2 March 2011. Gray rain gray...
Less chilly last night. Natasha in white wicker chair, impossibly fluffy mound of tortoise-shell fur in the surrounding dark. Small pink tongue (one remembers) protruding at her special moments. Reaching up with head to be fondled, which she likes.
And the armadillo? Large family of dry land creatures, residents of the Argentine south (and all of the Argentine is south). On the gray landscape of Chubut, wind-raked from the west, head on to the sea. A coast without a harbor--or even an interest in a harbor. And why so? Scene so vividly described by Güiraldes, in Don Segundo Sombra--a tale of gaucho life in the modern period. The riders deliver their herd of cattle to an estancia near the sea--of which his young hero has only heard, and is desperate to see. But for some reason there's an omen attached--as he soon discovers--salt marshes in which the sand teems with voracious crabs...
Better this small dry-land friend, bristly hair at every joint (and there are so many), a close up revealing the pattern of ancient scales. Forces of life, well-rounded, rising to the occasion...
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