RALPH wood mobile by Candace Knapp
6 inches X 17 inches X 14 inches Photo Bjorn Andren
RALPH
One thing you should know about me.
I like a good cigar
I mean a real Cuban cigar
I like to fly over to Ybor City on a Friday evening
when the fat cats and bankers are sitting outside at a sidewalk café
smoking Cubans and drinking rum.
I just go from one to the other getting whiffs of the good stuff.
Like, I’m small, they don’t notice me
but I tell you the flavor is intense.
There is a kind of cherry/cognac aftertaste
that stays with you for a long time
then
It’s on to the Cuban bakery on 15th street
to where the exhaust fan pours out those yeasty crusty flavors !
It’s heaven on earth !
I tell you,
I know how to have the good life !
Of course I had a great start.
I was born at the stables where the police horses stay.
It was a veritable symphony of smells and tastes.
Not everyone is so lucky.
I developed a discriminating nose at an early age.
We often went to Busch Gardens as a family.
That’s where you find the really exotic smells;
flamingos, iguanas, hyenas and meerkats.
Of course, there is nothing like a rhinoceros!
I feel an uneasy kinship, actually.
I mean, it’s like we are all one
and yet our smells are different.
I find that profound,
don’t you?
I mean, it’s like we are all one
ReplyDeleteand yet our smells are different.
I find that profound,
don’t you?
Yes, I DO!!!!! Smell is the most evocative of the senses so perhaps the most primal way of connecting.
I was once initiated to the tastes and smells of several REAL Cuban cigars with cognac chasers. On a farm in Brooksville. Under quicksilver stars. It was SO amazing! Dark (Oscuro) and earthy (Terroso) like the soil around my genetic roots. Those tastes and smells sparked something deep inside me. I had to get up and dance salsa under the stars or explode! Too bad Ralph wasn't there to inhale those smells he loves so much and fly around me as I danced. Or perhaps he was! He is, self-admittedly, small....people don't notice him. But I will be on the look-out now that we have been properly introduced! I need a small partner-in-crime with 5:00 shadow!