Pictures from Today

I biked over to open the shop this morning. We're having a glorious week of Fall weather.
I brought in a new stack of used stock. Since I didn't have any visitors until late in the day, I allowed myself to get pulled into Modoc. What a lovely story! I had read about Modoc in Stewart O'Nan's Circus Fire. I knew she had lead people out of the burning big top, and returned to the flames to save one of her keepers. I didn't know the back story of her life, raised by Gunther, the son of a German elephant trainer, who was born on the same day as Modoc, they are cruelly separated a couple times throughout their lives, but reunited at a Hollywood animal reserve later in life. So many adventures are crammed between that. Shipwrecked far at sea, Modoc saves many of the sailors by keeping them afloat. She & Gunther make it to shore and live in India, at the palatial preserve of Malmout, a worshipped albino elephant. A war between tribal Afghan warlords. Their journey to America, and the many cruel betrayals there make their reunion even more of a tearjerker than those animal/human youtubes we all love.