It had been foggy at night and below freezing so the forest I drive through was missing only Tilda Swinton in a furry outfit and a big lion to totally resemble the magical sort of landscape Hollywood productions of children's stories aim at this morning. And if it had been in black and white, with a young prince on horseback and a slender nymph laughing theatrically, insanely, off-camera, because the prince is looking for an enchanted golden paper-clip and she has the motherfucker and he'll never find it, and a bunch of cheap extras wandering about, it could have been a Communist-era Czech fairy tale movie.
As it was, there were deer. Very dark against the snow and fragile ice-crystal-encrusted foliage as they grazed. Luckily I was alone in the car. Had my daughter been with me, I could not have said anything, because she recently criticized my conversation-making on our commutes as amounting to me saying, "Look, deer," and her going, "Where?" and being frustrated that she cannot see them. So that didn't happen this morning, because she slept in and caught a later train.
On the other hand, they really stood out, so maybe she would've seen them today.
On the other hand, being alone in the car, it would have been weird to say something. I could have called someone on my cell phone, which is working fine. In fact, I should have called my daughter and said, "I see deer."
Posted at December 2, 2005 12:44 PMYou know, in my family we have a longstanding joke about fathers and looking at deer while driving.
Every time, and I mean every time my father would be driving with other people in the car from or to O'Hare airport in the northern suburbs of Chicago, at certain spots along the way, he would turn his head and look for deer, saying "there are deer in those woods." And as the car veered out of its lane, whoever was in the car would scream "Dad!!!!!" partially in sheer fear, partially in utter exasperation.
Posted by: francis s. at December 2, 2005 03:50 PMFunny thing, dads and deer. I do try to stay in my lane. Our family animal/dad driving joke was monkeys. Actually, it was more my father's joke. He would honk the horn and say, Did you see that monkey? We found it interesting up to about the age of 5.
Posted by: mig at December 2, 2005 03:58 PMOdd that your daughter never sees the deer- hell, I can see them very clearly from here every time.
Posted by: chris at December 3, 2005 02:50 PMhey mig. just checkin in cos you ain't here and you should be cos we have VISIBLE TO DAUGHTERS deer here...xxxxx
Posted by: ruth at December 3, 2005 07:27 PMif i could just know you would say "golden paper clip" to me from time to time, i think my life would be nearly perfect.
that was nice. not just the part that made me laugh out loud, but all of it.
Posted by: anne at December 3, 2005 10:31 PMIt is frozen here and the hunters feed the deer corn and sugar beets and hay and have salt licks and whenever I see the deer gathered there, huddled against the cold within easy shooting distance of the hunters' blinds, I think, thank god I'm a human and not a deer cause things are sure different for me, boy.
Posted by: mig at December 4, 2005 07:41 AM