[Seth Says] Hello, My Fine Feathered Friends!

Greetings and Salutations! Hope your June is going along well* (*for local maxima given the world). The weather is beautiful, and there's even supposed to be one day it doesn't rain this coming weekend! 

Thankfully, today it also didn't rain, so we took advantage of it and had dinner on the patio, which was great until the bugs decided that we were dinner on the patio, at which point we went in. More on bugs later; surprisingly, evening bugs aren't just a fly-by-night topic.

Growing up, my mom used to always move holidays around for people's convenience. Birthdays moved without question, even Thanksgiving would be shifted a day if it was more convenient for family to show up. I figured this was just something she did. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the federal government made yesterday Juneteenth, even though it's very clearly Junetyeth.

And I mean, don't get me wrong, Juneteenth is absolutely the most important holiday to celebrate. In a country that pretends to be about freedom (don't mind the world's largest incarcerated population), Juneteenth is a holiday that is *actually* about freedom, and should be the biggest celebration of the country. But even as someone who normally isn't big on the tradition of holidays, I have to admit that if a holiday celebrates a specific day, and is even named for the specific day, it's a little weird to move the celebration to the next day. Like, if on July 5th, everyone ran around saying "Happy 4th of July!"... it's just a little off, right?

Still, acknowledgement of Juneteenth from the federal government (even if on the wrong day) is a step forward. Maybe one day children will even be allowed to learn about our country's history in school.
 

This past Sunday was Father's Day, which sure, is easy enough for people to deride as a Hallmark holiday made up to sell cards. So easy that I've done it myself! But nonetheless it has some importance. Not just because fathers appreciate appreciation, but because it makes good fodder for a column. And I appreciate anyone who furthers my column (or this newsletter!) by reading or sharing it. So for further father fodder, you can read about my father and A Father's Gift.

This week, however, I returned to one of my favorite things to do, parodies of classic poetry. Because I'm not just a poet, I also try to be a Poe wit. And sure, you'll oft find me Raven about Poe's most famous poem, which I've parodied half a dozen times at least -- starting back in the 90s in some of my earliest published work, no doubt inspired by Frank Jacobs.

But did you know that Poe also wrote other poems that aren't "The Raven"? I've parodied one of them this week, although in the interest of my fine feathered friends, I've rewritten it to also be about birds. So if you like birds, dislike birds, or have ever heard of Poe's poem "The Bells", perhaps you will enjoy The Birds.

Also, apparently Poe was much more economical with poem titles than I am. Just "The Raven", "The Bells", "The Morbs". Meanwhile, the last poem in my own book of original poems is titled "It's A Shame That Hestia Is One Letter Off From Being An Anagram Of Atheist".

This may be another reason I'm still not famous. But on the bright side, also still not dead. All in all, still wouldn't trade with Poe.
 

We had a few bugs show up in the kitchen. I hate them. All of them. Individually and as a group. It doesn't seem like a lot because there were only 5 tiny little flour moths, but then after I killed them, there were 5 more the next day. Eventually we found some oats that had gone so bad, even the Quaker on them was like, "We're no longer Friends."  So that was clearly part of the problem.

But at one point last week, it had gotten so bad, I actually trapped a spider elsewhere in the house and tried to bring it in to the kitchen in hopes that it might start a turf war with the remnants of the bugs. At the time, it seemed like a brilliant idea. But a thought occurred to me about an hour later -- as thoughts so often do an hour after you've enacted what you previously perceived as a brilliant idea -- which was that even young children are sung a cautionary tale about this sort of thing. And while admittedly I wasn't actually swallowing the spider, I could totally see myself three months down the line, following this idea to its natural conclusion but starting to doubt the brilliance of my idea, as I lead the lion into my kitchen.

Anyway, I appreciate all sorts of wildlife outside of my house, but I really don't want any living creature in my house except for people, and also not people because there's still a pandemic on. Besides, why would I need to have people in my house when I can rant at you on a fortnightly basis?

I wanted to make a "Fortnightly Basses is my X cover band" joke, but couldn't think of a good band. The Weeknd? Or maybe Barenaked Ladies if they only play their song One Week? Well, you know what they say about laws, sausages, and comedy. 

They're the wurst.
 

I know, you never sausage bad jokes, but I feel like at least I had one or two real bangers. Anyway, thanks as always for reading, and tune in next fortnight where I'll be serving up links... to two more of my columns for your voracious reading pleasure.


Until We Meat Again,
Seth