You know you really love somebody if you're willing to pick their nose for them. So there Sophie was, hosing down the front lawn. It was hot outside, and the rosemary along the parking strip that we'd planted earlier in the summer looked small and weak and in need of a drink. Likewise the small, brownish lavender plant under the mailbox. Anyway, like I was saying, she was hosing down the yard, and doing such a good job of it that the lawn was beginning to resemble some sort of bog. I looked over at her and all of a sudden I noticed it, hanging from her left nostril. It looked like a small slug about to make a break for freedom. I knew it to be otherwise, so I leaned over and gave it a tentative tug. I didn't apply enough force, and she jerked her head away, not wanting me to interrupt the important process of yard maintainence. Somebody more fainthearted than I might have given up at this point, but that snotty little glob had irritated me, so I swiped at it again. It hung on for a moment longer, like a last hope, then disappeared downwards into the wet, green oblivion of the lawn. Will it act as fertilizer? I guess that's relatively unimportant. The main thing is to maintain one's nostrils, and those of our loved ones. No task is too gross when you really care about someone.

written to the tune of "The Best of British Folk" two cds of jigs, ballads, grim drinking songs (poor John Barleycorn - sliced and crushed and *gasp* consumed!), and murder, of course. You can't have british folk without murder, incest, treachery, dying miners (Disney won't make movies about them), drowning, hauntings, and horrific vengeance (sometimes all in one song). And you think contemporary music is vile!