April 1, 2002
Dear Muffin,
I won't be able to write any more on account of I am dead. Ha ha ha! That is an April Fools Joke. I am not really dead.
Love,
Gracie
April 2, 2002
Dear Muffin,
Weakie says no more writing to our pen pals and saying we are dead. She says it is not funny.
I thought it was pretty funny. But I guess not.
Your Friend,
Gracie
April 3, 2002
Dear Muffin,
I learned a new trick. You take a pizza and you dump thousand island dressing all over it. It's good.
Gracie
April 5, 2002
Dear Muffin,
Can't write much on account of it is my turn this week to baby sit Snooples and Chessie. Everybody else is out looking for mushrooms.
There's this new kid at school named Porcine her high sqeaky voice irritates the hell out of
Just heard the weed whacker start gotta go
Gracie
April 6, 2002
Dear Muffin,
There is this really funny show on TV that we like to watch. It's called Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp. It is really funny!
There's this chimp, see, who drives a Ferrari gotta go
G.D.L
April 8, 2002
Dear Muffin,
Today when I was doing my Tie Bow exercises my knees cracked and Ben thought he had been morally wounded by gunfire. He clutched his paw over his heart and he flipped over backwards
Chainsaw just fired up what is all that banging gotta go
LATER
I am back. Snooples and Chessie started the Poulan and put it in the clothes dryer and turned on the clothes dryer and they were singing along.
Anyways so then Ben says everything is getting dark, and Pia, she says right, I'll go get the revolver and put you out of your misery, and
Something large just dropped past window gotta go
G.D.L
April 11, 2002
Dear Muffin,
What is your favorite TV show mine is Green Acres. It used to be Elvis the Pine Siskin but it got canceled and anyways I think Elvis is dead.
Yours,
Gracie
April 13, 2002
Dear Muffin,
Green Acres is a really good show you should watch it sometime.
It is all about COOPERATIVE EXTENSION.
One time on Green Acres Mrs Douglas canned a whole banana. It was educational.
Another time there was this fake cows leg and Mrs Douglas was talking to some chickens and gotta go
Gracie
April 14, 2002
Muffin,
You can be glad you do not have curmudgeonly stomping dad.
Specifically a dad which gives cats headaches over small transgressions. For example pulling over an insignificant floor lamp which anyway was insanely ugly and deserved to die.
That is all I have to say.
Gracie
April 15, 2002
Dear Muffin,
I guess I will write as there isn't anything else to do on account of I am grounded.
Weakie caught us playing darts and tattled. That was not the problem. We were playing darts with Chickenloafs insulin needles.
Actually that was not the really big problem. A insulin needle got stuck in the back of Bens head. This happened while he was meditating. Actually it was not really stuck in his head it was stuck in his head FUR. But do you think Weakie cared about that? No Weakie did not care about that.
Ben was not even aware of it for 7 hours.
Later,
Gracie
April 12, 2002
Dear Friend Gracie,
I am sending you this poem, which I composed last evening whilst stacking stones. It is still a draft, of course, so please bear with its infantileness.
The Old
Each night they float over the fishpond of sleep,
water striders dimpling the surface of green
glimmer deep as a flooded quarry
that plumbs among the jumbles of boulders.Fanned by the black fins of pumpkinseed fish,
Their dreams are sweet as apple-scented eglantines.
They wake to the twang of the bullfrogs that croon
basso profundo under the moon.
I hope you like the poem!
Your Friend Always,
Muffin
April 15, 2002
Muffin,
Hey that was a pretty good poem. Pia writes poems too
there once was this bulldog named Snapper
who fell straight into the crapper
gotta go
Best,
Gracie
April 15, 2002
Dear Friend Gracie,
I am taking a small respite from plowing our acre, which will be planted to maize today. I am writing whilst sitting upon a tuffet of pale green moss. The sun is shining through the tall ears of the working mules!
I have plowed many furrows since the dawn. Plowing is my favorite of the chores, as it is meditative as well as excellent exercise.
I am most grateful for the priviledge of plowing!
And now, here is a riddle:
What is
greater than God
the rich need it
the poor have it in abundance
but you shall die if you eat it
Guess!
Muffin
April 19, 2002
Muffin,
Beats me what that riddle is. I have been scratching between my ears for days if you want to know, but I came up with nothing.
G.D.L.
P.S. Thanks for the sugarlump. It tasted kind of weird.
April 22, 2002
Dearest Gracie,
You are most brilliant for coming up with the answer to the riddle so promptly!
Most of my friends do not think of the answer for days and days, and some have given up entirely. When I asked the group of wild pigs who live at the edge of the forest that same riddle they could not summon the answer, and they became disgruntled!
Your True Friend,
Muffin
April 26, 2002
Dearest Gracie,
Today is a day like diamonds, for it has rained much. Now the sun shines! It sparkles off the scales of the small brown lizards with thin arms, who sprawl asleep and twitching in their dreams everywhere on the warm stones.
I just had my noontime meal of garlic flowers and am writing here on the fallen trunk of the jujuju tree near our doorway. I listen to the peeps of the tiny green dwarf flamingoes in the lagoon while I sharpen our farming implements.
It is a task that always makes me reflect on the works of my favorite of writers, your Mr. Walter Whitman.
Your Best Friend Who is Far Away!
Muffin
April 27, 2002
Dear Friend Gracie,
I am very interested in the farm implements used in the United States. For example, do you have a tool that is known as a hoe?
If not, I must send you a hoe! A hoe is a wonderful thing! It saves much labor! Before our ancestors invented the hoe our cultivating of the crops necessitated crawling about on the soil.
Our knees became rather dirty, and the fur wore off them!
Please write quickly and tell me whether or not you have a hoe. There is a fellow in the village who is a master of constructing hoes from Jeep parts.
Your Friend Who is Far Away,
Muffin
April 28, 2002
Dear Friend Gracie,
I have the best of news! Our maize crop is now one-half-metre tall!
Our old ones have this saying . . .
Half a leg tall
Feast in the fall.
I noted the height of the maize this morning with the length of knotted thread that I keep for measuring crops and growing children.
Your Best Friend Always Who is Far Away,
Muffin
April 30, 2002
Dear Muffin,
What the hell do you do for diarreah over there. Ben has it bad.
Please write back ASAP.
G.D.L.
