It was a quiet night , well quiet enough

It was a quiet night , well quiet enough for the bustling chaotic city of New Orleans. Having half naked girls running around going "Woooo" was all but a common occurrence here.

Who am I kidding, all but a common occurrence? Ha, Bourbon St. was full of naked women (and men, unfortunately) on any given night of the week, especially around this time

of the agricultural cycle. Fertility rites and so forth. Well, I had had enough of New Orleans, I decided, and stowed away aboard a petrochemical freighter bound for New Zealand.

Upon arriving in New Zealand, there was nothing but. Just lots of sheep. In Auckland, sheep. In my hotel, sheep. In my room, sheep. They were even in my luggage, when I opened it.

My pyjamas with white sheep which I'd got as a birthday present from my grandma, reminded me of summer spent on a farm with my brother.

That summer our parents sent my brother and me to stay with an uncle at his sheep farm in upstate New York. At first I felt sheepish for knowing so little about sheep rearing, but

But being a shepherd wasn't all fun and games. You had responsibilities and duties and hundreds of lamb's eyes watching you for any sign of weakness. They were always testing you.

Every shepherd knows the intense scrutiny of lambs. Those that don't learn quickly. They will pounce at any sign of weakness. Many shepherds' nightmares are filled with bleating

lambs trampling them to a pulp. "It was the bleating- the bleating of those hideous lambs!" they say, yet they will watch "The Silence of the Lambs" without any qualms whatsoever.