Fifth things...

Fifth things -- the fifth things that we never include in this blog, because in this dimension of (alleged) reality, the only true fifth thing is our Muse - often awaken me at night. And at the risk of touching off a long, ugly decline into irrelevence, with spring finally here, there's a fifth thing that has lately bothered me. A question, as they say, of import, gravitas, and possibly, crunchiness.

I mean, no less an awesome dude than Bill Shakespeare posed the musical question, "What's in a name?", then by way of immediate answer plopped "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" into Juliet's script.

But I happen to recall an old, small, and according to the great god Google, now completely forgotten story, in which a king and his princess daughter more or less contradicted Juliet by agreeing that everyone would like dandelions a bunch better if they renamed them 'Golden Fancies.' Of course, in this fiction, there was no question of accepting large, evil, international chemical marketing conglomerates' notions of weediness.

Now, Bill was a helluva writer, but not necessarily the final authority on everything. He was born at least five (heh) and a half millenia after certain, nearby, semi mythical coyotes. But while there is no longer any passing mention of Golden Fancies vis-a-vis dandelions left anywhere (And after all, the entire golden construct could be a cruel trick of an ancient and crotchety canine disposed to Alzheimerish daydreams, or a sharp-as-a-tack but completely unreliable narrator - your choice... I digress.) the philosophical saw-off continues to torture my poor doggie brain. Which is it?