# DAY 35

**Published by:** [Ace Rainer](https://paragraph.com/@saturnreturns/)
**Published on:** 2021-10-12
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@saturnreturns/day-35

## Content

DAY 35 04.19.2020 It’s amazing how nature's littlest creatures can ruin something for you (I’m not talking about the you-know-what). Yesterday It was 35 degrees with 4 inches of snow on the ground. We woke up to a gorgeous winter wonderland vista. This morning it had all melted as if nature flipped on its underground heating coils. We went on another hike to a different trail. The temperature at hike time: 60 degrees. If you were to concoct the ideal recipe for breeding gnats or other micro-flying monkeys overnight, this two-day scenario would pretty much be it. The snow added that extra oomph the gnats needed to come out in droves when they looked at their weather apps and saw how lovely and soaking wet everything was. The lake was also offering a free buffet of hikers desperate like us to get the hell out of the house. Gnats are not quite as bad as mosquitoes, but they run a close second because of their size and menacing hovering. Given a choice of trading the google amount of gnats with one single Bengal tiger lurking somewhere in the 300-acre park, I probably would have chosen the tiger. Even the one like the guy in Harlem kept in his apartment—although in fairness that was a Siberian-Bengal mix that weighed 450 pounds. Weighing in at three tons (according to Rainer) I could have taken him easily. I noticed recently how I’ve been taking liberties in terms of how I speak to my son in this time of crisis. Specifically, I'll use some colorful language both casually, and when I need to get a point across when the regs stuff simply doesn’t stop the speeding bullet that is him. As we gnatted along, Rainer said “Hey dad, these look like the kind of berries you can eat”, as he referred to the omni-mouse red bb-like ones on the ground. As much as I suspected he was saying it to get a rise out of me, I still replied “Actually Rainer, those look like the kind of berries that make you shit yourself right before you die.” I’ve made a decent amount of remarks like this since we’ve been up here as if we had been forced into the wilderness during an apocalypse, and I needed him to grow up faster, and in doing so at times I forget he is my 10-year-old son, and say things to him more as if he were my hunting buddy. I’ve caught myself remarking on more than one occasion, after him displaying all the relentless warning signs that he would interfere with something important I was doing: “Don’t fuck with that” Sometimes I add a "Pease." A good argument could be made that a parent or guardian needs to keep a sense of decorum especially in times of a crisis such as this, but on a scale of the most important lessons I need to teach by example these days, the occasional curse word, used with the best of intentions, just doesn’t rank high enough to stop them from slipping out of my mouth. I tend to say things with a combination of my dad‘s thoughtful grace and cadence, and my mom's Bronx sharp-tongued wise bluntness. I fall somewhere between being Ken, Tony, and Bea, whether it’s talking to my kids, or even to strangers. On the way to the other side of the Lake, a local was fishing, so I engaged him in a friendly manner. “What do you catch here, trout?” Without missing a beat, he responded with the same dry humor as the fridge delivery guy did (see DAY 11): “Allegedly” he replied. He then volunteered how someone told him he’d find a bunch of basses there, but that he hadn’t found a thing. I quickly said “They’re all social distancing”, which I thought was a pretty funny comeback. He just grunted. I’m jealous of the economy of conversation in these parts as if the initial settlers experienced a run on words at the supermarkets, and the supply was never quite replenished, so you had to make do with what you had, kind of like eating Stouffer's frozen lasagna instead of Trader Joes. “Hey dad, I found some Lake Monkeys." Rainer chirped, as he poked the shoreline with a stick. Apparently, these are the lake equivalent of sea monkeys (not to be confused with their flying gnat counterparts). But these actually hatch, as opposed to the ones in the small terrarium-shaped habitat that is still sitting on our Manhattan coffee table, empty as a ghost town because apparently we didn’t properly aerate the water, set the right temperature, and sing Frank Sinatra to them upside down on the full moon when we put the eggs in it. Who knew breeding sea monkeys would be as difficult as hiding a Bengal tiger in your Manhattan apartment? Ruby gathered a bouquet of pine needles, and Delia found a cute ball of moss, became instantly attached to it, and announced she was naming it Gerald. It’s only a matter of time before Gerald takes my place. As we got back to the car, I spotted a family making its way to the marshy side of the lake path, where we had been attacked, after which we sought the higher ground of the other side of the lake, which was significantly better. I shouted to them had they been to the park before, and they said yes. Crestfallen, I still mentioned the difference in bug nuisance, but again in probably too many words. I wanted so bad to say in the vernacular “That way: Many bugs. This way: Fun” but they nodded and waved, and still continued on. After we ate our snacks in the car due to less than ideal picnic conditions, I spotted them coming back as we drove away. Yes, I thought. Me wise monkey.

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