Raucous

This summer two crows have taken up residence in the small pine woods next to our house. Every morning in the predawn and dawn hours they proceed to organize the neighborhood for the day. Crows have 23 distinct calls, and strident variants of these calls shatter the morning silence.

Fortunately, corvids (ravens, crows, magpies and jays) are definitely my favorite birds. I can handle the morning cacophony.

Corvids are highly intelligent birds - no "bird brains" among them. A raven, for example, is half the size of a chicken but with a brain five times bigger.

Years ago, I observed a terrific con game pulled off by a pair of crows. Our neighbor's dog was fed chunks of liverwurst in his outdoor dog dish. One day crow number one flew right over the dog and then took off on a low flight path down the alley. Of course, the dog rocketed after it. That's when crow number two neatly scooped up the sausage chunk in his beak and retreated to the top of our gigantic willow tree. Crows share food, so crow number one soon joined in on the feast.

Ornithology books abound in observations of clever corvid behaviors. Ravens drop clams and walnuts on highways and let the cars crack the shells for them. Northern crows haul up the fishing line at ice holes when people aren't watching. A bird pulls some line up with its bill, steps firmly on the line and keeps pulling until the fish comes up. And, at one memorable Easter egg hunt in Alaska, the ravens made off with over 1,000 hidden colored eggs before the kids arrived.

Raven looms large in all Pacific Northwest Indian mythology. He is the creator, but also a powerful trickster. When the sun was stolen from the sky by an evil magician, raven is credited with returning it to its proper place. Perhaps that is why my neighborhood crows are so talkative in the morning. They are just welcoming back the sun they so generously returned to the heavens.

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Wine

One of the greatest openings of any book I've ever read is from Glitz by Elmore Leonard.

"The night Vincent was shot he saw it coming. The guy approached out of the streetlight on the corner of Meridian and Sixteenth, South Beach, and reached Vincent as he was walking from his car to his apartment building. It was early, a few minutes past nine.

Vincent turned his head to look at the guy and there was a moment when he could have taken him and did consider it, hit the guy as hard as he could. But Vincent was carrying a sack of groceries. He wasn't going to drop a half gallon of Gallo Hearty Burgundy, a bottle of prune juice and a jar of Ragú spaghetti sauce on the sidewalk. Not even when the guy showed his gun..."

These lines pretty well sum up my feelings toward wine. Dinner isn't complete without a glass of wine, but Gallo red is just fine. I'm a wine lover not an oenophile.

If given a taste test, I would only reject wines like Boone's Farm and Mogen David. Wine should absolutely not be a stand-in for NyQuil cough syrup, nor should it taste like some solvent in my art room.

This concise discussion of wine leaves time for the topic of wine glasses. We drink our daily wine out of slightly upscale juice glasses. Why? Because one memorable night our 26 pound cat, Gato, jumped up on the dinner table knocking a stemmed glass full of red wine over on to the back of his brother below. Alarmed, cat 2 proceeded to run all over the house shaking red wine everywhere. I donated all my wine stems to Goodwill the next day.

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Slowathon

Is the opposite of a marathon a slowathon? If so, sign me up.

I don't understand triathlons, weight lifting, channel swimming, mountain scaling or the Tour de France. The only yellow jersey I will ever wear will be one of cowardice. I have no desire to beat my body to a pulp to achieve an adrenaline induced state of nirvana. I'm saving my adrenaline for dangerous situations that come uninvited.

When I first heard the term "sports medicine" I thought someone was joking. My second grade health book told me the purpose of sports was to build a "healthy body and mind". Now a billion dollar a year sports medicine industry exists to repair torn ligaments, ripped muscles and ravaged joints.

When asked why he climbed Mt. Everest, a famous mountain climber stated, "Because it is there."

My problem is I know the mountain will be there whether I climb it or not. Nor will I be more "there" if I climb it. What I might very possibly be, however, is injured, maimed or dead, no jolly outcomes from my vantage point.

This kind of thinking is not going to make me rich or famous, America's most prized cultural values. But I will have plenty of time for long strolls on the beach. That's my idea of a splendid slowathon.

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Wagons

I don't know if any of you have noticed, but a significant number of the sparkling new cars on the road now are reincarnations of station wagons. Of course, no one is calling these vehicles station wagons. That would be way too old-fashioned. They are called crossovers, which sounds vaguely transgender.

I, however, recognize a station wagon when I see one. In our family history of vehicle ownership, we owned one, our beloved, mud brown Ford Torino wagon.

Nobody pretended our Torino was glamorous. We bought it because we had two kids, one who always got carsick, and we all loved to travel. Bear in mind, this was in an era when seat belts hadn't been invented. Our road sick passenger could take a dramamine and stretch out on a mattress in the back. Her sibling could share the "way back" or have an entire back seat to himself. Our kids became great travelers (still are), and we enjoyed being with them.

We got our station wagon in the 1970s - just about the same time our American schools threw out all the geography books. Kids were apparently supposed to learn the globe by osmosis. My daughter told me many years later that she had a working knowledge of geography, unlike many of her peers, only because we "went places".

Many happy trips and our Wisconsin winters took their toll on our faithful brown wagon. Specifically, our back tailgate totally rusted out. We certainly didn't want our children to roll out somewhere in the Plains States.

My father-in-law, an auto body man who lived in Tucson, came to the rescue. One day the kids and I drove to the local truck terminal to pick up a big crate. Our almost new, rust-free Arizona tailgate had arrived... and it was bright red.

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Frontyard

Our frontyard is a 70 foot bluff. Before having my current frontyard, I thought geological change proceeded at a snail's pace. I was wrong.

When we moved here, my husband built a sturdy 70 foot long set of stairs to get us from the top of the bluff to the beach. One day he walked into the kitchen and asked me to define "rubble". Before I could answer, he led me to the frontyard. The seventy feet of stairs were gone, either buried or contorted like a modernistic sculpture. A giant section of the cliff had let go during the night; the stairs were history. My husband applied advanced engineering techniques on stairs number two.

Various cliff-dwelling neighbors try ingenious schemes to shore up the bluffs. We, however, think it's futile to turn our frontyard into a graveyard of sidewalk slabs and demolition rubble. We prefer the natural rubble of mudslides. It's just a fact of geology that nature whittles down the high points. Mountains do become valleys. Our egos get whittled down, too, if we refuse to recognize this scientific principle.

Some years our cliff will be almost nude, brown sand with crater-like pits and vertical gullies. Other years it will be lush green and home to large swaths of wildflowers. The best year occurred when my husband dumped a wheelbarrow of seeds he had raked up from under our bird-feeders over the edge. By August we had a parade of sunflowers cheerfully marching down the bluff to the beach.

Poplar trees brave the volatility of the cliff. We learned their survival secret after our first major landslide. A 50 foot tall poplar simply slid 25 feet down the cliff. We were certain it was doomed. Not only did it send down its roots again, it has spawned a grove of baby poplars. If only we could go with the flow this easily.

But, to me, our most amazing cliff dwellers are the swallows. Hundreds of these swift little birds dig holes in the top of the cliff for their nests. What a marvelous act of faith.

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Dodos

(This blog is dedicated to Judith, Nick Nick and Tin Tin)

I recently came across a small story I wrote for children many years ago. Here it is in its entirety.

This is a little story about two dodos, Lulu and Mimi, who lived in New York, New York. Lulu liked to dance the cha cha with her pom poms. Mimi would can can in her pink tutu for hours. Both Lulu and Mimi liked to yo-yo in time to tom-tom music. When the dodos weren't dancing or yo-yoing, they would eat their favorite foods, bonbons and pawpaws. But all good things must end.

One day Lulu waved bye bye and boarded a choo choo for Baden Baden, Germany. The next day Mimi took a choo choo bound for Pago Pago, Samoa. These trips were two big boo-boos. Everybody knows you can't take trains to Baden Baden and Pago Pago... you have to take boats. What dodos!

No one has seen Lulu or Mimi since. The end.

Rumor has it that Lulu has turned up in Walla Walla, Washington where she is now a go go dancer (a go go dodo). She dines on mahi-mahi.

Mimi, ever the artist, has been spotted in Lapu-Lapu in the Philippines where she is doing art in the Dada style. She listens to Lang Lang in her spare time and drives a Nano from Tata Motors.

If you hear news of these irrepressible dodos or their friends, send emails or postings chop chop.

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Locavores

One of the newest words in the Merriam Webster Dictionary is "locavore". The word is defined as a person who only eats locally sourced food.

As lovely as this concept may be, I will never achieve locavore status. Those of you who know me realize that I can't grow grass, let alone something as agriculturally challenging as a tomato.

If I ever did succeed in getting a foodstuff to sprout, I'm sure our animal friends in the Tooley Cafe, locavores all, would view the garden as a delightful annex to the Cafe.

Since gardening is ruled out, I would have to resort to gathering. This course is also problematic.

For example, we have a local cheese factory and creamery fifteen miles northwest of our house. It features 100 Wisconsin cheeses, butter made on the premises and 50 cent ice cream cones (in case you need a cholesterol fix before you get the cheese and butter home). Unfortunately, the store that supplies our house with toilet paper, laundry soap and cat food is fifteen miles in the opposite direction.

It gets worse. Our local farmers' markets are 15 miles away at other compass points, and their hours of operation coincide perfectly with my work hours.

At this point you might be viewing me as the perfect subscriber to a weekly produce delivery (aka "a surprise box") from a local farm.

Alas, I'm not that noble! The thought of coming home from work to an overflowing crate of turnips and kohlrabies or 75 zucchinis is completely unbearable. I foresee no "Animal, Vegetable, Miracles" for me.

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P.O.

I have the perfect post office. Being a person who loves mail, this is a fortunate circumstance.

My post office is the size of a stamp. Not many of us postal patrons can fit in the lobby at one time; fortunately, there aren't many people in Cleveland, WI 53015, and we just don't choose to go to the post office all at the same time.

I'm sure the average New Yorker, or any big city dweller, would give a week's wages to have a post office like mine. Even at Christmas, we never have to wait in long lines. Granted, we might encounter a neighbor or two, but standing forever in a queue of grumpy strangers just doesn't happen here. The situation is akin to having your own personal post office.

One glitch did present itself when we first moved up here. I ran over to the post office around noon to mail a letter and found the doors locked. The postmaster had gone home for lunch. The postmaster goes home for lunch every day, a real anachronism in today's America. I might apply for this job.

Naturally, blessings like an incredible post office don't come without responsibilities. Little P.Os live or die based on the volume of mail they process. You will be getting snail mail from me frequently. I must do my part and keep the mail flowing at 53015. Hundreds and hundreds of Valentine, Easter, Halloween, Christmas and birthday cards are among my outgoing contributions. My twenty-three magazine subscriptions insure the incoming flow.

I can only think of one feature my post office lacks. (Anyone who has read Rita Mae Brown's charming mysteries, ghost written by her brown tabby cat, Mrs. Murphy, will know what's coming.) My post office doesn't have a resident cat or dog.

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Roadtrip

I was coming home from work last week, driving through Green Bay, when a van pulled in front of me. The back window of the van was covered with a film of dirt. Written in the dirt was the following message:

HELP!
2000 miles, 2 kids, sleeping wife.
Its true!

The plates on the van were from Washington state.

I'm sure that many of us have taken road trips that could have benefited from similar, large infusions of humor.

One of my more memorable trips started out calmly. I had just finished school in June, summer days lay ahead, and my husband and I were setting off on a road trip to NY City to visit our daughter and her husband.

I was happily driving through Pennsylvania, relaxed and carefree. My husband was napping. Then, as I paid another toll on the Pennsylvania turnpike, a small voice whispered in my head, "There are no tolls on the road to New York City." I pulled over at the next rest stop, woke up my husband and announced that I had made a rather major navigational error. Apparently I thought I could get to NYC on automatic pilot. I was actually well on the way to Washington D.C.

Moments like these can be the beginning of the end to a marriage. But my husband had the best possible response - he started laughing. Soon we were both laughing so hard we could hardly read the road map. The map revealed I had gone 130 miles on the wrong road. To get back north again the route went through Hershey, Pennsylvania. Who can't be happy in a town that smells of chocolate and has street lights shaped like Hershey Kisses? We even hit the Holland Tunnel by 6:30 that night.

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Diet

It's not easy sleeping with a 26 pound cat. The space Gato takes up in our bed is exponential.

Why do we share our bed with this feline behemoth, when we have an array of less obese cats to choose from?

The answer lies in Gato's new diet. Gato is one miserable cat. The least we can do is let him enjoy his favorite space, our bed.

His troubles began a few weeks ago when our vet gave Gato an ultimatum. Note, I did not say the vet gave us the ultimatum. The vet and we have been working hard for years to control this cat's diet... to no avail. So Gato was told directly - lose pounds or be diabetic.

"You're going to be eating in your own private room", the vet told Gato, "and you'll get one can of fat-be-gone cat food per day. Don't plan on helping yourself to your friends' food dishes, either, because there will be no more open dish feeding at your house."

The trip back from the vets was uncharacteristically quiet. Gato got home and threw himself on the bed.

At this point I cannot report any dramatic diminishment of Gato's girth. I can say though that we are having a bit of difficulty watching Netflix on our tiny PC after turning in for the night. Gato is slightly larger than the dimensions of the screen.

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Chickens

The hot item on President Bush's European trip last week was the chicken washing issue. The European Union is in a flap about our method of washing chickens (dead ones, I presume) in chemicals. This news item instantly brought back happy memories for me.

One of my favorite jobs was being the "Children's Programmer" for a library. I got to create or choose all the programs for the kids. Without a doubt, the best and most popular program I ever dreamed up was the chicken washing program.

At that time my friend, Donna, was the poultry Superintendent for the Wisconsin State Fair. She was on a one woman crusade to educate urban children that the fair was more than the midway and endless junk food.

One day Donna was telling me how the 4H kids get their chickens ready for the prize judging, when, presto, an idea clicked in my brain. Why not invite the 4H kids to the library to do a summer program on how they groomed their animals for the fair?

I might note that for space reasons we did all our library programs in the City Hall basement. The looks on the aldermen's faces were priceless when the chickens began arriving at city hall with their proud owners, water buckets, shampoo and blow driers.

The 4H kids were true pros at chicken wrangling. Our kids were mightily impressed with the knowledge and poise of their country counterparts. A few of our city kids even realized that there were interesting worlds they knew nothing about. And, we got through the entire afternoon with no wayward chickens ending up in the Council Chamber... at least, none of the avian variety.

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Patience

Patience was on sale the other day at my Goodwill Store. This "patience" consisted of 4 inch tall wooden letters P.A.T.I.E.N.C.E mounted upright on a wooden board. Apparently someone had given up on patience.

I'm not surprised. The virtues in America have been shifting around. When I was a kid, patience was a virtue and greed wasn't. Now greed is the virtue (as in "be patriotic, go shopping") and patience is relegated to thrift stores.

I am old fashioned enough to think that patience is still worthwhile. And I'm also introspective enough to know when I have it and when I don't.

My patience is endless for listening to my very elderly friends in nursing homes repeat the same stories scores of times. An interesting phenomenon happens when you hear a story many times... in a way it becomes yours, too.

So I can tell you about Mrs. B's amazing barn cat who actually dipped its paw into the bowl of mushed up bread and milk and daintily ate with its paw - just like a person.

Unfortunately, my patience checks out instantly when I see a recipe with more than 8 ingredients. I do love to cook, but I'm the queen of quick in the kitchen. I am delighted, however, that other people actually have the forbearance to make the recipes in Gourmet Magazine. I promise endless praise and appreciation to anyone who invites me to dine on the results of these intricate recipes.

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Youall

Try as they might, the likes of Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Starbucks have not succeeded in obliterating all the regional differences in the United States. Even though every town in America has its predictable landscape of chain stores, observant travelers can still find many things that don't remind them of home.

Hot dog buns come to mind. Every Midwesterner knows that hot dog buns are split on the side. Imagine my surprise when I bought a package of hot dog buns in a New England grocery and discovered they all looked like little canoes. Time spent in the region revealed the brilliance of the top split bun. It can be stuffed with lobster salad, shrimp salad or clams and the aforementioned will not fall out onto your lap. I would love to see this regional product go national.

The South has a reputation for relishing its regionalism. They love their eccentrics, mint juleps, bourbon and regional authors.

I love the South, but do have a problem when I visit. After placing my order in a Southern restaurant, I had a waitress look at me and say, "Honey, I didn't understand a word you just said." Everything down South moves a bit more slowly, including the words.

Regional differences in the West are most apparent in traffic issues. Want to make yourself the instant center of attention? Just venture off the curb at any unsignaled pedestrian crossing out West. I had no idea I could bring all traffic to a screeching halt by merely putting a toe in a crosswalk. Where I'm from, this courtesy is unheard of. Just yesterday I was trying to cross a busy street without traffic lights. Scores of cars just whizzed by me. I dashed for my life when there was a break in the traffic. It's a predator-prey type relationship here.

I, however, become the menace when I drive out West where the stoplights are on the FAR side of the intersection, not on the corner where you actually stop the car. We midwesterners might be a tad tough on pedestrians, but we don't put stoplights where you aren't supposed to stop.

And could someone tell me why California freeways are always referred to with the article 'the' as in, "You take the 8 to get to the 5"? I can unequivocally tell you that I do not live just off the 43. I do know my place.

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Fads

Fads are like a rash. First only a few spots appear, but soon they are everywhere. I confess to trying to spot these trends before they are epidemic.

Take the pillow people for example. There is a decided fad among young people to bring their bedroom pillows to the airport. These pillows may not be relegated to duffel bags. They must be conspicuously displayed such as clutched under the arm the way young children cling to their teddy bears.

I was sitting next to a pillow person on a recent long flight. The young lady placed the pillow vertically over her chest & lap and clutched her arms around it for the entire flight thus doing a great impersonation of a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy. I'm clueless as to why a bed pillow has such cachet.

I read about the absolute latest wedding fad in an unimpeachable source, an airline magazine. You've no doubt heard of the craze for destination weddings. But now there's a new twist. After the lovely poolside ceremony, the bride immediately jumps into the pool. Soon the whole expensively clad wedding party is in there with her. An alternative is for the bride to do an ocean swim the next day... also in her wedding gown. America has been called a nation of teenagers, and this behavior seems to be supporting evidence.

The swimming in your wedding dress fad was probably started by the bridal industry to nip the burgeoning market in used wedding gowns.

Food and beverage fads are omnipresent, and I only need to consult my daughter for the latest trends here. She says that mojitos are really hot now.

A computer search enlightened me on the mojito's makeup - muddled mint, limes, sugar, rum and club soda. Since I don't own a muddler, I won't be indulging anytime soon. However, I suspect that more than one of those water soaked brides had a few mojitos before their vows.

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Barista

The best thing about my husband's retirement is the coffee. Although most kitchen functions still remain inscrutable mysteries to him, he has become a fantastic barista.

Before retirement, he would frequently stop on the drive home from work for a latte or espresso. His critiques would go something like - too much milk, too bitter, over-roasted beans.

My husband saw retirement as an opportunity for learning how to make the perfect cup of coffee. Being a minimalist, he only invested in a $29.99 Mr. Coffee espresso maker. "You are only getting an eagle for the extra $200." He believes that skill and quality beans make good coffee, not big buck equipment.

After much grinding, steaming, frothing and taste testing, a perfect cup of coffee has emerged. And every morning he gets up and produces this masterpiece for me to take on my morning commute. Lucky me!

Except one morning last month, when tragedy did strike. As I was pulling out of our driveway, I saw in the rear view mirror my coffee mug sailing down the road behind me spewing coffee. You guessed it - I put the precious brew on the roof of my car as I loaded my school gear and then took off.

No coffee that morning; I couldn't lower myself to Starbucks.

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