Day 145

Lils the little old cat.

And then there is the spittlebug or froghopper, which creates for itself a casing of foam in which to live as a nymph, while it sucks away at the plant on which it sits.  Then, it leaps 100 times its own length!  And lands on another plant and proceeds to damage that one too.   They are the best jumpers in the world, better even than fleas, and the jumping legs are so specialised that they just drag along the ground when they are not being used for leaping. Tim and I noticed quite a few in the meadow the other day.

And in the store today, I was waiting at the fish counter, when the couple ahead of me asked for two lobsters.  I can't bear that they are alive, that people plunge them into boiling water to cook them.  They sat there on the scale with their taped-up claws and investigated the air with their little antennae and looked around with their amazing crystalline eyes.  Their antennae and antennules are covered with hairs which are dense with nerve cells, so it kind of stands to reason that they would feel pain.  There are some chefs who kill the lobsters humanely before boiling them, but most believe that because there is no central nervous system they do not feel pain.  Descartes has a lot to answer for, centuries of cruelty to animals actually.  I had to walk very fast to the cereal aisle to compose myself, although I wanted to shout and scream at every ignorant cruel bastard in that store.

The Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) is where you get your driver's license and several other important documents.  A driver's license in America is like a magical key that will open all kinds of doors for you.  To work at the RMV you have to pass a test to prove that you are the meanest person on earth.

After a year of driving on my international license I had to get a Massachusetts one.  The meanest person on earth, who was of course behind my counter, asked me to jump through so many hoops, for so many days, that at one point I just stood there in the middle of the floor and shouted, "WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO PROVE YOU'RE A HUMAN BEING IN THIS FUCKING COUNTRY!?!"  They then gathered me and all my paperwork and belongings together and ushered me into this little room, where they offered me a drink of water, (the cure for all ills) and asked me, in a pointed manner, to calm down because I was disturbing all the other poor people present in that awful place.

Sometimes it is alright to protest, but I suppose you have to pick your fights.

Tonight another little ink drawing, of a garden in Ipswich.