71. Alfie the Moth

Monday, 12/17/12

Today, I went adventurizing with a moth. Yes, a moth.

The little ones’ tummies were a’ grumbling early today. So at 7:00, I woke up and and served them breakfast that Stephen had made earlier. When my estamago (stomach) was contento and my plate was dirty, I washed my plate...with air. Ahh man!...the water is out again.

I solemnly announced that I would have to go fix the toma water and that I would need some company on the walk. They cheered wildly. I felt like the President who just gave an inauguration speech. “Pick me”, was uttered probably a million times by each kid. I took Jose, Guillermo, and Juan.

We left at 11:00. I warned them that I wanted to go fast! They emphatically agreed. Well, we all ran/fast-walked the whole time...except Guillermo. What a snail! Haha. The only way to get him to stick with the group was to give him the soldier speech. “Us soldiers must stick together. We are only as good as our weakest.”

Then, something radical happened. I was in the rear of our marching line. We had taken the thick shortcut. Picture a foot-wide path with six feet of thorny foliage on each side. While walking behind Guillermo, and ugly, medium-sized, brown moth appeared at my feet. No big deal, there were many moths and butterflies near the floor of the path. But, Alfie (Yup, I named him) flew in front of me for an estimated 17 minutes! What a pal.

I watch this moth fly in front of me forever. He never panicked, but was definitely trying to escape. Who would want to be “chased” by a huge tower without anywhere to go. He couldn’t go left or right or backwards or forwards (because Guillermo was there). The only way for him to escape was up. (If you think about it, that has some nice spiritual parallels to it.) But he didn’t. I think he was going for 7 minutes before I set my stopwatch. After 10 minutes, he finally found an opening and took the exit. I am sure I heard him say, “Goodbye old friend.” Moths have like a 3 day life expectancy. Those 17 minutes is a good chunk of that life. Basically, in his eyes, I was his friend for like 5 years. Sweet! So long Alfie!

We fixed the Toma in a record 3 minutes and played in the sun and swam and ate for twenty minutes. Then we hurried home and arrived at 3:00. That is a record.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**