One wonders—do mice make plans? Do they wake up and make a little mental list, including such items as gathering seeds, grooming their paws, and remembering to be grateful for peanut butter sandwiches?
I’m sure I don’t know. But I do know that the other half of Mr. Burns’ famous duo, the human creature, certainly does. ‘Specially me.
I have a month-long blank slate in front of me, in the form of a substitute teaching gig in an Interior Alaska village that I have not previously visited. It’s more like a wax tablet than a slate if you think about it, waiting for an imprint formed by a visit to Crooked Creek, Alaska, couple hundred miles up the Kuskokwim from Bethel, population 93 or so.
Do I have plans for my three to four weeks of teaching? Well, beyond making snow ice cream and baking bread with the kids (I brought the stuff) it’s more of a plan to make plans. Gotta get the lay of the land first.
Where I plan most ardently is in the little things, and sometimes I don’t get it right. As I write this I’m flying in real time towards Crooked Creek*, and I just got off a longish weather delay in Juneau. Hundred-mile-per-hour winds in Anchorage, and whatnot. This delay was long enough that I left the secure area of the airport and began to explore the rest of the building.
When I decided to head back through security and check on the status of my flight, I first acted upon two of my day’s micro-plans. First plan: stay hydrated. So I bought a seven-dollar bottle of water. Second plan: quit stepping on my shoelaces. So I tied said laces with double knots and cinched ‘em down good.
Then I had to chug my water and pick my laces loose with my fingernails so that I could get past TSA. Did I mention that I like to make plans? Did I also mention that I don’t always allow my various plans to consult with each other? It happens.
One of my plans, though, is not going awry, and that’s the one where I use the next few weeks to meet new people, learn a lot, teach a little, and have me a good old-fashioned adventure. One thing’s for certain, though: Bilbo Baggins has nothing on me.
*I keep mistakenly saying “Cripple Creek” and then bursting into song.
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For your further edification:
To a Mouse by Robert Burns – Scottish Poetry Library
Bing Videos: Up on Cripple Creek
Loved it!!
I’m glad to hear it!
Why did you have to unlace your shoes? Did they set off the alarm? And why can’t you carry water outside of you on the plane? Just curious because I will be flying to Arizona next September with Helen.
Ah you poor lambkin! You have to take off your shoes because some guy tried to take down a plane with a bomb he had hidden in his shoe. You can’t have water or other liquids/gels because some other guy tried to take down a plane with a bomb that was somehow in liquid form.
But you say, they don’t make you take off your underwear because some guy had his underwear wired to blow up? Yes, I haven’t flown since coming home from Germany in 1987.
This is true. I figure they decided that if they tried to go there, the peasants would be revolting.
Crooked Creek brings to my mind not a song, but a movie. It is one of my favorites: ‘Joe vs. the Volcano’. In it there is a recurring crooked theme. The factory logo, the entrance to said factory, the lightning strike, the volcano. The crooked set up. A wild ride that ends similarly to where you are… Away from the things of man. Kevin in Maine