Yesterday, during fence repair, I snapped the picture on the blog below.

“I want a copy of that,” he said.

“Okay, sure,” I said. “Give me an email. I’ve been writing about you.”

“She said you liked to kick people’s butts,” my daughter chimed in. She was home yesterday.

“You did?” he asked.

“I did.”

“I want to read what you wrote about me. What did you write about me?”

“Oh, I told the story. I wrote about this whole saga.”

“Tell me.”

I wound up explaining the whole thing in a very theatrical way. I was up on my toes in the back yard… ‘Saturn is over here,” I said. ‘Neptune, there,” I said, pointing opposite.

He was nodding enthusiastically.

“And I’m Saturn; I am going to nail this guy down. But no! He’s having none of it!”

“Uh, uh,” he said, grinning wildly and gesticulating for me to continue.

“And then you show up and you’re Mars! Mars the warrior. Mars the hero warrior.”

“Yep, that’s what I am,” he boasted. “I am a hero!”

“And you’re going to kick some butt! You said so!”

“Yep, that’s what I do. I do, do that. I kick butt for sure!”

“I know! So anyway, that guy over there had me going. He wasn’t going to let me pin him down and he’s got all this innuendo going… but then you come in from the side - Mars! And you cut through all this. He didn’t see you coming,” I said with a snort! I was waving my hands around, talking the whole time, talking.

“No, he didn’t.”

“So all this is happening in the sky,” I said, hands in the air, up on my toes. “And the same thing is going on down here,” I said, squatting down and moving my fingers across the porch like we were all little ants. “It’s happening up there,” I said, waving my hands, “while happening down here! And they match!” I said with a grin.

“Yes they do,” he said his grin.

“Yep. So that’s what I do,” I said. “I translate and transcribe this stuff,” I said. “It’s my job.”

He laughed.

“Yeah, I think it’s funny too. And then you come back and tell me you’re a black man! Well I knew that! But it wasn’t in my story yet, so I put it there and guess what else?”

“What?”

“Well I write more than one thing at a time and I just happened to be writing about what right now?”

“What you writing about, Elsie? What you writin’ Els?” He was grinning ear to ear. He was also calling me nicknames from my past and I wondered why or how.

“I’m writing about racism! Isn’t that funny? Look at me. I’m not supposed to know anything about bigots, however I do. So I am writing about this and here you are and I guess you can see what I am saying. It’s all a fabulous puzzle. Because where did you come from? I didn’t ask for you! You just knocked on my door. Sent from God, I guess.” I laughed.

“Yep, that’s me. I am sent from God, for sure.”

“Well that’s my opinion. Because we had two Gods fighting. We had Saturn and Neptune and we needed a third God. Mars! Because that guy had me confused! Neptune! But ask a man what a man is up to and they can figure it out. What’s that guy up to? He wants to screw! Ohhhhhhhhhhh! Duh!!!!!!!!”

We both roared.

Anyway, the fence is up. Hooray! And his last words?

He looked around my yard. All the scraps of wood were picked up. Everything was back were it belonged: “I love my work. I love me…”

Do you love your work?