On Ear Licks and a Bit of Good News.

A horse nuzzled my face and then licked my ear today. I don’t think I’ve ever had my ear licked by a horse before. (I seem to recall an attractive young human female once licked my ear, but I don’t rightly remember which one. That’s the problem with those of us descended from Irish roots through the male line. We love the colleens and are very attentive to them, but we sometimes have difficulty identifying individuals. There is one colleen who stood out from the crowd though, and I would most certainly remember the date, the prevailing weather conditions, and exactly what I had for dinner that night if she’d ever stooped to licking my ear. But she didn’t. She bent it occasionally and assaulted it a couple of times, but never licked it.)

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I had my letter today regarding the results of my recent CT scans. It said ‘No evidence of disease recurrence.’ I’ve always been very pleased to get that message, but today I wasn’t quite so sure. Given the state of the world, the human condition, my ailing body, and my general mental state, it didn’t seem quite as straightforward as it usually does.

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A little post script on the matter of having my ear licked by a horse: I happen to know that he, too, has Irish antecedents. I wonder whether he’d heard the old Irish song with a verse which runs

The young colleen said

Come you here

You treat me right

And I’ll lick your ear

I’m translating from the original Gaelic, of course. No I’m not. I made it up.