on the windshield for entertainment. They were large, small, smeared, round, square-shaped, pear-shaped; an entire gallery of yellow goo. My interest began to wane when I spotted one mushy, red splotch. My mind skipped a beat, then boggled. Do bugs have blood? It's something I've never considered. If they do, does that mean they have hearts? Arteries? Blood pressure?

I have since spent a great deal of time pondering this. I even asked my friend, a retired chemist, and his vague answer led me to believe he doesn't know and isn't particularly interested. But I can't stop thinking about it, not so it's driving me nuts, it just bugs me.

Michigan Nature Tour #1

Things I learned while sitting on a park bench next to a lake:

1) Swans rule the lake.
2) Swans hate geese.
3) Swans warn Geese to get lost by twitching their tails.
4) Geese pretend they're not intimidated by Swans but you can tell they really are because they don't take their eyes off them.
5) Swans chase Geese by swimming at them snapping their beaks, or by flapping their wings and skimming across the water at them.
6) After a Swan has run a Goose off, it raises its wings, lifts it's chest, points its beak toward the heavens, and snorts repeatedly as though it's dragging a particularly difficult loogie up from the bottoms of its webbed feet.
7) When a Swan is not showing off, it swims placidly in circles.
8) Ducks don't mean doo-doo to Swans or Geese.
9) My dog, Frannie, thinks Goose poop is a delectable treat.