Isolation Diary: The news and the FB posts have reached a level that leaves little room for satire. In 5 years (I first typed 10, but I don’t think it will take that long) simple re-enactments of Trump tweets will provoke hilarity. 5 years, assuming we are rid of Trump next January and because the pendulum will not be wrenched back to the other side after 4 years. So, as jokes are at present too painful, on a more personal note: Something I did because I have time on my hands. Several years ago…maybe 3…who knows now?….probably 4…an opossum died in my garage. I recall seeing an injured opossum in my yard and then, maybe a year later, saw the carcass of an opossum behind seldom used tools in my garage. Oooh, interesting, I thought. An opossum skeleton is hard to come by. But it wasn’t really a skeleton, yet, and I did nothing. Until I was trapped in this house. And one day…why that day?…I gathered up that carcass, now sort of fallen apart, and so dirty, bones still covered in some leathered skin, the teeth showing perfectly. Yesterday I tried to clean the remains. Just in water. I don’t know how to manage this! I’ve got a curled tail. An eyeless head. Some paws. Is this weird? Hey, I have a 10 year old grandson, almost 11, he might like this ! There is a spine, some skin….. Hey, I’m fine, really, no worries…………
Jeremy A.
Sounds pretty cool to me…DeAnne M.
You’re brave!!Carl G.
A little dedicated googling should show you some taxidermy techniques for getting a clean skeleton… quite an art project!Claudette W.
I say…why not? Sounds interesting. I’d be too creeped out to touch it, I think. Your grandson will most likely love it.Christie M.
Boil the bones and the stuff will just fall away, I bet. Do you have a large kettle? Is it in one piece? Pictures when it’s done please!Susan J.
Um…I’m in the “cause for worry”camp.
Actually, it seems to me that you’ve just taken the next step up from all those jigsaw puzzles.Ruth Silveira
Actually, I haven’t laid out a single puzzle although I have two in the queue. To accommodate my desire to put things together I’ve been sewing. No cause for worry.Susan J.
Ruth Silveira Whew!Nick U.
When I was a little kid. I had an uncle who was a keeper at the London Zoo. He taught me to take dead animals and bury them in the ground for six months. Then when we’d dig them up, only the skeleton would be left. Ah those were the happy days.Richard L.
Ruth The daily news right now is just too raw and sad and after several times around the track it seems satire doesn’t have the power of shame that it’s supposed to. Maybe the shameless are incapable of being affected anyway. And laughing just seems cruel.
I well remember at the height of the Vietnam War a Michael O’Donoghue piece in the Lampoon called “The Vietnamese Baby Book.” It was stunning, on point, vicious and dumped the horror right in the homes of comfortable Americans. Probably didn’t move the needle at all.
And I certainly agree..why write anyway when you have Trump doing it for you?Ruth Silveira
Yeah. I’m imagining us in 5 years, having weathered this disaster, finally being able to just giggle at the absurdity of the whole thing. Yes, jokes can be made now, cartoons, but the response, in my case anyway, is maybe a painful forced chuckle, not real laughter.Carol A.
I sense the beginnings of a screenplay here. Woman living alone begins to find “things “ buried in her garden……Ruth Silveira
I like it!Mandi M.H.
I think you’re badass for wanting to save those opossum parts. I think you have to boil them. I have some friends who know about these things, I can ask if you want.Ruth Silveira
please do!Tegan A.C.
What an amazing opportunity. Ruth, please research this and take safety precautious, even after all this time, to avoid bacteria and disease. If it’s decomposed this far you can probably move onto maceration before cleaning with hydrogen peroxide. If cartilage remains, then filing/picking/sanding. Finally cover it all in sea salt or borax until completely dried.
Bleach will turn the bones to powder. Boiling will weaken them, I’ve been told, but again research!Maggie M.
Mother. Let this possum go! Its horrifying!Maggie M.
We all know she’s gonna do whatever it is she’s gonna do.Jeff W.
Beginning to have some concerns…Ruth Silveira
Previous encounters with opossums: One died tucked into our foundation, smelled terrible. I had to crawl under the house, quite a ways, with a flashlight, a garbage bag, gloves, and I must have had something to grab it with. Then there was the time that Captain (our dog) brought an opossum into the house, at least I think that’s what must have happened because there it was curled up on a shelf of the TV stand. And when they play dead, they do it extremely well. One of us, me, Richard, I don’t recall, with sticks and a broom, maneuvered this dead possum out of the front door, down the front steps, and left it lying on the path to the front door. Dead. Except that 15 minutes later it got up and walked away.Ruth Silveira
And besides…..what’s the matter with bones? Ever broken a wishbone with someone? Relished a chicken leg?Jeff W.
I see now that you have a history with these creatures.Mandi M.H.
Ruth, I adore you so muchJohn A.
Satire goes in waves; when things are in crisis, that form fades while people cope, then it always manages to slip back in as time and distance progress further along… as for the bones, well to quote WC Fields, probably “very fine with mustard!”Jeff W.
“Alas, poor O’Possum — I knew him well, Horatio.”Terry W.
Uh, you do have a trash receptacle, right?Rick C.
make soup……Ruth Silveira
Eeeeuwwww.