My work day began with a 9:30 AM meeting. A meeting scheduled by my long-suffering supervisor (formerly known as Cube Nayber) at that un-Godly hour only because she could not find another day and time when a conference room *and* all of the required people were available. Boy oh boy, did she take some ribbing! “9:30? I’m not even awake! And poor X is dialing in from over there in the Central time zone!”

And then there was yer fav-o-rite blahgger, who chirped, “I could do this at 7:00 AM! Well, except that I am just getting back from my 0-skunk-30 walk and beginning my morning chores at that time.” Whoo boy! Chores? Hee hee hee hoo haw! Whatcha doin’ KW, milking yer cow? At that point, the meeting got totally derailed for five minutes or so as we debated things like whether or not you can have chickens in your back yard on The Planet Ann Arbor (yes) and what the requirements are for keeping other farm aminals. If I hadn’t been in the hot seat at this meeting, I’d’ve been googling but somebody had to get the train back on the tracks and I needed some answers so I squelched it and we got back to the fascinating details of transferring information in the banking industry. (This was all *friendly* and I swear, old Crooked Jack — an old BF’s nickname for my decidedly NOT crooked old coot — steered me into this biz.)

And then I got to thinking about the whole farm aminals in the back yard thing. First, I love aminals but I don’t think I am cut out to be a farmer. I don’t even own a dog or cat. One of the earliest stories about me that I remember The Commander telling (over and over and over) was about our family visiting a farm (my great-aunt Alice’s farm? I dunno) and me wrinkling my nose up as soon as we drove into the driveway. What is that smell?

Then there was the time that one of my favorite girl scout leaders decided it would be a good prodject for the girls (including my child) to “raise” baby chicks. Her husband was HORRIFIED. He was horrified enough that he called the city to ask about ordinances and maybe they could arrest his wife, etc. Naw, said the city. If it’s only for a couple weeks, we wouldn’t bother with it. So we had two chickens for a couple weeks. Actually we ended up with four because one family was going away for the weekend and could we take their chickens for a couple days and I fergit all of the details but that family had a weird habit of dumping birds off on us. Anyway, by the end of the two weeks, the chicks had just enough wing power that they could get out of their laundry basket and, while I didn’t think they smelled toooo awful, it seemed like wherever I went, I could smell chicken. Was it just somehow in my nose or did *I* smell like chicken? I was glad when our fearless leader picked them up. I can still remember her pulling into my driveway with a big box in the back of her minivan, half-grown chickens flying around inside. She had a wild look in her eyes. I made her a beauteous chicken bolo necklace after that episode. I wonder if she still has it.

I’ve probably not been the best parent when it comes to letting my kids have pets. [Delete a whole long bunch of stuff about this.] I love aminals but I don’t want to spend a lot of time caring for them and I want to be free to travel without finding caretakers for them.

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