A recent April morning

Now for some cup-half-empty cup-half-full thoughts.

It was only their fence the cows broke through, upside the hill, not also the fence across the road. So that was nice. They probably had their sights set on the cows downside the hill, thinking to mingle, but the other herd’s farmer keeps up his fences. Besides the mooing and bawling, there’d have been a bigger crowd standing in his creek and dropping in their pies. Ug. More E. coli coursing toward the glacial downstream pool and shady bank we used to call our beach.

Also it was just cows, my word, not lady cops stationed in the middle of the road, watching me thrust my phone up to the windshield to record and then nabbing me. Whew. Cops on our road, the kind that pretend they’re checking for drunk drivers but in fact have their eyes out for scared sober persons, could mean those selfsame individuals, hardworking, generous, disinclined to even lie or steal, getting dragged away in handcuffs. Well, if there’s anybody around here like that—the terrified kind. It seems like the crooks, instead, are everywhere you turn. So upsetting.

And then from the cows’ standpoint—if cows like these actually have standpoints—and I should maybe say cattle because the one cow looks more like a bull—it’s good they had their sturdy hoofs on, not some flappy girly sandals they’d have had to kick off to run better. I mean, if I’d just plowed on ahead, come at them like a battering ram. The time I accidentally veered into the ditch, tipped my car nearly into the ravine because of the highway department’s piles of gravel they’d scraped into the middle of the road, the shoes I had on didn’t help any. Too off kilter, I couldn’t anchor myself with my feet, maneuver myself into position to push upward on the driver’s side door, hard enough to get it open. I had to take those stupid shoes off.

All that water in the cup. You know? Considering how cows just go with hoofs and never jail the wrong people and don’t always always muddy the waters—my goodness. They’re merely opportunistic, not malignant natured or purposely foolish. Why’d I ever speak of these so-called marauders disparagingly? I should probably stop bashing them.