BY AND BY

Dialogue from a fall festival:

“Where’s Lana?” I ask.

“Over there. They’re looking at the goat.” Taeko is ready to leave.

Six kids are sitting in a circle surrounding a very mellow goat, which is ignoring the empty wafer cones being shoved under its nose, and doing its goat-damnedest to sleep.

“Come on, Lana—it’s time to go.”

Six kids dissolve the circle in a slow wave.

“Aw, man, you broke up the goat circle.” I sound disappointed.

“What’s a goat circle?”

“It’s when you sit around in a circle and there’s a goat in the middle.”

“Is that a thing?”

“Um, yeah, it’s a thing. Goat circle? Hello?”

We Capricorns are a particular lot…