are you chicken….?

{Pony is certainly a bit surprised to see a bird that big, let alone one up in a tree; but Shetland probably would be too, if those leaves weren’t so interesting. The bird itself is a hen, though it’s certainly no chicken either. Turkey hens just don’t get enough publicity unless they’re shrink-wrapped and frozen. On last night’s Saturday Night Live, the humor of the 10-to-1 sketch relied on the fact that a character’s “girlfriend” was, in fact, a turkey (or rather, a female cast member dressed as a turkey, like a taller Paul Simon). The fact that “she” appeared to be a male turkey, complete with fanned tail, was not brought to attention. Of course, there is only so much you can — or should — expect from a sketch comedy that had to wrangle up a turkey suit for a quick bit at the tail end of the show. It’s nowhere near the level of discomfort that comes from watching, say, “Barnyard,” where the animated cows are all males with prominent, unsettlingly bouncy pink udders. Were they catering to city kids who presumably see all farmed animals as collections of arbitrary decorative bits wrapped around assorted food products, or did they actually not understand what the human analogy to a cow’s udder is? I’m no animal expert, but I at least have a working knowledge of how class Mammalia works, seeing as how I belong to it and all. Ah well, I could complain about this for days. I’ll spare you for today, and wish you happy holidays instead. See you next month!}