First a word of apology. If any of you are planning on attending an event at the Redmond Public Library today, it doesn’t exist. That was listed in error, and as soon as the mistake was noted, we said so on the schedule. Believe me, I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Better luck next time for all of us.

Yesterday, Bill wanted to know what this week’s blog would be about, and I told him I had no idea. For one thing, I was finishing the editorial letter corrections for By Reason of Insanity. It’s a good book, but it’s about to undergo a name change. When I came up with the idea more than forty years ago, it seemed like a great title. Turns out, in the intervening years, several other authors arrived at that same conclusion. As a result, my By Reason of Insanity is about to become something else, but at this point I don’t know what. It’s a baby without a name.

So today, with the soon to be former BROI in the hands of my editors, I went out to get my daily steps by walking laps around the pool deck. Fall is coming on in Seattle, so over the last few days I’ve seen several creepy-crawly slugs outside, a number of which, for no apparent reason, have determinedly set out to cross my walking path—at a snail’s pace, as it were.

As soon as I saw one today, my head immediately sent me down a rabbit hole of all those age-old jokes about “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Why were the slugs crossing the pool deck?

As I said, it’s fall. Those fat, brown, slow-moving slugs bear an uncommon resemblance to fallen brown leaves, so as I set out, I gave myself a talking-to, telling my walking self to “keep my eyes peeled.” I’ve inadvertently stepped on one of those on occasion, and removing a deceased slug from the bottom of my Skechers is almost as difficult as getting rid of doggie-you-know-what!

As soon as those words about “keeping my eyes peeled” came to mind I asked myself, where did that term come from? Presumably it means keeping your eyes wide open, which I did, but that little mental trip reminded me of my mother. She was full of songs and funny little verses which could send us kids into gales of laughter.

“Ain’t we crazy” included a verse about

“While the organ peeled potatoes
Lard was rendered by the choir
While the sexton rang the dishrag
Someone set the church on fire
“Holy smoke” the preacher shouted
As his wig flew in the air.
Now his head resembles heaven
For there is no parting there.

And then there was the one that went this way:

“Can you sit in the shade of the palm of your hand
Or beat on the drum of your ear?
Can the calf in your leg eat the corn on your toe?
Then why not raise corn on the ear?

Those are thoughts that ran through my mind when I was puzzling over the need to keep my eyes peeled.

Then I began considering about what purpose slugs serve in the greater universe, so I came inside and looked them up. As far as I can tell, slugs don’t really serve a higher purpose. They exist. They reproduce. They have thousands of tiny teeth which they use to devour rotting vegetation which makes them good additions to compost heaps, but with thousands of teeth, I suppose we should all be thankful that they aren’t any larger than they are. The sticky trails they leave everywhere they go mark their territory telling other slugs that a particular area is already fully occupied.

Which, as far as I can tell, is pretty much all you need to know about slugs other than to try to keep from stepping on them.

By now you’re probably wondering, “If this is the way her mind works, with one thing leading to another, how the hell does J.A. Jance write books?”

Trust me, I’m wondering the same thing. But now, I think I’ll be a slug-abed and go take a nap.