November 21, 2012

Antic disposition yesterday. I hope my students didn’t notice, or were amused by it. Sore left foot, limping and crying out. I think I wore a hole in the bone in New York.

The postcard company phones to say the misprint was their fault and they will reprint the cards and re-ship. I’m surprised by this, expecting it, somehow, to have been my fault–even after checking the paperwork and seeing that the set-up I approved was correct. “Careless typesetting,” they say. So, I dump 1000 cards into the recycle bin. Fewer than that; I must have sent out a hundred before I noticed. Even when I noticed I had to keep looking, and looking, unable to believe my eyes.

Decided to garden today, beginning with the water gardens. I knew two goldfish survived, one in the backyard pond and one in the third of the front ponds. I determined not just to put them in a bucket and haul them to Beaver Lake this time, but keep them with me through the winter. I drove to the Pet Supermarket and bought an aquarium, set it on the red table with a few flat rocks. The fish from the front was big and healthy. The fish from the back was dead, but only recently dead, his eyes blue but his scales still beautiful. I felt bad about that. Had I gotten to this a week, even a day or two earlier, maybe he would have survived. His water was foul and clogged with the detritus of the trees. Whether the foulness was the cause or the effect of his demise I don’t know. But Lawrence–for so I have named the survivor– floats alone in his new pond with all the edges. He’s quite handsome, brilliant orange with tail and tips of all his fins transparent. He prospered all summer without my feeding him once, so rich was the organic mix of the yard. What does he think of the clean water? Would he rather have someplace to hide, rather than all that blazing light and oxygen? So far he looks happy. He isn’t eating yet, but he’s exploring. I feel bad for him, somehow. Because he’s alone? Because I fear he may have loved his dark barrel and will be confused by his new world? The soil where I dumped the rotty mucky water must be the richest in the world.