cleaning

Late fall, Highland Park, 2010: this does make me feel rather sheepish (if thankful) to be in a position to have been picking up a designer bird, a heritage small Red Bourbon Turkey from Griggstown this Thanksgiving (another form of guilt was symbolically assuaged by checking that President Obama had, indeed, pardoned two very handsome looking white turkeys earlier today, Apple and Cider - oh, how New England rural - who were sent off with a stroke on the head from the presidential hand - plus an inquiry as to what wattles are actually for - to have a good life at Mount Vernon.   And the answer to the wattle question is to let off heat, since turkeys don't sweat).   It's the optimism of drawing a bucket and mop and broom that's particularly poignant about this.   I'm relieved to see that a couple of phone number strips have already been torn off - but the board outside Rite Aid, on a windy corner with ice pellets in the forecast, is not the most propitious of advertising spaces.