Racoons and Flashcards

My father has been battling the local racoons in our neighborhood. Usually they go after the flowers that are my mother's jurisdiction. These racoons are hungry, kooky, and determined. When the racoons went after my mother's flowers, they would upset whole potted plants, dig up the roots, and bathe in the water-lily urn that my mother desperately tried to nurture. Any standing water was turned into a water park for the masked nocturnal rodents. It would drive my mother bonkers trying to secure her plants. All the while, my father sympathized by touting verbal wisdom.

Now, the racoons have gone after something near and dear to my father's heart: his prized bamboo. Yesterday, my father awoke to find several tender shoots mutilated. The shoots were about 1.5 feet tall. One was bent in half. The other had it's tender shoot head ripped off and chewed and spit out. My father found the discarded remains a few feet away. He has since declared war on the racoons and fashioned a barrier. Barricade. Chicken wire, barbed wire, buckets, all an elaborate production to deny racoons the pleasure of eating bamboo. Why would racoons go after the bamboo anyway? The stalks were not the tender edible shoots. It was the stringy, nearly fully grown stuff. There are many other green edibles in the yard. I suspect the racoons are going through all the plants until my parents go crazy.

Yesterday, I finished writing about 200 flashcards. But the path to memorization is a steep and slippery slope. Especially with the highly addictive nature of the internet, syndicated television, procrastination, allergies, cute kitty, etc. Imagine this process like a woman with a size 8 foot trying to squeeze into a size 5 kitten heel. Or a big cat trying to sleep in a tiny box. Or shoving 2 big pieces of sushi in your mouth at the same time. Hazardous to health, completely impractical and not necessarily accomplishing anything. But my last final is tomorrow. Yes. YES. LAST FINAL EVER.

I opened my Barbri materials today in an effort to find something on Remedies. The sheer overwhelming amount of stuff gave me a mini-panic and caused me to throw the books back in the box, slam the box shut and kick the whole thing under my bed. We got homework assigned already. This calls for a new recipe. Something escapist. Something that transports me away. Away from infinite memorization, where dreams go to die.