Sometimes I wonder if I should sign up on the site that sponsors writing a novel of 50,000 words in the month of November, NaNoWriMo. Other times, I don't think about it so much. What is certain, though, is that I am thinking more and more today about trying to actually do more, write more, keep more busy doing my writing. One way of doing that, I suppose, would be to commit to write 50,000 words in November. However, I'm not quite to the point of making that commitment, yet. Although, it's something to think about. I have sixteen more days to think about it, I guess.
The world is a vast and complex place, even though sometimes it seems smaller and smaller as time goes by. However, as small as it may seem, I could go my whole life through without recognizing that probably weekly people sit in an enclosed edifice and bid on animals. They actually pay somebody to come and auction critters off, and people sit around, watching the animals parade through as they bid on them, mostly men. I can envision it. It's not unlike a parade of models walking down the ramp in a fashion show. Although, it's unlikely that the animals are elevated like women and men are in fashion shows. More than likely, it's the viewers who are elevated.
I can see them now, a few poor lambs, shepherded in through one door and paraded to the center of the stage --- well, it's not really a stage ---, described by a farmer or some other announcer before the auctioneer takes over, and then auctioned off to the highest bidder. Such animals are not concerned about hygiene; not self-centered or self-conscious, but maybe a little frightened. If they need to crap, they crap. That's what the straw on the floor is for.
The audience is clothed in casual wear: Levi's, T-shirts, baseball caps, a few cowboy hats, a variety of shoes, including cowboy boots. Belts. I bet there's a good selection of belts. Seated on folding chairs or bleachers. Cell phones. Notepads. Businessmen, intent on making a good deal, dreaming of a nice profit after some hard work.
And then it's over. The lamps are herded out. Calves are next. Some men shuffle their feet. Other shift their weight. A cell phone rings. The auctioneer does his spiel.
Somebody else had their funeral today, a lady I knew from church, Kelly. (I'm not sure that is how you spell it, so forgive me if I got it wrong.) She was just forty-four, I believe, a couple of years younger than my mother was when she died. Kelly suffered most of her life with an inherent malady of the brain and spine that caused her grievous headaches, seizures, and other unseemly problems that are probably impossible for someone like me to imagine. She died, peacefully, in her sleep, discovered by her husband as he awakened Saturday morning. Besides her husband, she left four children: Tyler, Chase, and twins, Sam and Sarah. She wrote a book, a Christmas novel. I would like to read it and see what she had to say.
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