Right outside the front door of our house–well, across a little stretch of lawn, fifteen or twenty feet maybe–we have a pond. It was one of the many things we fell in love with when we first saw the house. We still love it. It’s gorgeous, it’s soothing, it’s a marvelous place to sit in our weathered old Adirondack chairs and enjoy morning coffee or evening cocktails.
Occasionally, wild ducks come and visit our pond. Usually a pair of mallards, but sometimes more exotic fowl: hooded mergansers, wood ducks, and once even a bufflehead. They are very shy, these wild ducks. If we step outside, they QUACK QUACK QUACK in great distress and fly away, wings beating madly, water droplets scattering everywhere.
We had a fellow here the other day to talk about moving our propane tank from the faaaaaar reaches of the back of the house to a much more convenient spot at the front of the house (another story, which perhaps I will tell you someday, it’s not important now). Anyway Mark was out discussing the job with him, and the fellow admired our pond. Mark mentioned the very shy wild ducks that we enjoy so much, and the fellow said, “Why don’t you get some domestic ducks? They’ll stick around, and they’ll even eat some of that duckweed.”
Oh! What an idea! Ducks who would stay! Ducks we could name. Ducks who might produce eggs. Ducks who might produce…
DUCKLINGS!!!!
Ahem. Suffice it to say, we got kind of excited about the thought. And when I say “we”, I am pretty much meaning “I”.
We committed social gathering yesterday. 6 people, four fully vaccinated, 2 partially, all of a generation fully cognizant of the risks and generally sensible people, but with the frustration, grief and monotony of the past 14 months getting the better of us, we were like kids let loose in the inflatable bouncing house to play.
I may love to talk about the 19th century and sometimes dream a little about stepping into a time machine and visiting it, but there are a few facets of life in which I am firmly 21st century…and one of those is taking a nice hot shower every morning. But how did our 19th century counterparts keep clean? 
The situation: Waldo appears in chapter three as a close personal friend of the protagonist. He has an epic encounter with the villain, saves the day and endears himself to a female protagonist. He then promptly disappears for the rest of the book, while the reader is left to wonder where he went.
Maps to Nowhere