Diana Rowland — Writing, Life, and the Stuff in between

You were hip-deep in molasses, hanging on to a rusted iron lamppost for dear life even as that team of Percherons foundered and suffocated in the syrup so close you could have touched them. I had, for some reason I can no longer recall, a pair of snowshoes with me, and worked my across the top of the flood with a rope over my shoulder. There was no leverage, all I could was lash you to the post and wish you well before I went on to the horrors that awaited me.

I remember this like it was yesterday. You were sitting on the yellow and red plaid hideabed smoking a Virginia Slim, the Joy of Cooking open across your knees as you planned another of your reknowned repasts. The little pink sweater you were knitting for Poopsy lay abandoned on the lime-green shag carpet, impaled by the stiletto heel of your houseshoe and forgotten in the whirling excitement of preparing a feast for the inmate crew you had noticed working at the side of the road nearby. Poopsy raised holy hell when I arrived; that pekipoo was always a menace. You’d asked me to bring broccoli stems, but all they had were crowns. I knew you’d be pissed, but there’s only so much anyone can do to meet your fanatical culinary demands. I didn’t have to hear you rant though because that’s when the special news flash blared from your 3-inch black-and-white. A local work crew had accidentally tapped a topsecret molasses pipeline and the syrup was rising. You leapt up, screaming about the universe being unfair for trying to ruin your dinner party and how you’d be damned if you were going to let it. You grabbed the morning edition of the Times-Picayune, tucked it into your spandex catsuit and ran out the door, Poopsy hot on your heels, determined to save the inmates and bring them back for a candlelight supper. That was the last I saw of you that day and the last I saw of Poopsy ever. Poor pooch– but it is pretty damned cool that you have him on your mantle now, caught in crytallized molasses like a fly in amber.