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.)