Every Third Thought (19 page)

“I wonder where the
birdies
is” in the anonymous original, but O.F.F. G.I.N. misremembered it as “flowers” until too late, when flowers had blossomed in the pages to follow.

I.e., the Second World War of the twentieth century’s first half, won by the Allies in Europe officially on “V-E Day” (May 7, 1945) and in the Pacific four months later on “V-J Day” (September 2), at an estimated cost of 45,000,000 human lives.

E.g., the paradigmatic line in Zadie Smith’s 2000 novel
White Teeth—
“Fuck you, you fucking fuck”—which deploys it serially as verb, adjective, and noun.

Copyright 1961 (renewed) Fall River Music.

Since lightning precedes thunder both in waking Nature and in G.I.N.’s dream, why does the German expression traditionally put the cart before the horse, as it were, or Santa’s reindeer in the wrong order?

Korean-language instruction at the Army Language School in Monterey; busy spare-time sampling of assorted West Coast attractions, from Valley Girls to giant-redwood forests and chilly Pacific surfing, Existentialism to Zen Buddhism; and the ever-shape-shifting programme of his novel-in-theworks—whose title, he reported without explanation, he was changing “on Second Thought” from
Seasons
to
Every Third Thought
.

Anonymous, late-thirteenth/early-fourteenth century.

So named by Algonquin Indians because the male Virginia White-Tail deer’s fuzzy new antler-buds begin to emerge just about then—but also called by them the Thunder Moon, for the frequency of such storms in that season.

Pentagon acronym for the Improvised Explosive Devices deployed by Al Qaeda and other terrorists for deadly roadside bombings. Not to be confused with the IUDs (intrauterine devices) deployed contraceptively by women of Amanda Todd’s generation in their pre-menopausal years before the development and marketing of birth-control pills—unnecessary in the case of the Todd/Newetts, it will turn out to their mid-Summer disappointment. Read on.

“La cucaracha, la cucaracha / Ya no puede caminar. / Porque no tiene, porque le falta / Marijuana que fumar.”
Rough gringo translation: “The cockroach, the cockroach / Can march no farther. / Because he has no, because he’s lacking / Marijuana to smoke.”

Unfortunately defeated in 1982 (Editor Todd reminds Narrator Newett) after a ten-year state-by-state hassle for its ratification.

Such “seasons” being
merely
official, however, Hurricane Paloma still waits in the wings to whack Haiti, the Cayman Islands, and Cuba in November, as Narrator foots this note.

I.e., June of C.E. 2009. With StratColl’s permission, boredom-fearing Professor Todd has scheduled her retirement for age sixty-seven rather than sixty-five.

The Todd/Newetts’ thus-far-only venture into Islam, of which his recent revisit to Scheherazade’s
Nights
has pungently reminded him: a memorable summer visit to Tangier back in the 1980s.

Another odd locution that, having heard himself think it, Narrator supposes must be euphemistic for “for Christ’s sake.” He’ll Google it in the morning, after breakfast and before getting back to his Old Fart Ficting—always assuming, dot dot dot . . .