Sweet Birdie

Sweet Birdie

Comments 0 Comment

Our blue parakeet, Alfie, died last night. He was seven years old and a most splendiferous fellow. He had been ailing for a few weeks, but until recently was as spry as a teenager, clambering around the cage, hanging upside down to nibble on a collard leaf, singing his heart out. 

Alfie taught his young cage mate, Toby, everything he knew, and Toby reciprocated by preening his old friend and literally propping him up at the end. A model of devotion, which I’ve seen enough of in the animal world to know is the norm rather than the exception. 

In most ways I envy birds — their plumage, their songs and their flight — but in one way I don’t. They can never lie down. They must fly or stand until the end.

Alfie’s end came last night. Rest in peace, sweet birdie. 

Jollity

Jollity

Comments 0 Comment

Last night under the stars, a glimpse of the planets:  At Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts, the National Symphony Orchestra performed Gustav Holst’s “The Planets,” accompanied by NASA photographs, with my favorite movement, “Jupiter: the Bringer of Jollity,” scoring the most applause. 

Jollity is defined as “the quality of being cheerful.” Can a planet be cheerful? Perhaps if it’s named after the king of the gods. Or if it’s a gas giant more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. 

One reason not to be jolly: what looks in photos to be a big red eye. It’s not the result of excessive interplanetary partying, but a centuries-old storm bigger than Earth.

And speaking of Earth, the only planet Holst omitted from his piece, today at 7:15 a.m. EST is the one moment of the year when most of its people are bathed in sunlight — an incredible 99 percent of us. A reason for jollity, to be sure. 

(Photo: Courtesy NASA)

Weed Me!

Weed Me!

Comments 0 Comment

Here in the suburbs, lawns matter. They’re to be green and weed-free, though many of them are not, ours included. 

Driveways, on the other hand, should be as smooth and polished as ebony, well poured and thoroughly sealed. They should not require weeding at all, as this one (full disclosure, mine) so plainly does. 

To which I can only say, as I have for so many other suburban transgressions … oops!

This Time With Music

This Time With Music

Comments 0 Comment

This should have been yesterday’s post. But yesterday I hadn’t yet watched a televised recording of what I witnessed in person the evening before, albeit from a distance.

It’s been our habit lately to watch the 4th of July fireworks on D.C.’s mall — the same ones that appear in living rooms across the land — from a ridge in Arlington, across the Potomac. While this provides a hassle-free and far-off glimpse at the gorgeous display, it doesn’t supply a soundtrack. 

I got that yesterday, when I took in the replay of what I watched live Tuesday night. This time there were no toddlers jumping on and off my lap, but there was Renee Fleming singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and the National Symphony playing “1812 Overture.” 

It was fireworks with music. It was what I’d been missing.

What We Saw in It

What We Saw in It

Comments 0 Comment

One of the tall old trees we lost last year was a prime display tree, the perfect reflector for the fading light of sunset. During numerous deck dinners through the years, our oldest daughter would stop the conversation, point to this particular oak, and say “look at the light on that tree.”

Its cousins might have been dark and nondescript at this point in the early evening, but this tree’s spot in the yard was perfectly calibrated for late-day light; it looked as if it was lit up from within. 

The play of light on its trunk is one of the lingering losses from that oaks’ felling last September. More than the tree itself, I miss what we saw in it. Aren’t many losses like that?

The Lady Vanishes?

The Lady Vanishes?

Comments 0 Comment

When I was in New York last month I snapped a photo of Lady Liberty from the High Line. The sky was hazy (though not smoke-filled), and you could barely make out the statue’s distinctive profile. (Zoom in and look to the right of the gray girder to see the vague form hoisting her torch.)

As I thought about what to say this morning, I remembered snapping this shot, thought it might have a certain metaphorical significance: the lady vanishes, the statue so far away that it’s almost not there at all. 

Don’t we feel that way sometimes about our country, about its ideas and ideals, that we’ve forgotten what unites us in our fights over what divides us? 

The trick, I think, is to do what we can as citizens to keep alive its founding principles: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Tolerance, too. 

Flicker Sighting

Flicker Sighting

Comments 0 Comment

Over the weekend, I caught a glimpse of this fellow, a Northern Flicker. 

It was an ordinary Sunday morning on the deck — breakfast and newspaper — and I’d been keeping my eye on a couple of robins who were pecking around in the backyard. There were some doves back there, too, and downy woodpeckers at the feeder.

A sudden flap of wings and there he was: extravagant, debonair. I didn’t know what he was at first, only that I’d never seen him before. I marveled at his polka-dotted breast, his crescent-shaped black bib, his long beak and intelligent eyes, which for several long seconds seemed to be looking straight at me. 

After he flew away, I flew inside … to find the bird book and identify him. It didn’t take long. He could have posed for this photo, although he did not. His stay was brief — but post-worthy.

(Photo: Courtesy Cornell Lab: All About Birds.)

Making Connections

Making Connections

Comments 0 Comment

I learned yesterday that federal infrastructure grant money isn’t just going to roads and bridges. Some of it, admittedly a small bit of it, is going to trails. 

The D.C. area will get $25 million to improve pedestrian and bike connections throughout the area, part of what is hoped will be 900 miles worth of local trails throughout the District and five counties of the DMV.

While some of the money will be spent sprucing up paths that are already there, other parts will be used to provide connections between trails. That’s the part that interests me. People love to walk or bike, to move through space on their own steam. But they also like, in fact they need, to get somewhere, to commute to work, for instance. 

I know from my own explorations this winter how exciting it is to find passages between trails, to know that your wanderings can take you somewhere. And I’m glad that the humble little trail systems of our country are getting at least a small part of their due.

Summer and Smoke

Summer and Smoke

Comments 0 Comment

For me and for many, summer is a recharging season. A lot of the recharging occurs outdoors. Whether it’s walking the trails, writing on the deck, or dining al fresco, summertime is outside time.

But not this summer. This summer I check my phone first. This morning the air quality index is 153, Code Red. So I’ll write from my office and exercise in the basement. There are plenty of indoor projects — cleaning up decades worth of clutter, for starters. 

I won’t be idle. But I won’t be happy. 

And yet … it’s the way many of the world’s people live everyday, without the privilege of working at (and inside) the home. Missing summer is the least of their concerns. I’ll keep them in mind today.

(Summer in the city, where there was no smoke last week. A tip of the hat to Tennessee Williams for the post title.)

First Storm

First Storm

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday I was writing outside on the deck, as I often do these days, when I realized how dark it had become, darker than twilight. 

I wanted to stay outside while the storm was brewing, but began preliminary shutdown so I could run in at the first drops, a caution imposed on me by the (ahem) delicate nature of the electronics in my care. I covered the wooden rocking chair, tucked away the seat cushions, and moved books and phone inside.

Not long afterward, the wind picked up in earnest and I skedaddled completely inside, up to my second-floor office where I snapped this shot. 

Oh, what a storm it was! Rain blowing down the street, like so many curtains swishing. Fat drops pelting the garden, which needs moisture so desperately. Even some hail thrown in for good measure. 

It was my first big storm of the season … and it did not disappoint.