Lawn art, it's always ugly.

I know it must be tiring for me to always be puttering on about such-and-such book that I read to console myself for such-and-such mini-tragedy, but as your (you, they, them, Internet, ect) feelings mean squat to me, I'm going to do it yet again.

[Side note regarding my spell checker: when I neglected to capitalize Internet and lazily left clicked upon the red-lined word to view my correctly spelled options I was shocked to see the first one was “INTERNET.” We get it; the Internet is hellsa important and brought us life-altering amounts of free information, bloggity blogs and Neopets. I don't think there is any reason for a full CAPS option, however.]

So, to venture forth with my tirade. Yesterday was crappy as crappy days go and as I love to wallow I had set my sights on being self-indulgent when I got home from work. As I drove I toyed with the idea of spooning ice cream from the tub, passing it perilously over the DVD player to my mouth without removing my eyes from the television where a loop of MASH eps would be playing, but as I drew more disgruntled with traffic I knew that nothing less than James Herriot would do.

There! Now you know my deepest and darkest Scottish secret. [My deepest darkest Middle Eastern secret? I cried while reading The Kite Runner on a plane.] For those of you who either live in a box, or aren't interest in British word-smut, Mr. Herriot is a fellow who practiced veterinary medicine in Britain in the thirties and uses the word “boot” to describe his trunk in his many quasi-fictional memoirs. He was in the war. What war you ask? The Great War. Actually I'm kidding; it was WWII.

I just can't help but feel up-lifted by the haphazardness of veterinary practice before penicillin. These fellows are always dashing out at night and washing up in a bucket to birth a cow (which is then laid in a nice box-stall in a bed of Yorkshire clover while the JH goes on a rant about how a new birth is always magical.) And practically every other story is about a lonely old salt who wears a cloth cap and has no companionship beyond his querulous sheep dog. I eat that stuff up.

I first discovered these books when I was a sloppy little youth who wanted to be a vet when I grew up. This may comes as a shock for those who know me now as a easily panicked and nervous sort (and particularly shocking I'm sure to those who have to suffer through my squeamish shrieks during any suggestion of blood on the television) but I was sure that I was destined for a life of helping animals overcome colic. I even indulged in this Sterling North-esque fantasy where I had cured a friendly otter and built a small river in the back of my vet-house in which it swam playfully.

Since then I have thankfully recovered my sanity and want a nice indoor job that rarely (if ever) requires me to consider the complications to twin lambs in the birth-canal. Despite this, when my bike tire blew this morning I was certainly glad that I hadn't quite finished the story where JH is assigned to measuring ponies in the horse show and people try to swindle him with their rural trickeries.