just crunched a snail

I would have said something about all that nice weather we had a week and a half ago and about how quickly the restlessness and the anxiety and the depression disappeared. But then the gods decided we hadn't suffered enough and unleashed some storm so horrible upon us that it literally blew the downspouts off our gutters.

And it's not just the major gods getting in on the beating here, but the little ones too -- like the one who's responsible for keeping your umbrella from flipping inside out when you're trying to look nonchalant as you stand on the train platform. And the one who keeps all the snails and worms off the pathway from your garage to your front door so you only have to make that "I just crunched a snail" face maybe once or twice a year at most. Even the one who's supposed to protect the native buckwheat plants that your kind neighbor brought over last summer so you'd have something to plant in the strip of dirt that's between the sidewalk and the street.

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On an unrelated note, here are just some of the many, many incredible and horrifying things described in A.P Maudslay's translation of "The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico," a first-person account written in the late 1500s by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a conquistador who accompanied Cortes on the first expedition from the Old World to reach Mexico City:

• The discovery of two Spaniards who had already been living for years amongst the Mayans on the Yucatan peninsula -- one as a slave and the other as a respected member of the community.
• The reunion of Dona Marina (the native translator who was offered to Cortes as a slave but later became his mistress) with her mother -- the woman who had turned Marina over to traders when she was just a child.
• The intentional sinking of the fleet so that none of the conquistadors could desert the expedition.
• The realization that the "special" slaves that some tribes were holding behind bars were being fattened up like veal.
• The priest who counseled Cortes that destroying ancient Indian idols was probably not the best way to get the village chiefs to adopt the Virgin Mary as their new idol.
• The daring climb to the top of a volcano -- the first the conquistadors had ever seen.
• The initial march down the causeway to Mexico City, past island cities, floating gardens, lofty temples, and thousands of Aztecs who had come out of their homes to see white men and horses for the first time.
• The constant exchange of gifts between Cortes and Montezuma.
• The numerous expeditions that the Governor of Cuba sent to arrest Cortes and prevent him from starting a settlement in the New World.
• The discovery of Montezuma's treasure room.
• The palpitating hearts pulled from human sacrifices intended to appease the gods.