Mickey Mouse and the Clouds

   

   When I spend days writing about clouds, water molecules, and atoms being mostly empty space, I usually need to walk away from my computer, take a few deep breaths, and try not to slip off the globe and out of the universe. Sometimes I go outside and look at the sky. Sometimes I take a brisk walk or I yank a few weeds out of my garden. After writing aboutMickey Mouse and fog, however, I drove downtown to my pottery class to sink my soul into mounds of solid, wet clay.  I found myself at a traffic light--the only one in our town where you cannot turn right on red. The light was long and I had time to stare at the car in front of me, the one that was not inching forward to turn right on red.

  On the back of the cloud-gray car were the silver letters spelling out its name: Stratus. The name has always amused me because I believe the clever people at Dodge (the experts in subliminal advertising) want the name to sound like “status” and “stratosphere,” which it does unless you know your clouds. Stratus is the lowest form of clouds and, when thick, can make driving hazardous. In which case you would buy a Cirrus—named after the highest and fastest type of cloud.

   While I am thinking about this, I noticed the decals adorning this particular Stratus: They are Mickey Mouse decals—one green full-body Mickey and four Mickey Mouse models of water molecules. What were the chances of this? I’d say zero in a zillion, but it happened. There I was looking at Mickey Mouse chasing water molecules in the fog, which is not something Walt Disney, Dodge, Minnie,  or any respectable meteorologist has ever asked Mickey to do.

    Woo-woo coincidence? Response from the universe? Writer losing her grip? I went to my pottery class and spent three hours kneading and shaping five-pound blocks of clay into bowls. Then I went home and showed my well-grounded husband the photograph of the Mickey Mouse in the stratus on the Stratus.

  “What do you think? Do you not think it’s weird that I had spent the whole day writing about water molecules and fog and then pulled up behind this car?”

   He studied the photograph but didn’t say anything. I thought he was trying to figure out a nice way to tell me that I needed more sleep. Instead, he shook his head and said, “You're right. That is definitely weird.”

  

Next blog: Pithier comments on my attempt at being an Intentional Naturalist in the Methow Valley.