An important question

We are in the long days of summer.  August, when as one critic put it, all of the extremes of nature emerge.  Cicadas, hurricanes, rows of corn….

Since I’m on vacation this week, I’d like to throw out a question to readers of Samson Doggie.  Let you do the work this time.  What I want to know is this:  if and when I toast a marshmallow in a fire, and if this marshmallow contains 40 calories, then how many calories will it contain if it catches fire and burns a portion of its surface?  Will it still contain 40, or will it contain less?

Advertisement

Just wanted to post this picture

She is so cute.

Ice Cream Sammitch

As much I would like to read my magazine, I put down my copy of Harper’s. Something about “this could be worse than Bush.”

Moments ago, I placed a half of an ice cream sandwich before both Rosie and John. Its hot. Better to be inside, where the mosquitoes don’t live. Did I mention that it is really hot? Did I mention that it was 91 on Monday, and it got warmer on Tuesday and Wednesday? Its so hot, we ate all the watermelon.

Let’s see what happens when I place one ice cream sandwich on a table with two children nearby.

I can’t read my Harper’s if I want to know that. I have to look up. Our kitchen is silent. There is no sound to give away what might be going on. I could be in the Christian Science Reading Room, except then I would hear some pages turning.

John has all ten fingers wrapped around the remaining pie piece of ice cream and wafer. His lips never veer more than an inch from the sandwich. He looks a bit like a flute player.

The pie gets smaller. The fingers get closer. Wafer has become affixed to his fingertips. He pauses. He rests one wafer sodden hand on his chin. He licks the wafer off of each finger on the other hand. His eyes stare past me, into the horizon.

Rosie eats standing up. The sandwich is in her right hand. Her left elbow is tucked tightly to her trunk. Her left hand is open, thumb at 12 oclock and fingers at nine. She is leaning back with her waist pushed forward. She holds the sandwich at shoulder level. It is something she likes to look at from at least arm’s length distance while she chews each bite.

I have compost that makes more noise.

“I’m done,” says Rosie.

She projects her two hands into my face. That means that I can clean now. John, on the other hand, has removed all the wafer but that which remains on his cheek.