Telescope Tales

Rick stared hard into the telescope and said, "I think it's signaling us that we have to..."
...toss out another turkey carcass."

"Really?" I focused my binoculars toward the barn.

Sure enough, that scrawny, tawny coyote was tracking. Shoving his nose close to the ground, he vacuumed the high desert lake bottom dust in search of another bone. Every once in awhile he'd lift his head to snort out a sneeze.

"Our own Nature Channel. Big screen. Right out the dining room window. I LOVE it here."

Rick said this a lot watching bald eagles, jack rabbits, cottontails, quails, and magpies. He said it marveling at clear blue-skied days, and breathing in clean, sage-scented air.

I loved it here, too:

No water bill.

No cable bill.

No sirens.

A million bright stars.

But, most of all: that unexplainably wonderful release each Thanksgiving, when from the kitchen door I'd fling that turkey carcass out across the sparkling snow.

Different point of view by Ric Hardson:

Rick stared hard into the telescope and said, "I think it's signaling us that we have to..."
...take the popcorn out of the microwave."

The silence that follows is broken by another beep. I look up from my book. "What?"

Tearing his gaze from the eyepiece Rick turns to glare at me. Impatiently.

Dang. Caught me again. I just don't seem to hear him when Rick starts rattling off species names: burnt-billed toeheads, yellow-bellied mattress thrashers, cinnamon-tufted deals. Whatever.

"Popcorn." He points at the microwave.

"Right." Sighing not quite loudly enough for him to hear, I open the microwave.

The unpopped packet's right-angled grimace evens the score.

"Rick?"

Silence.

I wait.

Finally, he looks up. "What?"

I smile. Patiently. "You set the timer instead of hitting the popcorn button."

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