I took a kitchen chair over to the front window, sat down, and stared out over the driveway. There was a fake water well, the kind you see in front of old people’s homes, crammed with fake flowers, sitting in the middle of the turnabout. It was a little out of place, since my dad was not very sentimental. My car, an alien green Kia (I named her Yoshi) looked out of place, too, offset by the gravel, the swaying elm trees, and the flock of goats in the field behind it. It seemed ready and eager to zip into the crowded parking lot of my apartment building back in Seattle and chirp my arrival home to Ton-Ton, my girlfriend. Well, I guess I mean my last apartment building and my ex-girlfriend.
“Sorry, girl,” I said to Yoshi, “that’s not going to happen.”
Sitting in my dad’s rustic farmhouse, I could still smell dim sum from Happy Tai’s in Seattle that I used to pick up every Saturday evening for our binge watching night. I’m not usually sentimental, myself, but I did tear up, thinking about the two of us, curled up on the couch, making out and watching zombies or criminals or something else trying to destroy the world. But the whole time, she was plotting to destroy our little world. Her impending visa deadline propelled her to marry a guy she barely knew just to stay in the US. Never mind that she could get an extension. Never mind that we could get married, even though we probably weren’t ready, and maybe that would make a difference in her being allowed to stay. Also, how could she think I would be okay with her going back and forth between the two of us? Didn’t she know me at all?
I hopped in the Kia and cranked up the radio, which was playing Vampire Weekend’s Oxford Comma, a song I used to sing ironically whenever I went to my freshman English class. I closed my eyes to shut out the pressure that was building up inside me.
When I opened my eyes, I saw a little grey chicken bobbing back and forth outside the coop gate in front of me. I scanned the farm, but Elliot was nowhere in sight. I know that sometimes chickens get attacked by dogs or wild animals, so I was pretty sure it needed to get back into the coop. Not having a clue how to catch it, I got out and started talking to it. “Here, chick, chick, chick.” It looked like it was about to have a heart attack before I even got ten feet from it. I bent over and started to grab it, but it flew straight up, exploded, and then reassembled into a chicken about five feet away. I repeated this a couple more times until it ran behind a shed and got trapped in the corner. I slid sideways in between the shed and a barbed wire fence, grabbed at the chicken and, finding only one leg to hold onto, tried to back out and not rip the chicken or my clothes or my body parts on the barbed wire. I succeeded to some degree, only ripping my shirt and getting a scratch on my lower back. When I got out into the open, the chicken, who looked woozy and had gone limp, worried me, so I tried to turn her over. She squawked like I was tearing her apart and jumped free. I almost cried but went back to the car to cradle my head in my hands for a while instead. The scratch on my back didn’t bleed, but it did burn a little.
It was starting to get too dark to see, when the bird reappeared at the gate, pacing back and forth like it was waiting for a doorman. I decided to oblige and try one more time. I waited until it was on the end of its pace, slipped up, and opened the gate. It eyed me suspiciously but quickly scooted into the coop. Voila! Bird in coop in only forty-five minutes.
To recoup (re-coop, get it?), I spent the better part of the afternoon cleaning a small kitchen and wrangling one bird, stubbing one toe, getting one scratch (still burning, by the way), and ripping a hole in my shirt. If farming is always this easy, just shoot me now.
January 20, 2013
I spent today (Sunday) with Liv and her boyfriend hiking at Camel’s Back Park, and then we had lunch at the Boise Co-Op. Since the co-op is only a few blocks from her house (as is the park), she practically lives there. Liv is so sweet. She bought me some single serve salads to take with me out to the farm, and she’s been treating me to an occasional movie. I am lucky to have such a cool friend. She walks and bikes a lot and hardly ever uses her car. Boise is really navigable if you live close in.
Her boyfriend, Nate, is an Assistant General Manager at a radio station. He moved in with her in November, and they don’t seem to mind me crashing on their couch until I get things settled with the farm. They are looking for a house off Warm Springs Road. Nate thinks the North End is just too trendy and he hates renting. He wants to buy a place and get married, but I haven’t really “sussed out” what Liv wants to do yet. She seems okay with it, though.
Liv and I met at the University of Washington (U-Dub), where we both worked as RA’s to supplement our school costs. She helped show me the ropes, and
