There’s always the possibility, when one is Out and About, of meeting a kindred spirit moving through the dimension with something like a parallel purpose. No matter how often this might happen, I don’t remember it very often when I embark. It takes that sudden moment of recognition in the presence of one to reawaken the spark of companionship and adventure that these confluences allow.Today my fellow traveler and I were both in search of tall grass, it seems. I’d gone to the home improvement store to buy cabinet latches, but having discovered recently that it’s the end of the main plant season at many such places here in north Texas, I always make room if I can for a few minutes’ perusal of the mark-down racks of plants; having determined that there’s no room in the budget for major garden renovation, I’m equally determined that I won’t leave the current yard completely untouched. The one-dollar bonanza becomes a greater than ever enticement.Last time I did that sort of shopping I was lucky enough to find a batch of half-dead baby crape myrtle plants marked down to almost nothing and in just a few days of careful and shaded watering and pruning I’ve managed to revive them to a surprising degree. With that encouragement, I dove back into the store’s leafy aisles and found, today, a half-dozen pots of scrawny native grasses. Hurray! Just what I’ve been seeking lately, once again. These, too, were far past their peak but potentially rescuable.

Some fellow travelers don’t even seem to mind hanging around with an old bag on a shopping trip . . .

It was when I got up to the cashier’s counter that I looked down at my shopping cart and saw a big grasshopper gazing back at me. Whether with curiosity or challenge, I wasn’t quite sure: it had obviously grown ‘attached’ to the grasses I was carrying and mightn’t have been too well pleased that I rudely stole them from the shelves like that. But the bug wasn’t so awfully put out, after all, because it clearly enjoyed its new landing spot on my old carrying bag and enough so that it plainly didn’t want to let go when I tried to encourage such a move. It took me some serious effort to pluck the thing away from the bag, and I must admit I was moved to contemplate whether I might not have felt exactly the same had our positions been reversed.Yes, I still flicked the creature away. Our mild-to-nonexistent last winter here has left us with enormous populations of all sorts of insects, not least of all grasshoppers that in parts of Texas are reaching fairly near to Biblical plague proportions. I’ve seen plenty of evidence that while our grasshoppers haven’t yet reached such an outlandish census level, they’re in large enough forces that they’re lunching and munching exuberantly on our property as it is, so I didn’t see a great need to import yet another diner to our all-you-can-eat buffet.Now we shall see whether I can get these past-prime grasses I captured to revive enough to settle in thoroughly to their new home here. I don’t doubt there will be plenty of insects right on hand, not least of all more big, hardy grasshoppers, munching away on them as they grow here too. We’re all really on this big journey together, after all.