Slaves to the melon

We went to a nearby farmer's market on Saturday morning to peruse the local produce and soak up the small town atmosphere. It was a really nice way to start the day. There's nothing quite like bringing home bags of locally grown produce on a surprisingly crisp weekend morning before you're normally even up and functioning.

I did notice that we were missing the seemingly requisite dog on a leash and kid in a stroller, but at least we fit in with the old people who were also there without small things to push and pick up after.

We bought leeks and sweet carrots as well as a basket of gorgeous peaches. But my most prized purchase was a pair of great big musk melons - one of my all-time favourite late summer market treats. The size of small bowling balls, they held the promise of delectable summer sweetness within their deeply rippled skins.

We tore into one of the big beauties the moment we got home. In minutes we were covered in golden juice that dripped down our chins and off of our fingers. Truth be told, it was a bit of an orgy.

The next day as we were enjoying the second half of the melon, My Beloved pointed out its ingenious nature. The seeds, tucked safely - and cleverly - inside the heart of the fruit, are designed to be eaten and subsequently transported to new potential breeding locales.

They take a free ride through our digestive tracts and are summarily deposited, encapsulated in a delightfully fertile medium, ready to take root and begin the cycle again.

As My Beloved said, we are slaves to the melon.

That is, of course, if we eat the seeds (which we don't) and deposit our fertile medium somewhere other than in a vessel that immediately directs it to a treatment facility (which I haven't done since the days of the cottage outhouse 30 odd years ago).

But it's still a very cool notion. Slaves to the melon.

Anyway, it all got me thinking about how life just seems to find a way - about how it's designed to take great advantage of even the smallest opportunity.

Which of course makes me think that that's exactly what we're doing. Taking great advantage of a small opportunity.

IUI will increase our chances of conceiving. By how much, I'm not sure. Tubal issues aside, at my age the odds of conception each cycle probably fall below 20%. With IUI it's raised to about that. Possibly more.

Which means, of course, that it has a 75% - 80% of failing.

But I'm not supposed to be thinking negatively, so I'm going to revel in the glory that is 20% and think like a melon. Think that if I just entrust the little seeds within me to the big world out there, one will find its way. Just because that's what it was ingeniously designed to do.