I love it when my old St. Louis neighborhood makes national news. This time it appears to be a standoff between a gunman and police and it’s already resulted in one firefighter dead and two police officers injured.
Nice.
When I saw the headline on MSNBC.com, I was thinking it was probably my next door neighbor. The same one who, when he saw some people break into our house while the renters were on vacation, decided that instead of calling the police, he’d grab his gun and enter the house and threaten to blow their fucking heads off.
Fortunately, it’s not. It’s a good three blocks or so away. Fantastic. This should really help ratchet up the neighborhood’s reputation when we finally get our house on the market.
July 21st, 2008
I just realized, to my great surprise, that I hadn’t actually written a new post in nearly three weeks. I know; I’m a terrible blogger. It’s just that I’ve been spending most of my mental energy doing something that’s also surprising: writing. My work’s coming along painfully slowly, but progress is being made in between bouts of writer’s block and self-doubt (although those may be the same things.)
On the jay front, the nest has been empty for some days now. The babies ventured out from one branch to another, then on to the next nearest tree, then the next. For a few days we could still find them in the morning by following the cacophony of squawking and wing flapping when the parents brought them food. And we can hear and see the parents in the neighborhood sometimes, but the kiddies have graduated to higher branches and have moved on.
Sigh. Would I be the world’s biggest dope if I said it was a little sad?
July 13th, 2008
Literally within a handful of days the baby blue jays went from looking like baby pterodactyls with see-through craniums to looking like baby, well, birds. Complete with downy fluff and the emergence of blue feathers. Amazing. Over the past few days, I’ve kept a close eye on their progress. (Too close, at times, including the time I pulled a chair over and stood on it, peering into the nest and was dive-bombed by one of the parental blue jays, who made actual contact with my hair. Message received.)
A couple of days ago, the most advanced of the bunch was tottering on the edge of the nest. Another followed suit and in the past 48 hours they’ve all tried their hand at flying. I watched them as they took their first tentative steps, hopping from one branch to another, unsteady and wobbling into branches. I watched as they practiced flapping their wings, sometimes comically as if they didn’t have much control, getting them tangled up in leaves and if I’d been close enough I’m sure I would have seen their little birdy-cheeks turn bright red.
By Tuesday afternoon, all four had ventured out to varying degrees and to varying degrees of comfort. (Pictured at top is the early adapter, who was so exhausted by his/her progress that he/she fell asleep right on the branch, hanging upside down like that.) By yesterday afternoon, two of them had made it into branches on nearby trees. By this afternoon? Can’t spot a one of them. No one’s in the nest. No one’s in the nearby trees unless they’ve made it to the highest-up branches.
Judging by the calendar, the babies are about two weeks old and are probably on schedule for fledging. I’m sure that, even if they do return to the nest tonight, it won’t be long before the whole family is gone for good. And I know it’s their thing. I mean, I know it’s what they’re meant to do. But it doesn’t mean that I won’t miss watching them.
On the other hand, I won’t miss being dive-bombed on my own back deck, either. So have at it, nature!
July 3rd, 2008
From CNN.com today:
Obama is ‘arrogant,’ charges Karl Rove.
Also in breaking news:
Kettle is black, charges pot.
June 26th, 2008
We have a truly magnificent back deck at our house. I can say that sort of thing because we’re renters and I didn’t have a damn thing to do with it. A couple of weeks ago, I was enjoying an afternoon reading on said deck when I noticed a particular blue jay making himself apparent. I should note that I’m not exactly a bird person. (Enough of a not-a-bird-person that I told Chris we had a blue finch out back only to be told, in gentle terms, that there’s no such thing.) That is to say, I recognize their existence, acknowledge their remarkable engineering and, at times, their notable plumage but, in general, ignore them. This particular blue jay wasn’t having it. He was flying from tree to tree, making all kinds of racket, demanding I put down my book and notice him.
I did. And soon I noticed something else — a nest in the high branches of one of the bigger lilac trees that flanks the deck. There, in the nest, was another blue jay. I watched them pretty closely, wondering if this was a permanent move or a stop-over. Within days, the population of the nest had tripled. When I peeked up to take a look, there were four tiny heads visible just above the top of the nest, all translucent orange beaks and bobbly, unsupported eagerness. (You can barely make out their wide-open mouths in the photo below. Grainy for all kinds of obvious “bad access” and “privacy rights” reasons.) (more…)
June 23rd, 2008
Not ever, or anything. Just the first in our backyard this summer. Enjoy.
June 22nd, 2008
That’s where I am right now. Not a lot going on. Not a lot to say. Still riding the post-Effexor wave of completely uncontrollable emotion coupled with inexplicable rage and anxiety at the drop of a hat. It’s a real treat, I tell you. Writing some, but not a lot. A bit for me, a bit for clients. Concentration does not come easily these days. I’m not even tackling major projects right now — just some mindless, stash-busting knitting projects in front of the TV. (Did I ever tell you we got cable and DVR and the latter is the greatest invention EVER and completely terrible for my productivity? Why would I ever work when there is so much TV to watch?)
So, like I said, not much of an update, but just a little post to let you know I’m still alive. ALIVE!
June 18th, 2008
Among the many, many reasons you should feel sorry for me is the fact that I never went to camp as a child. In Britain, people just didn’t send their kids off to camp. (They may today, but I’m not certain.) When we moved to the states when I was about 10, camp was a distinctly American tradition, largely saved for people who had the means and, I thought, didn’t like their kids so much. So while a handful of my friends trotted off to camp for weeks on end during the summer, I remained behind, largely puzzled and only mildly envious. I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy camp nor was I sure why kids would want to sleep in bug-filled cabins, swim in murky lakes and fashion macrame bracelets when they could stay indoors all summer watching sitcoms.
So you can imagine it was a little odd and, surprisingly, a little thrilling for me to shop for my trip up north to the Bear River Writer’s Conference at Camp Michigania last weekend. As I tossed bug spray into my basket at Target and mulled over the right flashlight to take (who knew there were so many flashlights?), Chris assured me that if I got lonely and the other writers made fun of me, I could come home at anytime.
As it turns out, the conference was a terrific experience. For the past few years, I’ve made a point of attending a summer writing workshop, saving my pennies and signing up for five-day sessions at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. But at the urging of the generous and lovely Nick Delbanco, I opted for Bear River this year — largely because the special guest was, as I’ve noted here, one of my favorite authors, Amy Hempel.
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June 5th, 2008
How can I tell, especially with temperatures still dipping into chilly-low places at night? Here’s how:
It’s the first Dirty Sheed of year, a summer tradition, a Zingerman’s concoction of espresso and Mexican vanilla syrup (sugar free, in my case) and half-and-half over ice. Like a cup of rich, melted coffee ice cream. Taken during our walk to Kerrytown last Saturday morning to the farmer’s market. Sipped from a prime people-watching bench from which we also spotted:
A couple with their hands full of doggies. And, out of the corner of our eyes, prompting an up-close ooh-ing and ahh-ing:
A riot of gorgeous bright orange poppies. Not a great photo, but you get the idea. Such a crazy, reckless kind of flower, no? All or nothing, putting themselves way out there. No wonder they don’t last long. It must be exhausting. Then, on the walk back home, with a sack full of fresh asparagus and overpriced home-grown lettuce, a few other oddities soaking up the sun:
Three random chairs catching some rays. (If this is a race, the one at the front has a considerable lead, it seems.) Also, this little fella:
I think we could all learn something here. This seems like an optimal position to avoid awkward tan lines. (I worried a little that this was actually the fallout from an unsuccessful attempt to fly, but I wanted to afford him some dignity and at least pretend that he totally meant to land there.)
May 28th, 2008
Roger Main, 1958. “Children, The Gorbals, Glasgow.”
On our trip to Glasgow earlier this month, I was seated on our Detroit-to-Amsterdam leg across the aisle from two Scottish women. Give a cheery smile to a Scots woman and you’ll likely wind up in conversation that covers everything but the kitchen sink, as I did with these two nice women — both of whom were from a small town outside Glasgow and had wound up in Fort Wayne, Ind. where they’d met through a mutual acquaintance. Our chatter about Glasgow included a mention of the Gorbals, the city’s infamous former slums internationally known for their poverty and violence , and one of them asked if I’d read the book “No Mean City.”
I hadn’t, but I largely forgot about our conversation until Chris and I visited the People’s Palace, a small museum covering Glasgow’s “social history.” Included in the compact museum were a few displays about life in Glasgow’s slums in the first half of the 20th Century and the book popped back into my mind. At the Glasgow airport, before we headed home, I happened upon a copy of “No Mean City” at a book shop and although I was pressed for room in my carry-on, I snapped it up.
The book, which I finished last night, was first published in 1935 and it tells the story of Johnnie Stark, a gang member in the Gorbals who gains his rise to fame as the Razor King, so called for his prowess with sharp weaponry. And it’s a terrible, terrible book. I mean, it’s a bad book — at least in terms of any literary merit. The plotting and pacing is wildly inconsistent, the language ricochets from nearly incomprehensible slang to overly flowery prose and the events are, at times, literally enough to make you laugh out loud.
(more…)
May 23rd, 2008
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