Christmas is everywhere, and with it, news of friends making the annual trek back to the homestead. For obvious reasons, I will not be among the masses sipping coffee with ma and pa on Christmas morning. I knew this would be the case back in August, but nevertheless, I'm painfully aware that my absence on the 25th for the first of its kind. Now I'm sure that my absence doesn't effect me nearly as much as it does my mother, but I'm certainly not above admitting that there's a touch of melancholy there for me. I can't really explain it, but something happened this morning that completely put me at ease with the whole issue.
So I'm in stride with my head down and I notice a dead mouse in the middle of the road. It wasn't disheveled or beat to hell. In fact, it almost looked as if it had been stuffed and prepped for mounting. I dare say it was the healthiest looking dead mouse I've ever seen. As I said, I can't explain it, but that dead mouse completely revamped my whole take on Christmas 2008. So to that mouse, wherever it be, I want to extend a humble thanks.
Later on, in a totally unrelated event, some 5th graders slayed me with some bad ass amateur magic. Between teaching kids here and teaching archery at a summer camp, 2008 has seen me around little children more than usual. One thing I've learned is that young boys love rocking the card tricks. I find this heartening for two reasons. One, I was nowhere near clever enough to learn these tricks at their age, and two, because it's great to see them get so excited about a skill they worked hard to acquire. That said, I've seen some bumbling 5th grade card tricks, and these were not them. Koreans don't do anything half assed, and I now know that extends to cheap magic. So a word to the wise, if a Korean asks you to check out their magic, fucking do it.
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