Not a geezer basketball reference.
Several days ago, as I was walking, I saw up the road a flock, maybe forty-fifty strong, of ibis. Ibis. Not the same species that's been observing Pharaoh and Moses and a hundred million other Nile River dwellers for the past five thousand years, and were sometimes made into gods, but their close cousins. A foot or so tall, pure white (most of them--a few brownish) with long, thin, down-curved beaks. They had spread themselves across the road, some picking at the grass on one side, some at the lawn on the other, but most wandering the asphalt between the verges. I wondered, as I approached, just how close I could get before they spooked.
When I got within about twenty feet, I dropped my torrid four-mile-per-hour pace down to a shuffle. Imagine my surprise and delight as I touched the edge of the flock and they did not break but flowed around me until I was shin deep in a fluffy white feathery cloud. I slowed even further and tried not to laugh out loud. (I do confess to a quiet giggle or two.) They looked at me and moved as little as possible to let me pass continuing with their own business as if I were no more than a tree stump. When I got to the far side of my little cloud, they flowed in behind except for one who had something obviously inedible in his beak, a piece of paper of some sort. This one walked beside me up the street for several feet before deciding I was boring and turning away.
Then the houses reappeared, and the mailboxes and light poles and all the other stuff we make. But, for a couple of minutes there...
...and the rest of the day was perfect.
This morning a falcon swept down within ten feet of me, shoulder high before swooping back up and landing on a street light stanchion. I stopped and we nodded to each other. There were empty lots on both sides of the road and I think I might have interrupted his breakfast selection. It is the most important meal of the day, nevertheless, I am glad I'm the size I am. Looking up at those eyes I felt sympathy for the mouse.
Happy New Year!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
'Tis the Season Part II
O.K., so the Christmas tree freaked me out again. I turned it on a couple of nights ago and there arose such a clatter I thought to myself "the turntable motor's gonna blow and the torque will topple the tree and destroy 40-50 $100+ ornaments!" (It wouldn't be the first time a Christmas tree fell over in our house but the last time was many years ago dring Christmas dinner when everyone was in another room and it--fully decorated and lit--just slowly started to lean and then fell with a certain arboreal grace and dignity, much like a real one would've done in the forest, while we watched from the table. The cause was never determined. I do recall calling "Timber!".)
Anyway, the sound wasn't coming from the base where the motor is but from within the branches. As I looked closer I realized it was an ornament. There is a huge freaking ornament of AN AMUSEMENT PARK hanging on the tree! An ANIMATED amusement park complete with working Ferris wheel, carousel and a roller coaster that loops around a mountain! The Ferris wheel is maybe an inch high and the roller coaster not much more in diameter (hard to tell since it GOES THROUGH the mountain!). Turns out, when you first start the tree up, the ornament gives off the sounds of happy (I presume) amusement park attendees enjoying rides on roller coasters, carousels and Ferris wheels accompanied by a tiny tinny Christmas carol (I assume that's what that is). I now know how Horton felt when he heard his first Who. Fortunately, the sound effects don't last long, only about a third of a revolution by which time Little-Jerky-Santa-Caught-in-the-Spider-Web is just coming into view.
I'm not going near that side of the room again until after New Year's.
Anyway, the sound wasn't coming from the base where the motor is but from within the branches. As I looked closer I realized it was an ornament. There is a huge freaking ornament of AN AMUSEMENT PARK hanging on the tree! An ANIMATED amusement park complete with working Ferris wheel, carousel and a roller coaster that loops around a mountain! The Ferris wheel is maybe an inch high and the roller coaster not much more in diameter (hard to tell since it GOES THROUGH the mountain!). Turns out, when you first start the tree up, the ornament gives off the sounds of happy (I presume) amusement park attendees enjoying rides on roller coasters, carousels and Ferris wheels accompanied by a tiny tinny Christmas carol (I assume that's what that is). I now know how Horton felt when he heard his first Who. Fortunately, the sound effects don't last long, only about a third of a revolution by which time Little-Jerky-Santa-Caught-in-the-Spider-Web is just coming into view.
I'm not going near that side of the room again until after New Year's.
Friday, December 11, 2009
'Tis the Season, Part I
So...
The Christmas decorations are up. The house is full of 80 years worth of accumulated holiday stuff and Mom says "I've never seen that train set before in my life" about a table decoration that's been in the family for decades. I couldn't keep track of it all, either.
My brother has decorated the tree with a combination of his collection of hand-blown German glass ornaments worth hundreds of dollars each, and LED changing-color bulbs and kitsch (including an animated Santa on the top of the tree waving a lantern around like a drunken sailor and a miniature "dancing" Santa that jerks about in the branches looking more like Frodo in Shelob's web than anything else). The tree rotates and every two minutes Santa-in-the-web swings around and creeps me out.
The neighbor across the street has set out a slew of inflatable holiday characters--Santa, reindeer, snowmen, elves, trees, etc. They're all lit from within and blow up with hot air. They don't wiggle or wave or any of the antics the inflatable tube men do at the used car dealers but it is quite a mob. He turns off the power when he goes to bed so, in the morning, his lawn looks like the site of some horrendous Yule-tide massacre with a couple dozen limp corpses littering two sides of his house. There's another house around the corner and down the street with a similar but smaller display. They, too, lie flat and crumpled in the misty light of dawn, except for a solid Gingerbread Man with his arms raised, the sole survivor of his patrol trying to surrender, and a small white creature that is probably a sheep or maybe a miniture polar bear but could just as easily be Spuds McKenzie.
Turns out, this little town is the burrowing owl capital of the world. A couple Saturdays ago was Burrowing Owl Appreciation Day or something.
Did I mention all the fire hydrants in town are lavender?
The Christmas decorations are up. The house is full of 80 years worth of accumulated holiday stuff and Mom says "I've never seen that train set before in my life" about a table decoration that's been in the family for decades. I couldn't keep track of it all, either.
My brother has decorated the tree with a combination of his collection of hand-blown German glass ornaments worth hundreds of dollars each, and LED changing-color bulbs and kitsch (including an animated Santa on the top of the tree waving a lantern around like a drunken sailor and a miniature "dancing" Santa that jerks about in the branches looking more like Frodo in Shelob's web than anything else). The tree rotates and every two minutes Santa-in-the-web swings around and creeps me out.
The neighbor across the street has set out a slew of inflatable holiday characters--Santa, reindeer, snowmen, elves, trees, etc. They're all lit from within and blow up with hot air. They don't wiggle or wave or any of the antics the inflatable tube men do at the used car dealers but it is quite a mob. He turns off the power when he goes to bed so, in the morning, his lawn looks like the site of some horrendous Yule-tide massacre with a couple dozen limp corpses littering two sides of his house. There's another house around the corner and down the street with a similar but smaller display. They, too, lie flat and crumpled in the misty light of dawn, except for a solid Gingerbread Man with his arms raised, the sole survivor of his patrol trying to surrender, and a small white creature that is probably a sheep or maybe a miniture polar bear but could just as easily be Spuds McKenzie.
Turns out, this little town is the burrowing owl capital of the world. A couple Saturdays ago was Burrowing Owl Appreciation Day or something.
Did I mention all the fire hydrants in town are lavender?
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Christmas at 80F
Thanks to all who have inquired!
The general flatness still takes some getting used to. So does the heat. Generally 80s during the day, 60s at night. Got down to 45 one night and the heat came on. I could breathe without a fan going.
I go for walks in the morning. I try to make it as early as possible before it becomes too hot to be comfortable and also because that's when I can sometimes see the little burrowing owls that live all around the neighborhood. When I first went out I saw several areas, on private but undeveloped property, that looked like the kind of memorial you sometimes see by the roadside where there's been a fatal accident. These were tiny one-foot high unpainted wooden crosses surrounded by a low rope. I thought it was a little obnoxious to put something like that on someone else's property--if I ever bought a parcel with something like that on it, I would remove it--and then I saw the little mounds by each cross and that was even creepier.
Only on my third day through did I go early enough to catch three little owls sitting on the edges of the mounds--their burrows, obviously. There are four roped off mini-sanctuaries in the neighborhood and the owls like to hang out in the dawn before it gets too light/warm and they head down to bed for the day. Now I try to catch them every day. You can get within ten feet or so before they pop down the hole. There are also cormorants*, egrets, a large number of huge hawks, and a whole colony of mourning doves in the neighborhood.
Mom is doing fine, under the circumstances. I find out, after all this time, she is something of a basketball aficionado having played in a YWCA league during the Depression. She can't always tell the teams apart and can't always follow the score but it's fun to hear her yelling at the TV "You call that guarding? Guard the man or guard the ball, but stop running around like that!" She also appreciates a good jump shot. And laughs when Shaq misses free throws.
The kitschy Christmas decorations are going up.
Happy Holidays to all of you!
*The common cormorant, or shag,
Lays eggs inside a paper bag.
The reason you will see, no doubt,
It is to keep the lightning out.
But what these unobservant birds
Have never noticed is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns,
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.
(Unattributed in the book I had. If you know the author, please enlighten me.)
The general flatness still takes some getting used to. So does the heat. Generally 80s during the day, 60s at night. Got down to 45 one night and the heat came on. I could breathe without a fan going.
I go for walks in the morning. I try to make it as early as possible before it becomes too hot to be comfortable and also because that's when I can sometimes see the little burrowing owls that live all around the neighborhood. When I first went out I saw several areas, on private but undeveloped property, that looked like the kind of memorial you sometimes see by the roadside where there's been a fatal accident. These were tiny one-foot high unpainted wooden crosses surrounded by a low rope. I thought it was a little obnoxious to put something like that on someone else's property--if I ever bought a parcel with something like that on it, I would remove it--and then I saw the little mounds by each cross and that was even creepier.
Only on my third day through did I go early enough to catch three little owls sitting on the edges of the mounds--their burrows, obviously. There are four roped off mini-sanctuaries in the neighborhood and the owls like to hang out in the dawn before it gets too light/warm and they head down to bed for the day. Now I try to catch them every day. You can get within ten feet or so before they pop down the hole. There are also cormorants*, egrets, a large number of huge hawks, and a whole colony of mourning doves in the neighborhood.
Mom is doing fine, under the circumstances. I find out, after all this time, she is something of a basketball aficionado having played in a YWCA league during the Depression. She can't always tell the teams apart and can't always follow the score but it's fun to hear her yelling at the TV "You call that guarding? Guard the man or guard the ball, but stop running around like that!" She also appreciates a good jump shot. And laughs when Shaq misses free throws.
The kitschy Christmas decorations are going up.
Happy Holidays to all of you!
*The common cormorant, or shag,
Lays eggs inside a paper bag.
The reason you will see, no doubt,
It is to keep the lightning out.
But what these unobservant birds
Have never noticed is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns,
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.
(Unattributed in the book I had. If you know the author, please enlighten me.)
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