Little darlings

What the hell is all that noise?

Now, don't get me wrong... I love the birds. In many cases, more than humans. Birds have it made. They've discovered a life of true bliss: If you're a bird, you can hang out all day, poop where you stand, and if things get dull, you can, like, fly around and stuff. And if you happen to be a raptor, you can fly around like a ROCKSTAR and terrorize the little guys once in a while. "Doing donuts" in the neighbor's airspace like a ruffian biker. Zoom down to the ground, pluck a mouse out of the grass, and give the little bastard a lesson in Natural Selection.

It is absolutely THE LIFE.

But for the past few days, there has been a riot of activity in the two trees above our back yard, particularly in the mornings. Gomez is noticing it as well, and it's hilarious: He will run out, do his "biological imperatives" and then sit quietly, staring up at the colossal oak tree and furrow his brow thoughtfully.

What the hell is all that noise?

It sounds like an orchestra of shortwave radios all scanning different frequencies; a bubbling, tweaking, rage of static as if each leaf in those trees is receiving police-band signals from the third moon of Jupiter.....

Those are all birds? Must be thirty million of 'em.

So I finally sat with the dog, studying the trees. And we discovered that it's not just "birds", it's the starlings. And it's not just starlings, but the starlings' children.

They've all got identical little ones; almost full-size, ash-gray, and screaming their hunger into the void, while pop (or is it mom in the starling family?) runs around frantically, looking for food. Or a toy, or a comic book, or that Elmo DVD...something to keep Junior quiet.

So as a public service, I felt I should pass on this great discovery. It would seem that every starling in the world had a kid on the same day, and they're all freaking out simultaneously. Gomez remains fascinated. Someday, those gray downy screamers will all leave home for college and the starling parents will wonder if they've done the right thing... and is it too soon to rent out Junior's room?

Talk about "empty nester" syndrome.

Spring has Springded

Springtime in DC is a mixed bag. Weather-wise, I mean.

I remember several years of childhood in this city when "nature" mercilessly flipped from winter to summer in one heaving step. And I was left gasping in the rancid hellhole of a pollen-infused, mid-Atlantic sauna. Sneezing and sweating: not a hip combination. Unbelievable as it may seem, I was NOT a suave young chap.

But this year, Mother is giving us a break. After a mild winter, we're being treated to a mild spring. She's taking it easy on us this time. Hakuna matata. No worries, mate. Irie...


Thus the stage was set: A group of like-minded bloggers gathered in a pastoral back yard in northern Virginia to indulge in a little pagan revelry: Pole-dancing, Beltane-style. Mayday. 'Tis the season, baby: the green loins are fertile and there's dancing to be done. To quote the great prophet Silver Convention:

Get up and boogie...

M and I hadn't danced a maypole since Tucson, years ago. We were still courting then, and the Tucson Area Wiccan/Pagan Network (TAWN) held public rituals for each of the Sabbats. And, uh, an ancient communal fertility ceremony seemed like a fine "date" idea for a new couple, yeh?

One marvelous result of that ritual were the human connections: Through the officiating Priestess (a lovely creature in her own right), we met a pair of Druids that would become close friends and would later officiate our own wedding/handfasting. So I guess it WAS a fertility rite after all.


More than a decade later, here we are at a maypole again with a new set of friends this time: A ragtag bunch of bloggers from near and very far, weaving the pole like happy fools in the comfort of a mid-atlantic spring. A REAL spring, for once. Thanks, mom.

weeding is fundamental

Holy organic crap, batman, when did this happen?

The 'mingoes in the flowerbed mysteriously know when spring has arrived. Some kind of natural psychic sense...or something equally mysterious.

the Cherry Blossom King

Just a pause in the action to acknowledge the arrival of Spring in the District... Not that winter was particularly bad, because it wasn't, but here it is.

The cherry blossoms cause some kind of primal stir in The People, and they gather. They come stumbling out of their homes where they've been hiding all winter, blinking in the sunlight, flocking towards the cherry blossoms as if driven by some Collective Unconscious beacon.

...or maybe it's this guy (above): the Cherry Blossom King. He looks like a child but make no mistake, he's some kind of mad overlord that draws the people to his trees. I have no idea what his purpose might be, but it was a rare treat to capture him on (virtual) film.