If you travel around the Planet Ann Arbor on foot and you are moving a wee bit slower than yer fav-o-rite blahgger usually does, you will encounter various fairy doors and other little scenarios. And so tonight, as we were walking home from the Oscar Tango, we encountered this cute little reptile. Actually, I shouldn’t say “we”. It was the GG who encountered him. I was beating up the pavement big-time and walking past at great speed. Note to KW: slow down a bit.

Anyway, this scary-looking erderator was part of a larger scenario that included a cute little house and some ghosties and whatnot. Waaaay back in the day (like the 1920s), my old coot paid some buddy of his a quarter for a baby alligator. In Sault Ste. Siberia. He brought it home and his mother (aka my grandmother, Margaret Finlayson), let him keep it in the bathtub for a while, maybe a few nights? I can’t exactly ask my old coot to step into an NPR Story Corps booth to clarify the details. “So dad, tell me about that time your mom made you get rid of the alligator and how did that make you feel?” Anyway, after a short period of time, my grandma told her young son that he really needed to get rid of the alligator. So he sold it to some other friend (Basil maybe?) for a dime. Sounds like a bad deal for everybody except maybe the original kid who got the quarter. I doubt the alligator lived very long in that particular climate. The sole alligator we saw on our recent rocket trip to FLA was comfortably hunkered down in a very wet, marshy type habitat soaking up the blazing hot sun. Between Micanopy and Gainesville. Beautiful beautiful terrain but we were there in April and I know it’s insufferably hot and humid now.

I keep thinking these Planet Ann Arbor fairy doors and things are a recent phenomenon but then I remember the Fairy Cross that we passed when we walked the rocks over to Cedar Point when we were kids. I have a picture of it somewhere I think but couldn’t begin to find it right now. Always enchanting.

I am dead taaarrred tonight. Morning walk. Interesting day at work complete with lost (and found) quilt fabric in an otherwise empty cabinet, a ride in Louie-Louii’s fancy new Wrangler (and a look at the engine, no less, I hope The Engineer was looking on wherever he may be), and a hilariously loud team “meeting” in front of the bathroom doors *about* the possibility of putting cubes there. You had to be there. Oh, and I follow Margaret Finlayson on facebook these days. Margaret Finlayson Music, that is. She’s over in Scotland, which is where my Fin ancestors came from (not Finland, contrary to the conclusion people often jump to 🐗).

And a disclaimer: NPR Story Corps is often on the radio on my Friday morning commute and it frequently makes me tear up a bit, so do *not* think I am dissing it!

This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2015 at 8:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.