FIVE SECOND STORIES

 

2/13-RW is back! I thought I heard him last week off in the swamp to the East but couldn't confirm. This morning I was in East Lansing, fueling at Costco, when I heard his call. Driving away, I saw one perched on a small tree. Past couple of years, I noted, that first contact was in early March so the weird weather trend continues.

The stampies are up. I've seen their idiosyncratic, golf ball-sized dig marks for the past couple of weeks but no sightings. In the past couple of days, I have caught their scent while driving around town. With all the cannabis being smoked in cars these days 🙀, it's hard to distinguish sometimes. Skunk scent, I find, has a deeper finishing tone. 

Yesterday at the Diner:

Mr. Redbird looking quite flashy in the afternoon sun

Stubbs and Freddie hung out feeding for some time-I was lucky enough to catch them in the same pose, pointing in the same direction!

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2/19-20: Lovely sunny weather, near 50°. Buddy, on duty, basked on the front porch, out of the wind:

Glorious sundown on the 19th.

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2/21-61°, sunny and the crocus are blooming!

Last year, they started blooming on 2/18, in 2021, it was around the traditional time here-around St. Patty's Day in mid-March. Two years in a row in mid-late February—is this the beginning of a trend?

 

It feels like early Spring. All the snow is gone except for parking lot piles that lie in the shade. Buddy is enjoying the more temperate temperatures and stays out for several hours at a time especially in the afternoon.

His Lordship returns from patrol. It's suppertime and we're gathering by the hearth.

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 Seen while out and about:

That's right, you can be super happy getting your mouth minty fresh with some Bob Ross merch! I was curious to see how much junk his estate and business partners were hawking and found that Amazon had pages and pages of the stuff. No collection would be complete without this gem:

Autograph model no less!

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C was reading Bart Ehrman's Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife. Her interesting takeaway was that the level of collective trauma inflicted on a tribe will determine their view of the afterlife.

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The Dabous Giraffe.

 

In the heart of the Sahara lies the Tenere Desert in the nation of Niger. On a sandstone outcrop, the largest known animal petroglyph is carved depicting two giraffes, most likely a male and a female. It is 20 feet in height and is not the only carving. From Wiki:

In the surroundings, 828 images have been found engraved on the rocks, of which 704 are animals (cattle, giraffes, ostriches, antelopes, lions, rhinoceros, and camels), 61 are human, and 17 are inscriptions in the Tifinagh language.  The carvings are believed to have been done between 6,000 and 8,000 years ago, during the African humid period, when the region was less arid, and the Sahara was a vast savannah. 

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I watched Amelie for the first time in quite a while—I had forgotten most of it. I'd recommend it as a pleasant, hopeful tonic to what we are experiencing these days.

A favorite scene: Amelie enters the subway and as she goes down the steps, she hears the old song "If You Weren't There" sung by Fréhel sounding to many like Edith Piaf. She discovers that the music comes from an old blind man sitting on a bench with a record player on his lap. The curved ceiling of the subway creates a nice dimension to the sound, like that in a dance hall. I thought: the man had his sight then and saw her sing many times. He plays it for change and a daily reminder of one of the most sublime moments of his life. 

Amelie puts a few coins in his cup and looking up, she sees for the first time, her beloved only a few steps away.

"How could I live, if you weren't there".

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Stock footage

I've really noticed an increase of bad driving on I-496 in recent months. I remembered a PSA from my childhood warning about "the migratory weaver bird" which I found amusing. I have not been able to find it anywhere on YT and evidently, a similar ad existed in Britain during the same time period.Their version (and maybe ours as well) had a little ditty: the weaver bird has little brain, it weaves about from lane to lane...

What is depicted above is a common occurrence: you're in the right lane and some bastard roars up on the left to pass in front of you to take the fucking exit. It seems that to slow down a bit in the right lane behind me in order to exit is emasculating for these people. Add in immaturity, thrill-seeking and a belief of personal immortality—don't I sound like an old boy? At least  I'm not yelling at clouds...yet.