Crow's breakfast

The crows had a nice breakfast of quiche this morning. They have a way of chirping and whistling that I interpret as meaning something like, "Hey... lookie here now!" The closest I came in a quick search to finding anything resembling this delightful chatter is called Crow: 72K wav file. If you want to give it a listen, it's near the top of the page . It comes at the end of a recording. Anyway, this particular conversation tells me they've found something in the Bird Park that's especially tasty. They really liked the quiche with it's greasy pie crust. I put it out this morning and it hadn't frozen by the time they arrived, so pickin was easy. They gobbled it in about a half an hour even though they looked up and scaned the sky in between bites. Death from above. They're experts on it. By the time the magpies showed up only crumbs were left. Too bad. I really like the magpies too. I first heard about them in stories my mother read to me, and ever since carried the impression they were magical but I never saw a live magpie until I moved to Nevada. Funny. I'd never thought of magpies as a desert bird but there's plenty of them around here. They are lovely, striking in fact in those black and white feathers. Real lookers.

You might be thinking that feeding quiche to crows is vulgar, a tasteless act of insolent wealth. I assure you, it's merely a matter of circumstantial good fortune on both our parts, the birds and mine. A shake of the glass and we change places with people and birds that are eyeing one another as breakfast instead of sharing a quiche. The whole bare dirt area outside the window is my Bird Park. There are two feeders about 50 feet apart hanging from the fence filled with black sunflower seeds. These are for the mid-sized birds. Then I scatter the ground with a variety of seeds on the ground for the rest. The little show out there that revolves through the day is great, low key entertainment.

I have to lean forward over the key board and look out the window to the left to see the area where this morning's feast took place. I keep a pair of binoculars near by for these special occasions. They are a pain in the ass to use but it's worth the effort just to see a crow's wonderful claws up close as they clutch a catch. I swear some of these fellows have a spread that's nearly equal to the reach of my hand. Then there's the beaks themselves... long as a finger, pointed and accurate, good for pecking out anything from eyes to bits of hamburger bun caught in mustard smeared crinkles of abandon wrappers. I have to stand, lean over the printer which sits in front of the window then twist to the left to get in position for the binoculars to work. Then I have to tilt them up a bit so that the magnified image floats into view. You'd think these glasses were complete crap if you didn't know the technique. But I've seen plenty through them, rattlesnakes, wild horses, unsuspecting people picking their nose while waiting at a San Francisco traffic light.

The desert, at last. Home again. What a relief to get back to its strange miles and miles opening in the round, it's pyramid hills and indifferent voices.

Happy New Year!

We're currently stuck in Oregon waiting out the weather. Mr. Lee's in a funk because of the gloomy skies and we're both restless and eager to get back home. It's impossible to get enough computer time here. But what the hell? A couple of days ago some friends were stranded in the mountains and slept in their car for 2 days because of the snow so waiting for this latest series of storms to pass is not such a big deal. In fact, tonight life is good. It's the first, fresh hours of 2004. Earlier this evening we finally managed to access a neighborhood wireless network and the Sci-Fi channel is playing ancient black and white episodes of Twilight Zone in the background. They're hilarious. In one, a young William Shatner, playing a distraught husband just out of the mental hospital, tries to convince his wife there's a monster (a guy in a fuzzy monkey suit) on the airplane's wing. In another an old man cries out, "There's magic in the world. I know there is". What I especially savor about all this is that not a second has passed in geologic time. That comforts me.

Winter Solstice

In a few more moments the solstice will be exact. Woo-hoo. That means tomorrow there will be one second more light in the day. Other than that, there's a new entry in the Cockroach Diary. I'm leaving tomorrow for a week or two. It's just past 11pm and I still haven't packed. Instead I sit here fiddling on the computer. ARG! Back to work.

The Readable Theatre event on Saturday night at Comma Coffee went really well. The material ranged from the profound, to the nitty-gritty down and dirty, the silly, heartwarming and hilarious. People were asking when we were going to do it again. Poetry on a Saturday night. Ya gotta love that. I don't think I'll be able to put together another one before we leave in February so it will probably be spring at the earliest. Then I'd like to do a reading of another one act I'm working on called Sunday Feast . This one's a little more complicated than Ghostwriter but will still do well in a reader's theatre format.

I've added a new winner to the DeadBeat Gallery, renamed the page and moved it to a different folder. Sorry but the only constant in this world, after all, IS change. Anyway, here's the new address for The DeadBeat Gallery JPG Parisite Page. BTW, I just learned that this leech technique is called hotlinking. Now, his hotlink links to a butt shot. Thanks Lars.

Finally, I can see The Cat! Here's the stunning conclusion to the mystery of the missing Cat for everyone who helped me with the problem.

It's been about a month since I changed webhosts, and it took until yesterday for me to see The Cat. I must be the last person on Earth to see my website at its new location! The Cat was the special sign distinguishing the new site from the old. The problem had to be with my ISP, although they denied it to the very end. It's a wireless, broadband service and they claim they don't use proxy servers but they had to have a secret cache somewhere they weren't willing to clear. So, thanks again everyone for the help.

As for Wildhorse, I'm still getting a few hits from him, so it looks like he didn't completely clear the photo he's been leeching from me. Oh well.

Well, ol' WildHorse got wise to the swap so now, he's leeching off of someone else. It was fun while it lasted.

December 1st and still no Cat. That illustrates just how lazy I can be. However, in my defense, I've been busy. This week I've got to dump this DNS problem back on my ISP. They have got to have some hidden cache somewhere that's preventing me from seeing my website at it's new location.

December 1st and still no Cat. That illustrates just how lazy I can be. However, in my defense, I've been busy. This week I've got to dump this DNS problem back on my ISP. They have got to have some hidden cache somewhere that's preventing me from seeing my website at it's new location.

It's not a cache problem after all. I purged my computer and the network and still no cat. Damn. So now I have a call into my ISP. Fun. My webhost suggested that I change my ISP. Fat chance. We live on the edge as it is. There isn't much in the way of options. So now I'm waiting for Tech Support to get back to me.