20/07/2010

Stardate -312451.7040525113, Bird Park update


I have a terrible habit of rewriting posts after I publish them. I had to start this one just to pull myself off of the last. No wonder a novel takes years. And while I'm on the subject, thanks to those who responded to my mumblings about needing readers for my "manuscript" though, to be accurate, I was more thinking out loud than recruiting. I am not anywhere near letting other people read that gaggle of words, but I will keep your generous offers in mind should I ever manage to develop the thing past blobhood. I find it invaluable to hear my writing through different ears.

In other news, Mr. Lee saw Baby Q. and his parents yesterday. That's the little fellow who nearly drown about a week ago. I guess he can now fly now. Wonderful. There is a young quail couple in the park as I write this but I don't see a baby with them. I hope he's still okay. It's a treat having a family around as quail don't hang out in the Bird Park much during July. Seems this place is more their spring fling single's bar than nursery. A huge group mixes it up here then but disappear when things get serious. Too bad. Quail are the most fun to watch.


But, even without them, the Bird Park is plenty busy. There's the chummy pool party pigeon set, nimble melodious red wing blackbirds, shrewd daring starlings, tiny cute sparrows, hilariously cantankerous finches, sundry drop-ins and lots of swank skiddish magpie and a big family of noisy spindle-legged juvenile crows, plus mom and maybe dad, who are very cool in an edgy kind of way. The young ones hop and dash after their parents chortling and squawking for handouts and, when they get the brush, chase each other. Crows are smart and long-lived so I'm thinking the parents are probably card carrying members of the Park scene. Makes sense as they are unusually tolerant of me, sometimes simply hoping up on the fence when I come out. One fellow in particular greets me with a lot of sweet talk. It doesn't take much to get a treat and he knows it.

The biggest change is that Snooky, the scrawny blue-eyed Siamese who recently adopted our next door neighbor Dwayne, has claimed the lonely shade of the quail's abandoned lilac bushes bar as her own. She's not a punk like the two little gangstas who hunt here but try telling that to the birds. She chills the mood. Snooky appeared this spring after Clarance the Bastard (and I mean Bastard with the greatest affection) died in his arms. And Dwayne is dying so what should I do? Chase off his one bright light in a smoke gray twilight? Snooky is welcome.



Stardate calculator

16/07/2010

Thea Bell update

Baby Thea

I haven't posted many photos of Baby Thea and now, at 14 months, she suddenly is not a baby anymore, she's Thea Belle. This is all going way too fast if you ask me. Anyway, I thought I'd better do a little catch up because it's quite clear that keeping up with Thea Belle is a full time job. These photos are from a recent graduation party for two of her cousins and an uncle.

Thea Belle


gettin' down


in her little brown dress.


Good thing cousin Dillon


is now a lawyer.


A lady always


needs someone


to watch her back.

14/07/2010

Texas to Taxco

Here are a few photos from my recent trip to San Antonio.

Bunny Bob does Hard Rock Cafe.

Bunny Bob came with me to San Antonio but once there he dumped me for my friend Katie. He's no fool. Purple is her favorite color. She always wears, or at the very least, has purple at hand... plus she's a costumer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. With her he will have a steady supply of cool purple pants and a booth at the Oregon Country Fair. Actors. But I gave him my blessing because, in fact, Katie can give him a better life but I am going to get him the purple car. It's not that I'm trying to buy his love. No really.

What can I say? I love birds.


My kind of place.

Being vegetarian, I found the food in San Antonio atrocious. Actually it's a Texas thing. Anyway, their specialty, of course, is BBQ flesh followed closely by very greasy Mexican cuisine. The first night I had a supposedly grilled, but in fact drenched in oil, veggie casadilla. I gave most of it to the birds and poisoned myself with the greasy chips and yummy salsa instead. After that I lived on Subway sandwiches and Hard Rock Cafe veggie burgers and fries. Mmmmmm fries. Very bad. Anyway, the Animal Puppet Theater made up for all that. I spied it in a window below the sidewalk embedded in hand-chiseled stone wall along some metal stairs leading down to a very funky basement "souvenir" shop, the kind that seems a front for something else, perhaps the after hours voodoo market?

Now for three perfunctory Alamo art shots. You didn't think you'd get off that easy, did you?




And two perfunctory shots of San Antonio's River Walk.




Actually, the River Walk was really cool and, even better, it reminded me of Taxco, one of my all time favorite cities. If I ever run away from it all, Taxco is on my top three places to disappear into.

Taxco... my fantasy escape.

The dog on the top of the stairs is Martha, my friend from the restaurant.







13/07/2010

You can't edit a blank page


I need a reader. This spring I finally dug up and printed out my now four-year-old NaNoWriMo manuscript and am currently halfway through the first read. Other than being determined to make the required word count, having had no expectations from the start is a good thing. The fact that I can read it at all is encouraging but it's a slow go. Thus far, I have managed only two sessions, months apart. I am surprised to find that it amuses me. This morning one particular section had me laughing out loud. Why can't that be enough? I said from the beginning that there would be no plot but, now that the manuscript exists, it needs one. Why does this all have to be so goddamn complicated? I read the funny part to Mr. Lee this morning but he wants a story goddammit. I'll read it when it has one. He's not a first draft kind of guy. That fucker would red pen a suicide note.


So I am half way through the first read and won't inflict it on anyone at the moment, but I need a reader. Okay. Okay. So that reader will have the same response as Mr. Lee, but WTF?! I have assembled 50,000, 12 pt. words on 197 double spaced, one inch margin pages. What else do you want from me? Blood? I know. A plot. And there is one, buried throughout the manuscript, like a dismembered body. Yes. Yes. I must sew my Frankenstein together but what the hell? That's work. Anyway, somewhere along the line I am going to need a reader, not a teacher, a reader. Doesn't every writer get a reader? I need a sounding board, someone to complete the loop between the ears, self to self, heart to head, someone who can help piece together the map of the story, the one I wrote in invisible ink, tore into tiny pieces and ate. Anyway, it's too soon for a reader. Just thinking out loud.

12/07/2010

Harvey Pekar, RIP


Thanks for the memories. You're right. It matters anyway.


So... I dedicate today's inane Bird Park video to you. Baby crow had a good morning. In case you're wondering, the baby in this clip is the one flapping his wings and chasing after his mother with an open mouth. So whatever death is, I hope you had a good morning too.





11/07/2010

Oh Oh Os!

Awhile ago I did a post slagging Trader Joe's for wimping out and turning their Joe's Os breakfast cereal into a mealy nothing, like all the other breakfast cereals. In fact, they did not. This afternoon, Mr. Lee pointed out to me that I had mistakenly purchased the regular Os, the version made for ordinary people. You see, Joe's sells two versions of Os, regular and the red box Fiber Os with extra fiber, lots and lots of fiber, with so much fiber that eating a bowlful feels like you're eating a bale of hay. I begin to wonder if I'll ever get to the bottom of the bowl. I chew and chew and chew so long I forget I'm chewing, and when I do remember again, I'm only half done. In fact, Joe's Fiber Os are so chewy that I sometimes fear my teeth will be ground to nubs before I finish breakfast. If you made a paste out of Os you could scrub oil stains off the driveway or use it to sand barnacles off a boat. I am delighted knowing that the world has not completely given into the sissies. So, as amends to the venerable Os, I share with you this video by Keith Haskel. I don't know if this is viral marketing or what but I don't care. I think it's just him having fun but, either way, he speaks the truth of the red box.




09/07/2010

Saving Baby Q.


Remember those two quail families I wrote about the other day? There were some 15 babies between them. Well, all but one of the babies have disappeared. I don't blame the cats. They are following their nature but I am sad for the quail. They are innocent, really fun to watch and defenseless. I am, however, disgusted with our lazy, irresponsible neighbors. They could at least put bells on their little fat ass lions. WTF?


Anyway, Baby Q. is the only quail baby in the Bird Park right now and he had a near fatal accident the other day while walking on the edge of pool but, in the end, it turned out okay.



07/07/2010

Police report

“Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are gods.” -Unknown

Again with the cats. This morning I chased two lunkers out of the Bird Park where they were hunkered down in Old Man Hills, planning their next kill. I was surprised... a) by how fat they are and... b) their flash response to my growls. The bastards were up and over the fence in a flat two seconds. It was a magpie who alerted me to their presence. Seems they consider me the Bird Park police.

06/07/2010

Today's birthdays


Happy 103rd, Frida.
Source

Also, today is the
Dalai Lama's birthday.
He's 75.
Happy B-day, Dalai!