There’s Always a Second Deer

I got the skinny from the Butcher who hit his deer doing 70 on Briley after he watched one deer bound across the road. That deer made it. The deer that came over the wall right into the Butcher’s lane did not.

But, as the Butcher said, thank goodness he didn’t have a sun roof, because the deer hit the bumper and rolled over the car. A sun roof, especially if it had been open, would have caught that fucker in it.

The bathroom is clean and the dining room table is cleared off of all my shit.

I think I’ve done all I can do to prepare for the arrival of my parents, who have now called me twice to make sure that we really have tickets.

Honestly, folks, if I had known they were going to get so excited about going to concerts, I would have taken them to one earlier.

Updates on Everything

Apparently the Butcher hit a deer on his way to work this morning. I would never have known except my dad called to ask me if I’d read him sassing the Butcher on Facebook, which I hadn’t, because I was swamped all morning. Ugh. Poor Butcher. I hope he’s okay.

The dog is “unique” according to the vet. The vet thinks it would be beneficial to the dog if she were tranquilized before coming to the vet any more because, as the vet explained it, you know how some people are just terrified of dentists, like get panic attacks about it? That’s apparently Mrs. W. about the vet. I was hoping that a trip to the vet in which she didn’t have to get any shots might be okay, but no, she was still like “Oh my god, these people are going to kill me!!!!!!!!!!! Please, B., smack my bottom. It’s the only thing that will soothe my soul while I await my impending death!!!!!” even though she had already been examined. I guess impending death at the vet’s can happen at any time. So, yes, I spanked my dog in public. In front of people. People with whom I’d like to have normal relations.

You ever smacked a dog’s bottom for fifteen minutes straight? It’s not a high point of your life, I’ll tell you that.

Seriously. You can’t be out in public indulging your dog’s BSDM fantasies and not feel like maybe you should have just stuck with cats. Or not had pets. Or left the house.

Anyway, she’s got a bacterial infection in her ear. And has to have drops.

And she needs a serious bath. Ugh, my hands were so dirty after smacking her. It was disgusting.

Poor The Butcher. I wish he’d called and told me. But I would have just had a stroke and worried. So I’m also glad he just handled it.

The Cave of Salamanca–SPOILERS

Ha, it tickles me to put a spoiler alert on a play older than dirt! Anyway, so here’s the plot. There’s a husband and a wife and her servant. The husband is madly in love with the wife and she makes a big show out of how he cannot leave her for four days to go to his sister’s wedding or she will just die. But then he leaves and she and her servant begin to make plans for the evening when they shall carry on with their lovers–the priest and the barber.

Then a student shows up and needs a room for the night. They assure his silence, put him to work plucking fowl, and they get busy talking about the huge basket of food their lovers have sent for them. Then the lovers show up and it’s all dancing and smooching and a little mouthiness from the student.

But then there’s a wagon accident and the husband has to return home! The women try to stall him. The lovers go hide in the coal bin and the student is scuttled off to the hayloft. The husband is confused but delighted to be back. And then the hay all falls on the student and he cries for help and he is discovered. The husband is all like “If I didn’t know you were a good wife, I’d find it suspicious that you had a dude in the hayloft.”

But then the student spins some tale about having learned secret magic in the cave of Salamanca (I think, if you were a Spaniard at the time, just based on the amount he mentions being from Salamanca, that there must be a joke in the location–like it would be ludicrous for a student to be from there or that they are a people known for being full of shit or something.) and that he can conjure demons. And wouldn’t the husband like to see some demons conjured?

Well, of course he would. He’s never seen a real demon before. And they have all kinds of questions–are they nice? Can they be baptized? Etc.

So the student orders the demons to show themselves, but they do not. Which is funny. Oh, I forgot, he’s decided that he’s going to conjure the demons in the shapes of the town priest and barber. So, he runs off to the coal bin to convince the priest and barber to play along.

And out they come, with their huge basket of food, as if it’s an infernal gift, and the husband is blown away impressed and invites them to stay for dinner.

The end.

It was hilarious. Quick and quick-witted. The actors were all students, but they were great. It was like everyone was like “Let’s chew all the scenery!” which just made it more hilarious. And, at the end, the priest and the barber did this kind of proto-rap.

It was just fantastic. I don’t want to downplay the other play, but Don Quixote is so familiar that it’s very difficult to be surprised by anything that someone might do with it (I know, you’re about to comment “But I don’t know anything about Don Quixote!” Believe me, you do. You might not know where the stuff you know comes from, but you know it. You’d be all “Oh, I saw that episode of…” or “Isn’t that the plot of such-and-such a movie?”).

But I was surprised and delighted by The Cave of Salamanca.

I’m not a huge Cervantes nerd, but I always like how contemporary the stuff from 16th Century Spain feels. I guess you could draw a lot of parallels, which I will not do, because who wants to be depressed thinking about the fact that, while on the one hand, we’d be utterly foreign to a Spaniard from Cervantes’ time, on the other hand, once we got past the list of strangenesses, we’d have hours of conversations of “Oh, yeah, we have that problem.” “Oh, yeah, well listen to what our religious authorities are doing!” “Oh, you guys are also doing kind of a shitty job of getting along with the Muslims?”

The other thing I’d say is that I know a lot of people are turned off to really old literature, because their only exposure to it is Beowulf, maybe the Canterbury Tales, and then Shakespeare, which are somehow supposed to be accessible because they’re in English, but the language, if it doesn’t click for you, can be really off-putting (I’m not saying I agree. I’m just saying I understand it.).

But Cervantes wrote in Spanish. You can read his stuff in modern translation! And it’s hilariously funny.

I’m just saying that, if you’re like “Man, I guess I should read something old, because it would be good for me,” literature in translation can be more fun than old stuff in English.

Yes, I’ll wait outside for you to draw and quarter me. But you know I’m right!