Driving out of the foothills heading west — there’s a high layer of cloud that’s thin enough to let a lot of light through, not exactly sunshine but it showed up as 5 amps on the solar charge-controller at home. At about Truxell Road I slip seriously under the fog/cloud cover. Coming from up high like this, one knows that there are two layers of clouds, a high one and this low one. Closer to Davis, the belly of the cloud is almost on the ground and now it’s fog.
In this drippy gloom I manage to pick up my laser printer, which has been repaired, buy a copy of The Economist at Newsbeat, get Korean-style ramen at the Asian store, and then cruise down to Red Rum Burger to try eating Ostrich.
Thinking back to the Emu: there it was last summer, an Emu in the yard with a green garter (probably an identification band, maybe with a serial number and a record of its shots). Our place surrounded by a dozen miles of forest. It soon ran off. I told Shawna about that — and she changed it into an Ostrich in her mind. As an Ostrich its picture got into a zine/comic poem, garter and all.
I’m recollecting all this as I eat my Ostrich burger at the place that now calls itself “Red Rum,” which is “murder” backwards. Because for years it was called Murder Burger, until, I guess, there were just too many murders happening out there. The Ostrich burger is delicious. It’s big, with lots of lettuce, onions, hot mustard, Swiss cheese, and sesame bun. In the midst of all those, you really don’t taste Ostrich as anything special — it’s just nice and chewy. I don’t think they cook it rare. It is supposed to be good for you, low fat. And they don’t use feedlots, so Ostriches probably eat lower on the food chain than steers that are being fattened on milo or corn for the slaughterhouse.
It certainly tastes just like Emu! Or vice versa. The Emu, a case of parallel evolution developing in far-off New Zealand. No garters there. But hold! Maoris might have tattooed some green designs right around those handsome thighs.
Lost Emu wandering the Sierra pine woods
I have dressed you, tattooed you,
eaten you, spread wide your fame,
in the time it takes to eat lunch