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Year: 2007

My House is Bird House

A few weeks ago, every time I went out the front door after dark, I heard a flutter of wings and could just catch the silhouette of a winged form as it disappeared into the trees.

The first few times, I thought it was a bat, but then I finally got a look at it, and instead of just seeing motion flitting into the night, I was able to recognize the motion as the flapping of bird wings. On another night, instead of charging out the front door, I peered at it through the blinds and saw a small sparrow house finch huddled against the porch light.

It’s gotten to where I glance out the window at him each night as if to say good night to this creature who has decided to make himself at home here. When I heard that it was going to get cold, I made sure there was seed in the feeder, which I hadn’t done in weeks, and each of these icy mornings, I’ve found myself relieved to see that he’s still there when I go out to get the paper.

There’s no nest construction going on, and it seems an unlikely spot for a nest anyway. I suspect it’s just a convenient way station between here and there, then and later, but it pleases me to know that that little bird finds our front porch to be a place of refuge, a home, however fleeting it may be.

Ice on the Trail

This morning I walked about the neighborhood, enjoying the icy world that’s descended on us for the past few days. There hasn’t been much precipitation, but how quiet and still everything seems when encased in ice.

On the trail, all I heard was the sound of my feet crunching through the sheet of ice that formed over the grass. Around me everything shimmered, grey and wonderful.

I walked off the trail into a sort of meadow that I’d never noticed before and found myself surrounded by trees that seemed more ominous than they do on a summer day.

But it’s the smaller things that really beg for attention, the way the ice surrounding a twig catches the grey sky.

Or the prickly pears with each spine covered in a crystalline sheath.

Being cold outside has become such a foreign sensation to me that it’s utterly thrilling, but the best part is, of course, coming home to a bowl of soup.

 

Snow Day

Yesterday was MLK day and today and tomorrow are snow/ice days for many people, me included. The last time we had one of these that shut things down to this degree was in February 1996. Two weeks later the mercury hit 100 and it didn’t rain again until August.

Today, though, was a good day of chili and reading and watching the sky fall.

This Never Happens Here

It’s melting a bit now, but will probably refreeze by nightfall.

Snow and ice are fleeting things here, they dust the world in white and then they’re gone. I suppose that’s why so many of us spend so much time just watching the snow drift lazily down or listening as the sleet hisses through the trees.

I’ll fix it in memory, hold onto this wintry interlude before it melts away like a dream barely remembered the next day.

Weekend Hound Blogging: Holding Down the Couch

This couch ain’t goin’ nowhere.

Let’s see, moving from left to right…

On Friday, Phoebe ate some CD jewel box. It seemed to be pretty tasty, but that meant I had to induce vomiting. The last time we played that game, I measured out her dose in tablespoons (while she talked of Michelangelo), which meant she had a chance to flee while I refilled. This time I loaded the full dose of H2O2 into a baster and got it all in at once. She immediately threw up her dinner along with the sharp pieces of plastic. She seems to have forgiven me.

Joey is now off his trancs. He’s doing fine and there have been no changes in his personality. He’s been sober for six days now.

Daphne is, as always, a good girl. She’s working on her sleeping and well on her way to perfecting the art of the nap.

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Want to make a fast friend by saving a greyhound in Central Texas? Check these pups out. Or go here to find a greyhound near you. You can also go here to find out why greyhounds are running for their lives.

If you have dogs who need proven leadership, go here to find a cat.

Old Photo Friday

It’s funny. I couldn’t find an old photo since some rearranging has made the Closet of Old Photos and Other Unfinished Projects more difficult to reach, but then sitting back at the desk, I saw this one framed and waiting right where it’s always been. I guess I just haven’t noticed it in a while.

It was taken in March of ’95 somewhere in northern Arizona. That’s me in the middle. The woman on the right is my wife, but not then. We were still just friends. The woman on the left is L. She introduced us, but I haven’t seen her in years. J took the picture.

That trip took us to New Mexico, the Grand Canyon, Vegas and finally to LA where I fell in love as the sun fell into the sea.

Friday Random Ten

A fun little mix. Two YLT tracks from the same album. One of them, “Paul is Dead” perhaps should have come after having a ball in “Gigantic.” (You can read that sentence however you like.)

  1. “Guyana Punch” – The Judys – Washarama
  2. “Wili (Part 2)” – Miles Davis – Dark Magus
  3. “Just” – Radiohead – The Bends
  4. “Blue Line Swinger” – Yo La Tengo – Electr-O-Pura
  5. “Paul is Dead” – Yo La Tengo – Electr-O-Pura
  6. “7 Minutes” – Circle Square – Queer As Folk: The Fourth Season Soundtrack
  7. “Gigantic” – Pixies – Death to the Pixies (Live)
  8. “Up ‘Gainst the Wall” – John Coltrane – Impressions
  9. “Blind Man, Blind Man” – Herbie Hancock – My Point of View
  10. “Xpander” – Sasha – Xpander EP

“Guyana Punch,” a snappy tune about Jim Jones (“Here come the airplanes, please form a straight line”) makes me wonder whatever became of Houston’s The Judys whose shows were some of my favorites to see live.

Fenced

Fenced out or fenced in? If I followed every barbed wire strand in Texas it would lead me to the moon and back and I’d still not have gotten any nearer to the other side.

Branching

Shooting outdoors without a wide angle lens forces me to look in less obvious places such as underneath low branches, places I have to work a bit to reach and then discover.

There are whole worlds underneath the things we never notice everyday. Cracks and rifts and canyons of broken wood known only to those who travel there, secret and undisturbed.