antidote to a NIGHTMARE

I was going to post this pair of cups and saucers today anyway, but as you will see it fits in nicely with what I am about to write.

When I was a kid I loved all the reptiles and amphibians of the world.  I had books!  Them and dinosaurs.  Many a poor frog and snake in the yard was my pet for the day.  One fall day when I was about 11 I was messing with a BIG garter snake, a really big one.  Like, the great-grandaddy of them all.  I knew that you had to hold them behind the head and such, but with harmless garter snakes it never mattered how you grabbed them.  Until this big one.  It sure DID bite my hand, 2 not very big scratch marks on my thumb taught me to NEVER go near snakes again.  A good lesson, hmm? They mind their business and I mind mine.  Plus we live in a place where a poisonous snake is highly unlikely.

Last night I dreamt that I was in Africa walking through an area where animals gathered for the zoo were collected before being shipped out.  There were hundreds of people and animals everywhere you looked, but there was terrible rain and flooding.  The guy in charge ordered them all freed or nothing could be saved, they would all drown in their cages.  I was walking through this rainy chaos and saw a rhino released and running away, and down a bit was a man and boy and 5 mambas in cages.  I could see that one mamba was hiding under a rock and it struck the man, their handler, badly on the hand.  He seemed used to it, and asked the boy to go get the doctor quickly for anti-venom.  But he was one of those snake, um, weirdos, and he  picked up the snake and was talking to it like a lover "oh, you didn't mean to hurt me did you?  we are still friends, right?" and he kissed its head...and the snake went nuts and bit the inside of the man's mouth.... I knew the guy wouldn't survive that....

UGH.  The original idea of this blog nearly 7 years ago was a daily post on my 1) dreams, 2) music! and 3) what I am making.  I do not post as many dreams as did then...but anyway, this is what I am making!  It is a nice pair with a new celadon glaze I am road testing...frog on one, inch worm or SNAKE on the other... a cute antidote to that nightmare eh?


(new pottery by Gary Rith)