Christmas time in the city

It’s December 15 now. 10 in the morning, 35 degrees, gray and still and peaceful. It looks like snow. It feels like Christmas. 

We rode the Metro downtown last night, Red Line from Glenmont to Judiciary Square, which is a much better Metro stop than Gallery Place if you’re going to the Capitals game, as we were. That’s an insider tip from me to you. The Metro runs mostly above ground until Union Station, and the neighborhoods around the stations are lively hubs of apartment buildings and restaurants and bars and stores. Catholic University and Gallaudet University are along the route. Every time I take the Red Line to Judiciary, I think about selling my house after I retire, and then moving to a cute little city apartment right on the Red Line. Maybe I will. Anything can happen. 

We got on the train about about 5:30 last night, so it was already dark and quite cold. The sky was clear, and Christmas lights and Christmas trees sparkled in apartment windows. It’s the first time this year that I felt really Christmassy. We couldn’t get a seat at our beloved Irish Channel, so we had a quick dinner at the noodle and sushi place next door, and that was an excellent decision. The tiny restaurant with its decor of vintage album covers and twinkle lights was full of lovely young people on their way out for the evening, some on their way to the Capitals game, and the food was delicious. The Capitals won - again - and we ran for the train at Judiciary, crossing the platform after the station manager directed us to the wrong side. I guess we looked like Shady Grove people. The trains were single tracking after a terrible pedestrian strike at Gallery Place and that might have been the last train out of Judiciary before the real delays began. 

According to Metro, the woman who was struck was a “trespasser.” I’m not sure what that means - was she hiding out in a tunnel? She survived but is badly injured. I hope she’ll be OK. I hope the train operators will be OK. How dreadful for a train operator to hit someone, even if it wasn’t their fault. 

It’s Monday now. I couldn’t find any updates on the person’s condition this morning. I hope this means that she is recovering.

*****

I might have finished my Christmas shopping. I have a list, of course, because I have a list for everything, but I have not yet checked it twice. On Saturday, I was on my way to Barnes and Noble to get a few additional small gifts, and I was greeted by a horrifying sight.  A huge gaggle of vultures (I don’t know if gaggle is the right word for a gang of vultures but it’s onomatopoeic, because they make me gag) was feasting on the carcass of a deer. Vile. Utterly repulsive. The next day, the carcass was almost picked clean. It’s gone this morning, thankfully. Whatever I pay in tax dollars to Montgomery County and the state of Maryland, it’s worth it because when there’s a rotting carcass in your front yard or on your street, you can call someone, and they’ll come and take it away. 10/10. Would recommend - the efficient local government, that is, not the rotting carcass and definitely not the filthy vultures. 

*****

Still no update on the Metro accident victim. I’m sorry for her and I hope she’ll survive and recover, but I’m more sorry for the driver who hit her. I keep thinking about how traumatic that must be. 

I’m not sorry for that stupid deer, though, because we’re overrun with the silly creatures, and between unleashed pit bulls and deer gangs and acrobatic raccoons hanging on our bird feeders and disgusting vultures, I have just about had it with the wildlife in this neighborhood. I’ve managed to avoid suburban bears and coyotes, but it’s only a matter of time. 

*****

Christmas Eve is one week from today. I did forget one person, and now I have to figure out what to get for that person, and when I’ll have time to shop. Almost all of my other gifts are wrapped now, but it’s cookie time, too. And I have a lot of other things to do this week, too. And so I’m sitting here and writing about it all, because that’s always the best way to get things done. 

*****

It’s December 18, and the countdown has begun, and it’s time to finish this silly thing before it goes (completely) off the rails. Too late, I know. Less than one week from today, the getting ready for Christmas part of this timeline concludes, and the celebrating of Christmas part begins. Anything that isn’t done by about noon on December 24 just isn’t going to be done, and it’ll all be fine. It’s Christmas time in the city, and the suburbs, and the country, where all of the furry creatures should be spending their holidays. Merry Christmas. 

Rodent vandals

There’s a new bird feeder outside my window, with an Arlo camera trained on it, as my husband’s long battle to keep the squirrels out of his birdfeeders enters a new and deadly phase. The new feeder is hanging from a length of copper tubing mounted to the fence, and angled so that the feeder is too far from the trees and the fence for the squirrels to reach. But the squirrels are determined and daring. 

Why a new bird feeder, you might ask? We had to replace the old bird feeder because a little black squirrel knocked it down. How do we know that a little black squirrel is the culprit? Yes, that’s right, we have video footage of the little black squirrel sitting on top of the fence, calculating its trajectory before taking the flying leap that took down the bird feeder and a good-sized tree branch. The squirrel escaped unharmed after stuffing itself on the scattered bird seed. I am that squirrel’s biggest fan. I’m not saying that I would deliberately sabotage my husband’s squirrel defenses, but I do continue to oppose this unwarranted prejudice against squirrels. I don’t see why the birds should have everything handed to them. I don't see why the squirrels can't get a break. 

*****

Even with the rather extreme heat and humidity this summer, we’ve had few thunderstorms, but we’re making up for it now. It’s Tuesday, the second day in a row of thunderstorms. We need the rain, but I also need to go swimming. Me vs. nature: Nature wins, every time. 

Really, that’s true for anyone vs. nature, but some of us, like the person I’m married to, will try to fight the inevitable. In brand-new Arlo footage released this morning, a small black squirrel (the same one? A new one?) leapt from the fence and landed on the new bird feeder and hung on for a few minutes before finally dropping to the ground. The new bird feeder is slippery, and the little ledge where the birds roost, stuffing themselves on free birdseed, is nothing but a narrow wire, so there’s not much for the squirrel to cling to. But my husband is not the only one who’s not giving up. That squirrel is going to keep trying, and I’m here for him. He’s an underdog, just like USA Men’s Gymnastics, and look what happened there. 

*****

I’ll continue to root for the squirrels but I draw the line at raccoons, especially the agile and daring variety of raccoon that climbs trees and hangs upside down and then digs right into our bird feeder, which is there for the birds. And the squirrels. My husband got up in the middle of the night to chase the raccoon away after an Arlo notification on his phone alerted him to its presence. Later footage revealed that the stupid raccoon came right back and stuffed itself on bird seed. The bird feeder is still in place, but it won’t be for long if this fat-ass nocturnal rodent keeps swinging from it. Bird feeders are not designed to hold ten pounds of obese trash panda. So we’re going to the mattresses. My husband bought a humane trap, and will take his prisoners to the woods adjacent the Turkey Branch Parkway. This of course will avail us nothing except for new raccoons, but my husband will never stop fighting nature, no matter his win-loss record. 

Documentary footage

If I had my way, my home would be free of all “smart home” technology. The so-called smart thermostat (about which I have much to say - stay tuned) would be replaced with a good old-fashioned Honeywell. My appliances would keep silent - especially the refrigerator, which if it’s so smart would know that you have to keep the door open in order to wipe down the shelves, but instead chimes at me relentlessly as soon as the door is open for more than five seconds. We’d get rid of the Google Home smart speaker and just Google things the old-fashioned way, with a phone or a computer. And the cameras. My gosh, the cameras. 

Of all the technological innovations that have wormed their way into my house, I hate video surveillance cameras the most. Yes I know that they have their uses. I know that police can solve crimes with the aid of Ring or Arlo video footage. They can even prevent crimes. In 2018, my husband got an Arlo alert at 12:30 AM on a Sunday night. A person unknown to us had rung the doorbell several times and receiving no answer, had wandered around to the backyard, where video showed him peering into the patio doors and the back windows. We were in Montreal, hundreds of miles from home, and so we had no way to do anything to prevent this person from breaking in. It was some comfort that we were all together and that if the man did break in, he couldn’t hurt anyone. But we also didn’t want to return home to a ransacked house. When the man returned to the front door again, my husband used the remote communication feature to say “Can I help you? Do you need something?” The man didn’t respond, but he did go away. My husband called a few police colleagues and gave them the entry codes so that they could check the house and perhaps arrest any burglars who might attempt to ransack the joint. They visited every day for the whole time we were away, but the burglar never returned, that night or for the rest of the week. 

The point here is that I do acknowledge the value of this technology. I’m pretty sure that our late night visitor was casing the place, and I think it’s very likely that he’d have broken in if my husband hadn’t scared him off. I understand why we have cameras. I concede that they are useful and even necessary. But they’re also extremely intrusive and downright creepy. I don’t want to be captured on video as I go about my daily business. I don’t want to be watched even if technically, I am watching myself. 

*****

But maybe those cameras are more useful than I thought. Last Tuesday, I was working at my desk at home and when I looked out the window, I saw a black and white cat sitting calmly on top of my six-foot-high backyard fence (I also hate that fence but it came with the house). How, I wondered, did that cat get there? There’s nothing close enough to the fence for a cat to climb on, and yet there he was, placid and content, lord of all he surveyed. 

I got up to get my phone so I could get a picture and when I came back, he was gone. I looked out another window to see if he was in the backyard, and there he was, sitting calmly on top of the back fence. In a span of thirty seconds then, this super-agile cat had scaled or jumped two fences, and positioned himself on top of two fence posts, all while taking the time to strike photo-ready poses. I wished I had gotten a photo, but I didn’t, and I thought that was the end of it. 

I went about the rest of my day and didn’t think about that cat again, until my husband texted me late in the day. He had gotten Arlo video of the whole sequence of events: Cat approaches backyard gate and finding it closed, backs up a few feet and leaps, landing neatly on top of the gate and then stepping over a few feet to position himself on the fence post, which is where I came in. Cat then leaps down from the first fence post, darts across the backyard, and scales the next fence in just two quick moves, landing exactly on the fence post this time, a perfect vantage point from which to look for birds or rodents or other moving objects upon which to pounce. It was very entertaining. And that wasn’t all. Later that day, I watched video of a squirrel scheming and planning a way to get himself from the top of the fence to a birdfeeder suspended from a tree. Other squirrels have successfully breached this birdfeeder, but not this one. His frustration was apparent, and I felt sorry for him. 

In a third video, a small gathering of birds enjoyed Costco’s proprietary birdseed blend from that same feeder. I wondered if they’d been roosting in nearby trees, waiting first for the cat and then the squirrel to go away. 

You know, I really should just set up a squirrel feeder. I see no reason for this unwarranted and unjust preference for birds over squirrels. Squirrels need to eat, too. Squirrels have rights.

*****

When it comes to decorating and furnishing decisions, I usually get my way. My husband is a pretty selfless person, and he defers to my (obviously superior) judgment on aesthetics and design. On the subject of smart technology, though, he will not budge. He LOVES the stupid Google Nest thermostat, which I hate. He loves the Google Home smart speaker, and never misses an opportunity to ask it a question. I think we have more cameras than we need, but I don’t mention this because if I do, it just reminds him that there are still blind spots around the house and that he’s been meaning to install even more cameras. I choose the battles that I can win, and I’ll win 95 percent of them, but even before the Montreal incident, which occurred in 2018, the cameras were a lost cause. I have reconciled myself to their presence. I’m learning to live with them. 

And I might even be learning to embrace them, a tiny tiny bit.

The small hours

It's 3:25 AM on Tuesday morning, and I'm quite wide awake. I'm almost always awake at 3. I usually read when I wake up in the middle of the night, or I scroll mindlessly, and then feel bad about myself.  Yesterday, however, it occurred to me that I could try to write my way through the nightly periods of unwanted wakefulness. And so here I am. Welcome to the insomnia chronicles, volume 1. 

*****

That was last night, or early this morning. It's 5:30 PM now, closer to my usual writing time. I worked at home today as I always do on Tuesdays. I was not productive. Distracted, scatterbrained, and muddy in my head, I floundered through the day, flopping like a fish from one task to the next, from one idea to another. I need a deadline. Deadlines make me panic, and nothing puts things in focus like a good solid panic attack. 

Did you come here for time management advice? Probably not a good idea. 

*****

It's Wednesday now, 2:33 AM. I don't have anything to say at 2 in the morning, so I think I'll read rather than write. Good night. Or good morning.

*****

The small hours can be bleak, you know what I mean?  I've had some of my best panic attacks at 3 AM. But of course I have mental health breakdowns during the day, too. Really, there's no bad time for an existential crisis.

*****

And don't come around here looking for mental health advice, either. Word to the wise. 

*****

But the pre-dawn hours aren't always bad. Sometimes I just get up out of the bed and get a head start on the day and then get back under the covers an hour before I have to get up.  Even if I can't sleep, I lie there feeling peaceful, knowing that my to-do list is a few items shorter. When I do sleep in that last pre-alarm hour, it's really concentrated sleep. Distilled sleep. Essence of sleep. If I don't feel like doing chores at 3 in the morning, I read. Either way, the small hours of the morning can be a very pleasant time.

Or not. 

*****

I wonder sometimes if animals are fearful in advance. Like are they anxious about possibly running into a predator, and do they consciously plan their activities with hiding places and escape routes in mind? Or do they only feel fear when there's something to actually be afraid of. The latter, I hope. 

Anyway, I wonder about this because a coyote - a COYOTE! - was spotted in our neighborhood and now I gotta figure out how to survive an encounter with a coyote because I always feel fear well in advance of an event occurring, whether or not it’s an event that is likely to occur. That I now have to plan a coyote-fighting strategy doesn’t seem reasonable, since I’m in Maryland and not Arizona. Why on EARTH should I have to evade coyotes. I arranged my entire life so as not to ever have to be within 50 miles of a coyote. But of course, I also arranged my life so as to ensure the widest possible berth between me and the nearest bear and look how that turned out. 

Well, yes, of course this has something to do with insomnia. It’s stuff like this that keeps me up at night. 

*****

I did some research, and it turns out that Maryland has been home to a small but resilient little coyote population for over 50 years. The call has been coming from inside the house this whole time. Not sure if that makes me feel better or not - that I’ve managed to avoid coyote encounters for the entire 24 years that I have lived in Maryland is a good thing, of course, but I’d prefer to have held on to my blissful ignorance about their presence, because now I’m sure that it’s just blind luck that I haven’t been attacked by a coyote yet, and good luck is always due to run out at some point. According to the Maryland natural resources site where I learned that coyotes and I have been coexisting for 24 years, coyotes are the most-disliked wild animal species in Maryland, held in “almost universal disdain” (disdain is the state of Maryland’s word not mine) by human Marylanders. Nobody likes an animal that preys on cats and dogs, let alone small children. Not to mention the coyote’s well-known habit of blowing up their victims with Acme Corporation-manufactured explosives or dropping heavy objects on them from great heights. I’m not a road runner. When that anvil drops from an overpass, I won’t see it coming until it’s too late. 

*****

So it’s Memorial Day Weekend now, or MDW as we summer people like to call it. Saturday morning, bright and sunny but at least 15 degrees colder than I would prefer the first day of summer to be. This happens now - we have unseasonably cold weather in late May which gives way very suddenly to real hazy summer warmth some time around the middle of June. It happens so regularly now, in fact, that the cold late May temperatures aren’t really unseasonable anymore. 

MDW usually brings with it some relief from the sleepless stressed-out mental health misery of spring. But this year’s crisis feels like it’s going to stick around for a bit. It has some staying power. Intractable, that is the word I would use. Intractable. It’s too cold to swim and despite the pale blue cloudless sky and the clear warm sunshine, I find myself uninterested in leaving the house today. 

But leave the house I must and shall. I have things to do that cannot be accomplished remotely, and I want to feel the way it looks outside. So I’m doing outside things this weekend, cold water and coyotes be damned. 

*****

I really didn’t think that I was going to swim this weekend. It was chilly enough just sitting poolside with my friends that I needed a sweater. But the crazy children were all in the pool, and then a few adults ventured in a toe at a time. When my neighbor and fellow lap swimmer started on  his usual mile swim (I don’t swim a mile), I thought about how silly it would be to have spent two hours at the pool and not to have actually gone swimming. Then another almost-daily swimming neighbor showed up, pulled off her swim cover-up, stepped into a lap lane, and started swimming. Well, I thought, if another middle-aged lady can do it, then I can certainly do it. And I did, and it was freezing cold, and even after ten laps I was still freezing cold, and even two hours later after a hot shower and dry clothes, I was still cold. Actually, I was freezing cold all evening on Saturday - that might have been hypothermia. But everything that has been worrying me, fueling the nonstop panic and anxiety, was gone, just for a short time in that clear sun-sparkling cold blue water. It was glorious, and I’m going to do it again today. And I don’t think coyotes swim, at least not in the lap lane of a neighborhood pool. 

Suburban bear

A fire drill on a sunny warm Monday afternoon is a nice little break in the day. I work with friendly people so we had a pleasant little social gathering in the courtyard while we waited for the all clear. But fire drills aren't the most interesting thing happening on Naval Support Activity Bethesda. There's also a bear. That's not a joke, nor a metaphor. There was an actual bear sighting last week in the woods between the University and Walter Reed. I yield to no one in my respect for the Navy but they’re not trained to fight bears. 

The bear has been spotted at locations all over Rockville and Bethesda and Silver Spring, all close to one another and all places where bears do not belong. It's unnerving. I keep seeing social media posts offering well-intentioned advice from animal control and the Maryland and National Park Services. Don't run. Don't scream. Back away slowly. The don't run part is easy for me because I know that almost anything can outrun me. Especially a black bear, which can apparently run as fast as a race horse. You’d think that a bear would be a clumsy, lumbering creature, but apparently not. I learn something new every day, but this little factoid about the land speed of black bears is something that I would have been happy not to know. 

*****

I've been on guard on my walks around the neighborhood. I scan my surroundings and I maintain situational awareness. For what purpose, I don’t know because again, I have no chance of outrunning a bear and even less chance of winning a fight against one. Bear vs. Claire - Bear wins every time. But I’d like to at least see it coming, I guess. 

On Monday, I walked on the track on the base. It was a nice day - a really nice day - but the track was almost deserted. No students playing soccer, no PT, no one walking or running - it was disconcerting. I saw someone’s hoodie hanging on a railing, and I thought “Well, that’s it - the bear got someone, and left the evidence behind.” I thought for a moment about going inside, but then I decided to press on because they might never catch that stupid bear and I can’t stay inside all summer. And then a few other people ventured out and I wasn’t alone on the track anymore. I was still on my guard, but I felt much more at ease. 

*****

They got that bear (I can only hope it was the same bear and that the Maryland suburbs aren’t bear country now) in the most cartoon storyline way imaginable - they set a (humane) trap next to a beehive in a backyard where the bear had been spotted last week. The amateur beekeeper whose backyard it is apparently never considered that his beehives and the honey they produce might attract bears. And who can blame him? We’re in suburban Maryland not gosh-darn Wyoming. I’d never have worried about bears either. Of course, I also wouldn’t keep bees. 

According to the news reports about the bear’s capture, he weighs about 140 pounds. I saw a very grainy little surveillance camera video, and he’s really very cute. I don’t know much about bears but I imagined something ferocious-looking and Kodiak-sized, in the 500 - 700 pound range. I weigh more than 140 pounds, for crying out loud. I’m still pretty sure that the little bear would beat me in a fight, but he’d have had to work for it. I’d have gone down swinging. Anyway, he’s been relocated to a more bear-friendly location, probably somewhere in the Catoctin mountains. Maybe he’ll show up at Camp David. Then he’ll be the Secret Service’s problem. 

Squirrel snacks

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m just wrapping up my work week. I worked from home today, with the windows open, feeling the balmy breeze and listening to the birdsong. 

My husband hung a new bird feeder in the side yard, right in front of my office window. We’ve had a hummingbird feeder in that same tree for some time, and I have to think that the sugar water that’s been in there for some time and that I am pretty sure has not been changed for at least a month is fully fermented now. Maybe that’s why I never see any birds at that feeder - it’s a nighttime spot now. But the new feeder is very popular. Every time I looked out the window today, I saw at least one or two birds enjoying a seedy snack. That is what I call entertainment. 

Even more entertaining than the birds was the determined squirrel who ran along the x and y axes of the fences between my yard and the neighbor’s, with a few forays into the tree branches just above the feeder, sniffing and stretching and examining the thing from all angles, trying to figure out how to reach the feeder and snag some seed for himself. 

A few minutes later, I saw the squirrel again. He was on the ground, vacuuming up some seed that had dropped from the feeder. And that seed was delicious, I’m sure, because a minute later, the squirrel had climbed the fence again and was scheming and planning its route to the feeder. He sat on the fence (literally) for a few minutes; wondering, I think, if he had a chance at the feeder. It hangs about a foot or so from one side of the fence and at least two feet or more from the other side. The drop from the tree branch where it’s suspended is about 18 inches. All of these distances are longer than the squirrel’s body, excluding the tail, but he’s stretchy and agile and unafraid to climb, even upside down. And that’s what he did. He got up on a branch and calculated the shortest distance between the branch and the feeder, and then stretched himself far enough to grab onto the hanger. And then he made his move, a half stretch and half jump that landed him upside down and just able to sniff under the lid of the feeder. But not enough to actually get any seed. 

Did you think I was kidding? 

I felt sorry for him. All that planning and scheming, all that work - and he came so close. SO CLOSE! Do squirrels feel frustration, I wondered - was he furious? Was he cursing our stupid bird feeder and and our stupid trees and fences? Did he stamp his little squirrel foot or punch the top of the feeder with his tiny squirrel fist? That’s what I would have done, of course. But the squirrel seemed to maintain his equanimity. He sniffed for a few minutes and then climbed back up into the tree, giving up for the time being. 

Later, my husband drilled a hole into an old frisbee and attached it to the feeder to serve as an anti-squirrel barrier. It’ll probably work. The squirrel couldn’t get past a single obstacle between himself and the seed, let alone two. Some seed will fall out of the feeder, dropped by the careless birds who can have as much as they want, as often as they want, so maybe that’s the best the squirrel can hope for. But I’m rooting for him. Why should the birds get everything handed to them? 

Re-entry

Just like that, Beach Week is over and with it, summer or so it seems. It’s Monday, my first day back at work (which was just fine after an hour sorting through last week’s emails in conversation view) and it was unseasonably cool; cloudy and gray and slightly breezy with a few drops of rain here and there. I don’t think it got any warmer than 72 degrees today, and that is cool for August in Maryland. 

I write about the weather a lot, don’t I? 

Anyway, school starts in two weeks. That is the end of summer as far as I’m concerned, but the cool temperatures and the October gloom are encroaching on my last weeks of sunshine and warmth, trying to fool me into believing that summer is already gone and that I should just get started with the pumpkin spicing (no) and the Christmas shopping. And I’m not having it. It’s 6:30 and the pool is still open for two hours and the water can’t have gotten that cold overnight (it was just right yesterday) so I’m going to put on a suit and swim laps before I cook dinner. No one here is in any danger of starvation, so dinner can wait. The remains of summer cannot. 

*****

Ha ha ha, that was ridiculous. “The water can’t have gotten that cold overnight,” she says, blithely skipping out the door with her bag and her towel. I should have also brought a space heater and a parka because it was actually freezing. 

Well, let me clarify a bit. The water itself was in fact not that bad. It had gotten a bit colder but it was still quite a nice temperature or would have been had the air temperature not been in the high 60s. Plus, it was rather gray and a bit breezy, and without the sun sparkling on its surface, the pool water appeared dank, which made it feel that much colder. 

My son and his friends were working when I arrived at the pool at 6:45. I was the only swimmer in the place, and my son shook his head when I signed in. “It’s cold, Mom,” he said. “I mean, it’s been colder, but just warning you. It’s pretty cold, especially when you get out.” 

And he was not wrong. Getting into the pool was quite a bit easier than getting out, as a stiff breeze made the already cool air feel downright chilly. It was Baltic, I tell you. Baltic. 

*****

What is it with Wednesdays around here? I am once again writing at work as I await resolution of a technical issue. This time it's everyone, not just me. There's a partial power failure right now where I work, the result of a fix gone wrong. The library is one of the few places where there is both light and WiFi so that's where I am. But it's taking some time for the shared public workstation to set up Windows and sync all of my files and whatever else it has to do. 

30 minutes later and I'm sitting in the courtyard waiting for a call from the help desk. They need to reset my SSO password and they cannot connect to the PW reset application, leading me to the question: What do you do when the help desk cannot help you? And an even bigger question: Who helps the help desk? Who are they supposed to call?

It's 9:30 now; still quite early. I could just go home and work and if this continues for much longer, then that is what I'll do. But we're all in this together and I kind of want to see how it all turns out. Meanwhile I brought a tuna sandwich and some fruit for lunch, so I could just have brunch now rather than waiting for lunch. Tuna salad is good any time of the day. 

Yes it is. 

*****

I’m home now. I worked at five different desks today. I’d connect for a bit and then the connection would drop, and then someone would message me that I could come to room x in building y, and I would be there for a bit and then the whole thing would start over again. I accomplished about three hours’ worth of actual work today, but I  got to hang out with some new people, and I also came up with a really good idea when I was sitting around waiting for my password reset, so it was a pretty productive day altogether. 

*****

It’s Thursday afternoon now, 5:30 PM, and I’m just home from work. I left my phone at home today, not on purpose, of course. But once I was sure that the phone was actually safely on my kitchen counter and not in a ditch somewhere (why would it be in a ditch I wouldn’t go near a ditch to save my soul from Hell) I realized that it’s quite nice to spend a day semi-disconnected. Now I’m catching up on correspondence, and responding to what seems like 50 text messages. It’s not 50. It’s maybe 15. But it’s a lot. Why are these people texting me all day? Am I the only person who works on weekdays? 

*****

My son attends the University of Maryland, which (of course) is now reporting its first case of monkeypox. And there has to be a better name for it, doesn’t there? Monkeypox. Gross. 

I’m not even particularly worried about this; not yet, anyway. It’s Friday, and my mind is blank, and my hands are just moving across this keyboard in an almost-reflexive way. Everything about today, the sunshine and the light and the coming transition from summer to fall, reminds me of 2020. A school year was about to begin and no one knew if or when that would involve entering a school building. The pandemic raged on with no end in sight. The election was around the corner and although I couldn’t wait to see the end of the Trump presidency, I also knew that chaos was going to ensue no matter who won that Godforsaken election. I went to work every morning in my little home office, watching the birds and suburban wildlife outside my window, and wondering if normal life would ever resume. I wondered if anyone even knew what constituted normal life anymore. I still wonder about this. 

*****

But it’s Saturday now, not quite 10 AM, and I’m sitting in my backyard letting my hair dry and listening to the birds, just like I did every morning at the beach, but with different birds. The birds here are quieter. You’d think that inveterate pests and thieves like seagulls would go about their business a little more quietly, draw less attention to themselves, but Avalon’s seagulls are out there and they want you to know it. Hold on to your kids’ sandwiches, they cackle, taunting. Don’t leave those corn chips unattended. Silver Spring birds are politer. You can eat your lunch in my backyard, and your sandwich will remain unmolested. 

But even if a rogue oriole absconds with your lunch, that seems like the worst that could happen right now. Monkeypox and COVID and war and inflation and the constitutional crisis of the day are all out there, but they’re keeping quiet for the moment. With the warm sunshine, birdsong, and clear blue skies, it’s shaping up to be a perfect tail-end-of-summer day. Everything is almost still, except for the trees, barely rustling in the breeze.  

Weather and birds - that is the content that you came here for. 

Will to win

"Two weeks without you and I still haven't gotten over you yet."

It's 8:15 AM on Saturday and although the pool is still and quiet in the early cool gray morning, the music selection is pretty fire. Both teams are finished warming up, both teams are finished with their pre-meet cheers, and the 15-18 boys and girls are gathered at the start, waiting for the medley relays to start. And here we go. 

*****

It's not over yet. We're now in the break between the individual events and the freestyle relays. Our boys medley relay team, consisting of my son and three of his friends, cruised to an easy win in Event 1. In the individual events, our two teams have traded the lead all morning. No idea what the score is now. Anything could happen. It all comes down to the freestyle relays. 

*****

One thing that I've learned in 16 years as a swim parent is that the race isn't always to the swiftest. In a contest with equally matched competitors, and even in some contests that aren't so equally matched, the final result often comes down to who wants it more. 

That's what I thought about as I circled the Trader Joe's parking lot, looking for a parking spot to replace the one that I had just lost to a bird. 

Let's be clear: this was a big bird, a fat and glossy black crow. He wasn't as big as my RAV4, but he was big for a parking lot bird. And he was determined to stay big. He was clutching the remains of a 7-11 hot dog in his beak (I know that it was a 7-11 hot dog because the hot dog was still in its cardboard sleeve, which made the situation even funnier), and he seemed ready to fight all comers who might have designs on that hot dog. A bird doesn’t attain and maintain such impressive size and girth, he seemed to say, without defending its food with some vigor. 

But again, he’s a bird, not a damn mountain lion; and so I expected, when I began to slowly inch my way into the parking space, that he’d recognize the great disparity between the size of my car and the size of his rotund but still birdlike body, and the inevitable result should the two objects collide. “Move, bird,” I said, moving slowly, by millimeters, into the spot. 

The bird, holding the hot dog firmly in his beak, refused to budge. “Fuck off, lady,” he said. “I will die for this hot dog.” 

I was nonplussed, and not just because the Trader Joe’s parking lot is apparently home to a talking bird with a bit of a sailor mouth. “Come on,” I said. “I admire your tenacity but you can’t pull this off. You vs. this car? This car wins every time. You know it and I know it, so move it. Shift your tail feathers,” I said, barely but still moving. I tooted the horn a bit, just for emphasis. 

The bird stood his ground. “Go ahead,” he said. “You can drive right over me and then scrape me out of your tire treads, and what’s left might not be pretty or even recognizable, but I promise you that this hot dog will still be intact, and still held in the kung fu grip of my cold, dead beak.” 

What else could I do? I backed out of the space, and started looking for another one. 

“Wow,” said my 17-year-old son. “You just lost a parking space battle to a bird.” 

“What can I tell you?” I said. “The bird wanted that little plot of land more than I did. Respect.”

*****

We were almost tied after the last individual events, leaving three freestyle relays that would decide the meet outcome. When the relays finally started, the cheering was absolutely deafening. Both teams cheered, of course, but our kids screamed and jumped up and down with an intensity that gave their relay-swimming friends an almost-physical boost that propelled them through the races just a tiny bit faster. Two of our three freestyle relays took first place, giving our team the very narrow 7-point edge that won the meet. And now you know what a hotdog-clutching parking lot bird has in common with a summer swim team.  In the heat of battle, it all came down to who wanted it more. Respect. 

No two alike

I’m looking out my “office” window right now. “Office” is in scare quotes, because my office is really just a corner of my living room. Anyway, there is a bird perched on top of my backyard gate, with his head turned toward something, looking for all the world as though he was scanning the sky for UFOs, or possibly posing for a portrait. He’s been frozen there in that position for so long, in fact, that I wonder if he’s still alive. But how would he remain upright otherwise? 

I can’t really take a picture because the blinds are down, though the slats are open. I try to remember sometimes to open the blinds all the way because I like to take pictures of the backyard wildlife, and I tend to scare them away when I pull open the blinds. 

This bird, though. He’s definitely watching something. His head moved slightly, so I know he’s alive, but he hasn’t moved from his perch in six or seven minutes now. I’m going to open the blinds to take a picture. We’ll see how determined he is to remain in place. 

He moved, but only slightly. He didn't fly away. The picture isn't very good because the window has a screen. According to Google Lens, he's a robin. Actually, based on coloring, it's more likely that SHE is a robin. Here I was thinking that she was some sort of exotic and rare example of avian stoicism, and it turns out that she's a robin, one of a million. But let's call her one IN a million, because I have never seen a bird stand its ground like that when the blinds open. She's a gangster. 

She stood her ground, even
when the blinds opened. Gangster. 

*****

As I've mentioned before, my desk window looks out into the side yard, adjoining the neighbor's side yard, which attracts many and various birds. Although this one was a bird of the most common type, it was not unreasonable to expect something more unusual, based on my previous experience watching out this window. I've seen some pretty interesting birds out there, let me tell you. But maybe that's just human prejudice on my part, judging the interestingness of a bird by the rarity of the type and not by the bird's own merits. This one had personality and spunk. Robins are a dime a dozen in this town, but no two are alike. 

Active, dormant, and extinct

It’s Saturday afternoon, post-swim meet, one of the few unoccupied bits of time that I have this weekend, so here I sit, writing all about how little time I have, thus leaving me with even less time than I would have if I wasn’t so compulsive about writing every day, no matter what. I’m an enigma wrapped in a riddle surrounded by stupid. 

I was listening to NPR on my way to pick up my son from work, and All Things Considered was airing a story about dinosaurs. I don’t know what the story was about, because it was almost over when I turned on the radio. But it occurred to me that it’s so rare these days to hear a news story about dinosaurs. “Extinct” and “newsworthy”--these are usually mutually exclusive terms. I was pleased to listen to a news story about something other than politics, and I found it utterly delightful that the anchor referred to dinosaurs as "dinos" throughout the broadcast. 

*****

I swam later that afternoon. After several days of too-cool-for-summer weather and correspondingly cold water, it was nice to swim on a legitimately warm summer day. The water was still cooler than normal for late June, but old age must be toughening me because cold water doesn’t bother me anymore. According to the weather forecast, we’re about to enter a brief but intense heat wave, with three or four days of temperatures in the high 90s and humidity that will be visible, shimmering from the asphalt on the pool parking lot. The water will go from slightly too cool to just right. 

When I got home, there was a small murder of crows on my front lawn; maybe a dozen or so. It was a third-degree murder at most. But crows in any number larger than one creep me out, and this property isn’t big enough for them and me. They or I had to go, and it’s my house. I honked my horn and chased them away. 

*****

It’s Monday now, the first day of the promised or threatened heat wave, depending on your perception. I worked inside my air-conditioned house, and then stepped outside from the relatively cool, darker than usual house (shades drawn to keep the temperature down) into the merciless bright glare of 3:30 PM on the hottest day of the summer so far. 

Last June, I worked outside a lot, my laptop and notebooks spread out on the patio table and shaded by an umbrella. This June, the cicadas made working outside impossible. The noise didn’t trouble me (though it was pretty loud) but cicadas landing on my head and my arms and my neck and (shudder) my face absolutely did trouble me. Three weeks ago, my backyard was swarming with the little pests. Our back fence was studded with resting cicadas, hundreds of them. The deep end of the pool was a cicada Viking funeral, a flotilla of dozens of cicadas who learned too late that they can’t swim. And now all of the cicadas, dead and alive, are gone, leaving behind practically no trace. The birds (maybe even the crows) might have feasted on them, and the rain washed some of them away, and maybe the rest of them just decomposed, returning unto the dust whence they came. All I know for sure is that they’re gone, and good riddance. They’re not extinct like the dinosaurs, but at least they’re not active like the crows. They’re dormant, and I hope they have a nice rest for the next 17 years. I won’t miss them. 

Periodical

I was walking one evening early in May, and an NPR news story that I was listening to on the web app opened with this intro: “A question you may be asking about periodical cicadas is why do they stay underground for 17 years?” 

First, a quick note to NPR. I wasn’t asking anything about periodical cicadas. Ignorance is bliss. Second, maybe some backtracking is necessary. Brood X, which is apparently one of the largest broods of underground-dwelling periodical cicadas, is coming up this year. I’ve lived here in Montgomery County, Maryland for over 20 years, so I remember the last visit from Brood X, and I can tell you that it doesn’t seem like 17 years have gone by but I know that they have, and not just because NPR says so. I was pregnant with my younger child in May of 2004, and he will be 17 on his next birthday. The math is correct. It all adds up. 

But NPR was asking the wrong question. The question is not why they remain underground for 17 years, but why they need to come up at all? It’s been 17 years since the last time I had to dodge cicadas, living and dead, and I didn’t miss them. Why not stay put, where it’s dark and cool and safe? Why bother at all with the unfriendly, unwelcoming world of humans? We’re up on the surface killing each other left and right. Cicadas, you're not safe here. We’re not even safe here. 

*****

My first Maryland cicada event was in 2004. As I mentioned, I was pregnant with my younger son (who is now almost 17, of course) and my older son was just a bit shy of his third birthday. We lived in a townhouse, in a neighborhood that was then about ten years old. Apparently, excavation and construction disrupt the underground lairs of the periodical cicadas, and newer neighborhoods see far fewer of the invaders. I remember seeing only a handful in our immediate neighborhood. My mother-in-law lived in Aspen Hill, a nearby but much older neighborhood; and my older son, who spent most days with her while I worked, was completely fascinated with the cicadas of Aspen Hill. He chased them, and played with them, and talked about them,  and lamented the lack of cicadas in his own backyard. Necessity is the mother of invention, though, and he remedied that lack by filling his little pockets with cicadas to bring home. 

I learned about the take-home cicadas the hard way (which is how I learn most things). I was doing laundry. As always, I checked my son’s pants pockets for pennies and rocks and Lego pieces and crumbs and all of the other little-boy things that he gathered and pocketed throughout his days, and instead of rocks and pennies, I got a fistful of crunchy dead cicadas. That was, of course, 17 years ago, but it was a lesson well learned. I still don’t reach blindly into anyone’s pants pockets when I’m doing laundry. 

A smarter person, of course, would have learned a different lesson altogether, which is that the bursting-at-the-seams pregnant lady shouldn’t have been doing the laundry in the first place. I never did learn how to use my pregnancy privileges. 

*****

Every March, the news is filled with stories about cherry blossoms--when they’ll start to blossom, when they’ll reach “peak bloom,” and when they’ll start to fade, not to return for another year. The whole thing comes and goes in about three weeks. 

Cicada forecasts, because this is a once-in-17-years phenomenon, started much earlier. The experts knew that the cicada emergence would happen sometime in May, but no one knew exactly when. It’s hard to predict exactly what nature will do, isn’t it? Cicadas and cherry blossoms don’t look at calendars. They don’t set reminders on their iPhones. They do what they do and we just wait. The first two weeks of May were colder than usual, and I guess the cicadas didn’t see any compelling reason to come out.  Too cold for outdoor brunches. I saw and read and heard almost daily predictions of cicada emergence and peak cicada activity, but nothing actually happened. 

Then one night, I went for a walk. It was 7:30 or so, with about an hour of daylight remaining and I heard what I thought sounded like a weird hedge trimmer. And then I happened to look down, and the sidewalk was alive with cicadas. They moved drunkenly, disoriented and confused, newly up from underground and struggling to acclimate themselves to daylight. 

Live cicadas congregating on the sidewalk or in the grass or on my backyard fence (they love my backyard fence) are not all that dreadful to behold. I don’t particularly like them, and I really hate when one of them flies toward me, but they’re mostly pretty sedentary. They don’t swirl around en masse like the proverbial swarm of locusts. When they fly, it’s a short-haul trip from one comfortable roost to the next. They sit around; and more often than not, the birds get to them before they even sense the imminent danger. Nothing that lives underground for 17 years and then emerges into the bright May sunlight is prepared for the only-the-strong-survive struggle of life above ground, I guess. 

The cicadas that manage to escape the birds aren’t long for this world. They come up, they see what’s happening on the surface, they enjoy a few days of fence-sitting or tree-roosting, they mate and deposit eggs that will hatch into nymphs that will burrow underground and remain there for 17 years, and then they die in droves. And while the live cicadas aren’t completely horrible, the dead ones are revolting. And dead cicadas are everywhere. EVERYWHERE, I tell you. You can’t take a step outside in Silver Spring without landing on at least one, and usually more than one deceased cicada. A dead cicada underfoot is gut-wrenchingly repulsive. Step on one of these crunchy motherfuckers, crushing the hard exoskeleton, and then feel the squish as the milky white viscous guts spill out under your sneaker. Don’t even think about wearing flip-flops. 

As you walk amid the corpses, you can easily distinguish the long dead from their more recently deceased compatriots. The newly dead cicadas are mired in mucous-like translucent white innards. The ones that have been dead for a few hours or more are just flat wet shiny black stains on the sidewalk. Neither one is anything you want to look at but the former is definitely worse than the latter. 

*****

I went for a walk last night, and I inspected myself very carefully when I came in. So that’s two cicada precautions: Avoid flip-flops (and it really is perfect flip-flop weather) and be sure to do a very thorough cicada check when you come in from outside. Cicadas like to roost. They like vertical structures, like a fence post or a tree trunk or a wall, and a human body standing around and minding its own business is just as good a spot as a wall or a tree or my very popular (among cicadas) wooden backyard fence. 

*****

The cicada invasion will be short-lived. According to my cursory internet research, which is the only kind of research I do, they’ll all be gone in four to six weeks. I don’t remember that the 2004 emergence lasted that long, but I wasn’t taking notes, so I can’t say for sure. I didn’t keep records. I don’t have a Power BI dashboard. Anyway, I won’t miss seeing them or stepping on them or plucking them off my t-shirts, but I’ll miss the sound. 

Yes, they’re not pretty to look at and they’re disgusting to touch, even through half an inch of sneaker sole, when dead, but they sound lovely. Some people don’t like the sound. It’s a steady and incessant drone and I can understand why people might find it bothersome. But I find it soothing.

*****

I can’t possibly be the first person to observe that the cicada emergence, at least here in Maryland, coincided almost exactly with the CDC announcement that fully vaccinated people can stop wearing masks outside. That day happened to be the two-week mark following my second shot, meaning that I was fully vaccinated, and I shed my mask and went on my way rejoicing. I think that the (unmasked) walk that I was writing about happened the very next day. THE VERY NEXT DAY! That’s right, just as we reached milepost 1 of the home stretch toward the end of the plague, the pestilence began. I know my Old Testament (right now, I live in it). God promised that he wouldn’t send another flood, but He didn’t take fire or famine off the table, did He? Maybe we should buckle up. 

*****

You know, I think that NPR needs to shut its big fat piehole for a while. Just after I finished writing most of this, I was out walking again and dodging cicada carcasses, when I heard yet another NPR cicada story. This time, after the obligatory discussion of culinary uses for cicadas (why?), the reporter casually noted that we’re just getting started with these little motherfuckers, and that the coming few days will bring “billions” (his word! “billions!”) more cicadas up from under the ground where they belong. Billions! I mean, there are cicadas everywhere right now, but if I had to hazard a guess on the current aboveground numbers, I’d have to guess no more than 10 million or so. Billions means that this cicada situation, already unpleasant, is about to get downright untenable. 

Nature is a beautiful, beautiful thing. But it’s disgusting right now, and I want no part of it. 

A change in the weather

The weather has been much better lately; much better meaning “not freezing cold.” That’s the bar for weather, and everything else, in 2021. It’s pretty low. I still walk outside when it’s really cold but I tend not to notice my surroundings. I bundle up in as much clothing as will allow me to still move my arms and legs, and I plug in my headphones, and I concentrate on whatever I’m listening to, and on putting one foot in front of the other until I can stop walking and go back inside where I belong in the winter. Yes, it’s that bad. 

But when the weather’s nice, I keep my head up and my eyes open and my wits about me, such as they are, and I notice stuff. I notice the very beginnings of spring starting to poke out here and there. I notice odd details. A few days ago, I walked a different route than normal, and I walked past a house that had bird feeders hanging from every available tree branch. I stopped to count, and I stopped at 19. 19 bird feeders. Interestingly, I also counted zero birds, so I guess that the bird feeders were empty. Maybe the homeowner hasn’t gotten around to buying birdseed yet. Or maybe they’re just there for show. Bird feeders are very decorative. Bird crap, however, is not. 

*****

I passed one of my favorite houses, the site of the suburban encampment about which I wrote in some detail last year. I was hoping to see something interesting, and I wasn’t disappointed. There were political cartoons posted on the fence, and a glass or crystal bird perched on top of a fence post. I don’t know why it was there. It looked pretty, but a stiff wind (or a real bird, for that matter) could easily knock it from its perch and break it into a thousand pieces. I should have taken a picture, because the bird’s owner will probably come to the same conclusion and remove it from the fence post. Anyway, I’ll be watching this house with considerable interest as the weather continues to improve. 

I walked past it again, and took a picture. 

*****

In other bird news, the crows returned! Not to my front yard, but they’re in the neighborhood and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. I was walking again, on the day after I saw the bird feeders and the crystal bird, and I walked straight into a swirling, shrieking murder of crows. It was Friday, 5:15 or so, and the crows appeared to be having a very good time. It was crow happy hour, and I wanted no part of it. I zipped up my jacket, tightened my hood, picked up my pace, and got the hell out of there. Crows. Ick. 

*****

It’s Sunday now, rainy and cool, but not freezing cold. Saturday was a beautiful day, clear and sunny and almost warm. Not quite warm, but almost. We ran errands and got sushi and checked on my husband’s mother, who had just gotten her first COVID shot on Friday. And things seemed different. People were out, walking and running and stroller-pushing, and it felt like a holiday. 

We came home and watched the Capitals beat the New Jersey Devils and we talked about how we might get to watch our team in person in the not-too-distant future. This isn’t over but it feels like we might have turned a corner; like we might return to something like normal life. 

Later, I walked past the same corner where the crows had been partying on Friday afternoon, and there was nary a crow in sight. The party was over. Maybe that’s not the only thing that’s over. 

They DO have eyes...

I’ve always wanted to write something that would give me an excuse to use the term “murder of crows.” But did I want that excuse to be an actual murder of crows colonizing my front lawn? No. No, I did not. But we don't always get to choose the circumstances under which we get to write about crows. We don't invite them. They just show up. 

And two days or so ago, they did show up, in considerable numbers. I heard them before I saw them. They were screeching or squawking or whatever crows do, and I could tell that there were more than a few crows making that racket. So I decided to investigate, and holy crow. A murder of crows, whose specific number can be best described by the word “shitload,” were swirling around my front lawn, helping themselves to birdseed that was never intended for them and just generally making a nuisance of themselves. The sky was literally almost black on an otherwise sunny day. It was creepy, I tell you what. Creepy, and more than a little menacing. 

The crows swooped and dipped, landing on low branches and on the grass, pecking around for seeds or worms or whatever it was that attracted them in the first place; and then one of them strutted up the driveway, bold as brass, looking for all the world as if he were going to march up and ring the front doorbell. Maybe the bird feeder was empty, and he wanted to complain. Maybe he wanted directions. Maybe he wanted to ask if the house was for sale. 

What are the schools like? (Image: Wikipedia)

And it would have been, if those crows hadn’t cleared the hell out of here. But they did. They flew out almost as abruptly as they arrived. I don’t know if that’s because they got what they came for, or because they didn’t, but that’s their business. I wish them the best in their crowish pursuits, as long as they pursue those pursuits in some other location.  

In earnest

Monday, October 19. It’s Monday, late afternoon, and I’m finished work for the day; or rather, I’m all but finished. I’m waiting for the answer to a question. That answer might or might not come today, but there’s no point in wasting time, so I’ll kill this bird and then pick up the same stone again if I need to kill another one. 

Forgive the poor choice of figurative language. I’m not in the habit of killing birds, with stones or anything else. I am in the habit of doing two (or more) things at one time, an approach that yields mixed results. Multi-tasking isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 

Anyway, it was a fine day, except that I couldn’t do several of the tasks on my to-do list because I could not read my own appalling handwriting, which grows worse by the day. It’s what I call a problem, because it is a problem. Though I swore that I would never sit for another exam ever again, I’m studying for a certification exam, taking copious notes, and I don’t know how much use these notes will be when it comes time to review them. But the act of writing things down helps me to remember. Except, apparently, when it comes to my to-do list. I still can’t read three of the items that I wrote down on Friday, and I don’t remember what they might be. 

*****

Tuesday, October 20 (two weeks away from the biggest shit-show of an election in American history). It’s Tuesday now. I’m in the middle of at least half a dozen drafts, and I’ll finish them soon. But in addition to writing, I’m also reading P.D. James’ Time to Be in Earnest, a one-year diary of her life from 1997 to 1998, and this inspired me to return for a bit to the daily diary form of writing. Of course, a day in P.D. James’ life generally consisted of having lunch with former Prime Ministers, or delivering an endowed lecture, or meeting with her publisher to plan an international book tour; and mine right now consists of sitting around the house in sweatpants editing IT service catalog pages and creating PowerPoint presentations and wondering what to cook for dinner; but each life has its place, you know?

Oddly enough, I have never read any other of P.D. James’ books. I don’t know what attracted me to this one, but it’s very good. P.D. James happened to have been born at the right time (1920) and the right place (England) with the right talents and gifts to become the perfect first-hand witness to history and social change. The book is supposed to be a daily diary of just that one year, but she also writes quite a bit about her entire life; enough that this is almost an autobiography or memoir. Because the book covers a year that overlaps 1997 and 1998, James records her immediate reaction to the death and funeral of Princess Diana. I’ve watched “The Queen” about half a dozen times, and it’s very interesting to read an Englishwoman’s real-time impressions of the events depicted in the movie. I’m going to watch “The Queen” at least one more time; and I’m also going to read more P.D. James. It turns out that she also wrote The Children of Men, the movie version of which I have also seen about half a dozen times. 

Sweatpants and PowerPoint and half-finished essays and re-watching old-ish movies--I can’t imagine why Prime Ministers, former or present, aren’t lining up to get me on their luncheon calendars. But enough about lunch. I still need to figure out dinner. 

*****

Wednesday, October 21. A neighborhood friend has been posting daily updates on Instagram, with captions that always begin “Social Distancing: Day (number).” He passed Day 200 a few days ago. I didn’t look at a calendar to count and see if he started with March 14 as Day 1, as I would have. It’s enough to know that 200 days is too many days. 

Since March, we’ve had little pockets of normal life here and there, for which I’m grateful. But the abnormal has far outweighed the normal. I’m losing my social skills, and they weren't that great to begin with. I never know what to wear. I spend several minutes every morning puzzling out this question, accounting for weather and video calls and if I’m likely to leave the house and for what reason. And then I put on leggings and a sweater, or shorts and a t-shirt, and that’s what I wear for the rest of the day. 

I keep thinking that I want life to return to normal; that I want to be out in the world, busy from morning to night, and that I want to wear real clothes every day, and to take a bit more care with my appearance. But do I? Do I really? Every day, all 200-plus since March, seems to rob me of a tiny bit more of my energy and initiative. I walk every day, weather permitting; and I still have work. I still keep the house clean. I write every day, and I keep in touch with people. But if I’m honest, and I’m always honest, then I must admit that of all the things that call my name, my family room couch has the loudest and most compelling voice. If I did only what I wanted to do today, then I’d have spent the entire day on that couch, finishing P.D. James and re-watching “Miranda” and “Mary Tyler Moore” on Hulu. And sleeping, because I can’t sleep at night. It’s Day 200-whatever. 

*****

Thursday, October 22. Today is a better day. After a thick morning fog that hung on until nearly 10, the sun came out, and everything looked much cleaner and brighter than it did amid yesterday’s gloom. And yesterday got even worse after I wrote that entry, with pestilence on top of the plague; pestilence in the form of SNAKES. THREE OF THEM. 

I live in Maryland, in the Washington DC suburbs, not in Florida or Australia or the fucking Mekong delta and so I do not expect to have to dodge serpents when I take my daily walk. Yes, they were garter snakes (and one of them was definitely dead) but THREE snakes in one little 2.5 mile suburban stroll is at least two more than I would expect to see and absolutely three more than I ever want to see, because I never want to see any snakes, not even little ones, not even deceased ones. 

You and me both, Samuel L. Jackson. You and me both. 

Today is the the day of the last of the three presidential debates; and I can’t wait to not watch it. It’s also ten days until the start of NaNoWriMo, and I’m going to try that again this year, because what could go wrong. I have a character and (kind of) a plot and everything. It’s very tempting to start writing now, but other than writing down a few ideas (because I don’t want to forget), I am going to follow the rules. I’m going to begin writing on November 1 and I’m going to stop on November 30; and hopefully, I will end up with a 50,000-word novel. That’s 1667 words a day. I can write 1667 words a day on my head. I can’t vouch for the quality or coherence of the words, but I can write them; and if I’m following the rules (and I’m always following the rules) then that’s all I have to do. The editing comes later. P.D. James died in 2014, so she probably knew about NaNoWriMo. I don’t know what she might have thought about it. I suspect she would have disapproved, but I could very well be wrong. And she's not the boss of me anyway. 

*****

Friday, October 23. I am not a TGIF person, not as a rule. It’s not that I don’t love weekends and time off, because I do. But I also like work; and counting the days until Friday has always seemed tantamount to wishing away days of one’s life (one P.D. James book, and I’m already throwing around the impersonal pronoun like it’s dolla dolla bills in a hip-hop video), and that seems unwise. 

But this week? I think I hit the wall with the COVID-enforced WFH this week, and Friday couldn’t come a day too soon. Two days away from my computer and I’m sure that I’ll return to next week’s onslaught of virtual meetings and teleconferences with my customary good cheer, but I spent today teetering on the edge, and one more call would have pushed me right the hell over. 

I was going to continue writing this post for two more days, but I haven’t published anything since October 8 and I don’t want you all to forget about me, so I’m going to wrap up this little dear diary week today. I have a few more pages of P.D. James left; a few more days of 1998, when Microsoft Teams didn’t exist and Donald Trump was just a loud-mouthed real estate developer. A person should live in the present rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, but it’s hard sometimes, I tell you. It’s hard sometimes. 

Of a feather

Do you know what I saw today? A hummingbird. It was the first time I’ve ever seen one so close to home. We have a neighborhood listserv, God help us; and although some people post stupid complaints about illegally parked vehicles or unsanctioned sheds or fences, others post nice things about events that are happening (back when events actually happened) and things to give away, and neighborhood wildlife, including hummingbirds. Apparently, hummingbirds began to appear in people’s backyards during this corona spring, and I finally got to see one myself. 

The hummingbird wasn’t in my backyard; it was in the side yard between my house and non-crazy neighbor’s house. As I mentioned, they have one particularly large bird feeder that attracts all manner of avian visitors, most of which I cannot identify. Of course, as I have also mentioned before, I can’t identify most birds, but I’m pretty sure that the ones I’ve been seeing in recent months are out of the ordinary for our corner of Maryland. I keep trying to get a picture here and there, but birds are notoriously camera shy. 

*****

So that was yesterday. Other than orioles, who are very common bird visitors, I haven’t seen any birds today. I’m always happy to see the orioles, though, so that’s good enough from a wildlife perspective. The orioles are not so much visitors as neighbors. They probably read the listserv. 

*****

I need to be nicer. I am still shopping for my eccentric old lady and I grow more impatient with her as the weeks go by. I’m sure, of course, that I don’t betray that impatience with her on the phone; at least, I try not to. But it might be audible. 

I’m not annoyed with the old lady so much as I’m annoyed at everything in general. 

Well, a few things are particular to the old lady. For example, I always call her on the same day at the same time. Could she possibly have her list ready, rather than making me wait for her to get it ready and then call me back? Could she not make me stop at the deli counter for fried chicken every week? And could she not use a hillbilly southern accent on the words “fried chicken”? Could she not remind me EVERY DAMN TIME that she wants NATURAL peanut butter? And could she stop asking me to buy ALL of the natural peanut butter they have? I’m not going to be a party to peanut butter hoarding. Times are hard, and other people need their peanut butter, too. 

And speaking of hoarding, what is with the bleach? Why am I buying huge jugs of bleach every damn week? Is she drinking it? Is she injecting it to ward off the ‘rona? Is she running a Magdalene laundry? WHY DOES SHE NEED SO MUCH FUCKING BLEACH?

But no, it’s not her. It’s me. It’s my desperately poor attitude toward what I have come to think of as house arrest, undeserved, unwarranted house arrest. 

*****

Don’t read this as a complaint about reasonable public health measures. I’ll wear a mask all day long, and I yield to no one in my commitment to social distancing. I hardly ever leave the house except to swim or buy fried chicken and bleach. But the powers that be need to get it together, agree on a plan, and make sure that the plan comes together so that we can get off this terrible treadmill. My always-tenuous grip on reason is becoming less secure by the day. Shit’s getting real. 

*****

The birds, however, are as happy as they always are; no more and no less. I suppose that’s why I like having my desk where it is. I can watch them as I work, marveling at their freedom. Of course, I wouldn’t want to live like a bird. Their freedom is predicated on ignorance. They are conscious only of their immediate surroundings and needs and although animals experience fear, they don’t suffer anxiety about the future; not in the way that we do, anyway. Some time in the not-too-distant future, I hope, normal life will resume and we’ll get to go out into the the world, which will be an interesting place again. And these birds that I’m watching now (at least five different kinds, no kidding) will die, and others just like them will take their places. Humans will die in that time, too, sadly, but no one will take their places because no one can. No two are alike. Even birds can’t claim that. 

Predator

I’ve been sounding this warning for years, and no one pays attention, but here we go again. The deer are going to turn predator, and then we’re all screwed. Even more so than we already are, I mean. 

Today, I was working at my desk in front of the window, when a deer sauntered into the side yard, and began helping itself to the leaves on one of my neighbor’s trees. It’s a little tree; and there’s a bird feeder hanging from one of the branches. The bird feeder must be filled with some gourmet birdseed because that tree is quite the social hub for our avian friends. The deer didn’t molest the bird feeder. It reared up on its hind legs to eat some of the foliage. I’d never seen a deer do that before, so I very quietly and slowly grabbed my phone and very carefully, inch by inch, pulled up the blinds so I could get a good shot. 

Help yourself, asshole. Don't mind me. 

Despite my ninja-like stealth, the thing sensed my presence and movement; but  instead of running away like sensible deer used to do not so long ago, it turned and stared at me. For several seconds, in fact, this nervy deer stood its ground and regarded me with a mixture of disdain and indignation that was a little unsettling. I thought for a moment that it might be wise to move away from the window in case the deer decided to try and charge at me, but I didn’t want to give it the satisfaction of watching me back down, so I stood my ground too. After a short standoff, the deer lost interest in me, and went about its business of sampling from my neighbor’s garden. I hope it ate some poison ivy. 

That's right. I said what I said. 

WFH

It’s Saturday morning, and I’m sitting outside, thinking about how an above-ground pool might look in the one consistently sunny corner of my backyard. It’s come to this. It’s just wishful thinking though, because even if I could convince my husband to buy and install and fill and clean an above-ground pool, there are none to be had. Above-ground pools in June 2020 are what toilet paper was in March--scarce and highly coveted.

*****
I like hot, humid, tropical weather in the summer; so today, with its bright blue sky and its crisp September-y air and its cool temperatures, is not my ideal summer day. But it’s really quite beautiful. The grass is freshly cut, the annuals are blooming, and the birds are chirping happily away. They don’t care about coronavirus. I took a picture of an oriole yesterday. Orioles look very much like robins, but they’re prettier--their heads are black rather than gray and their beaks are a yellowish-orange that contrasts nicely with the black head and the reddish-orange breast. Orioles are a Maryland thing. We even have a baseball team named after them. They’re not my team, but they have the best logo in all of professional sports.

He's not wearing a mask, and you don't even want
to know when he washed his hands last. 

*****
It’s Sunday morning now, bright and sunny and breezy again. We’re trying to find another patio umbrella to match the two we have, and patio umbrellas are in short supply. Maryland is starting to “reopen,” whatever that means, but we’re all bracing for at least a few more months of limited interaction with the world, which means that we want home to be as pleasant as possible.

For lots of people, home can’t really be pleasant. Family situations aside, too many people just don’t have the resources that would allow them to have a simple, clean, comfortable home, with enough food and clean water and indoor plumbing and electricity and a little bit of green grass and a few birds chirping. I don’t see why this should be so. There’s more than enough to go around.

It’s a fallen world. We’re human and we suck, so there will always be inequality, for as long as imperfect humans have the responsibility for governing other imperfect humans. But there’s no excuse for how badly we’ve managed distribution of the world’s wealth. It’s all a gift from God. I know I’ll never vote for Trump, but I’ll vote for the candidate who will make it a priority to ensure that more of my fellow people can live in a place that could rightly be called a home. If that candidate exists.

*****
It’s Monday now. I worked in my backyard all day, wearing long sleeves and a jacket, in June. It’s still nice out here in the backyard, just me and my avian coworkers, but I didn’t even think about a pool today. A blanket maybe, or a hot drink, but not a pool. It’s a fallen world and a cold one today, too. I didn’t see any orioles today, but I saw several robins and I’ve decided that they’re much less attractive than their Baltimore cousins. But everyone is welcome. Mi casa es su casa unless you’re a mouse, in which case get out. We finally found a third umbrella, so we’ll soon be able to shade the entire patio if we want to. Now all I need is an outdoor heater and maybe a selective electric fence that will let the birds and squirrels and rabbits in, and keep the mice out. It’s not fancy and it’s not fashionable but it’s comfortable and homey and that’s all I need. That’s all anyone needs.

Pilgrimage of Mice

It’s 12:35 PM, Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. In a normal year today would be one of my favorite days of the year but this is not a normal year and today is a little sad.

On a normal Memorial Day weekend Saturday,  my kids would already be at the pool, there to remain until 9 PM. My older son would be working his first lifeguard shift of the summer. And now that I remember, my younger son would maybe be working his first lifeguard shift ever. He was supposed to get his certification in March, but his class was cancelled just like everything else. I’d be doing some swim team work, then a little bit of housework, and then I too would be packing my swim bag and heading to the pool to see my friends and celebrate summer, my all-too-short favorite season.

But it’s still summer. I’m still wearing shorts and a t-shirt. The windows are open and the breeze is blowing, and the sun is streaming in and it’s a three-day weekend. Maybe I’ll have a drink later. Maybe I’ll have a drink now. There’s nothing stopping me.

*****
It’s Sunday morning now, late Sunday morning heading toward Sunday afternoon. It seems less summery today. There’s no sun. Well, there’s obviously a sun because the earth is not pitch-dark and frozen over, but it's not blazing overhead.

I didn’t do very much yesterday other than reading and walking and hanging around. We all hung around, and it wasn’t a bad way to spend a day. A holiday weekend always feels like a pause in regular life and so it doesn’t really bother me that nothing is normal now. Talk to me on Tuesday. I won’t be so sanguine.

*****
It's Monday now, Memorial Day. When I wrote this yesterday, I didn’t know what to do with myself, but my company’s proposal manager solved the problem for me, and I spent most of Sunday afternoon and part of the early evening rewriting past performance content. The section that I had to rewrite wasn’t badly written, it was just all wrong from a just-the-facts standpoint. So I fixed it. When I finally finished, I was cross-eyed and tired, and missing Thomas Cromwell and the Tudors; so I poured a glass of wine and rejoined Henry VIII and his courtiers as they discussed how to handle Robert Aske and the rest of the Pilgrims. Right now, Henry is promising safe conduct to Aske if he’ll just come to Windsor to negotiate. And I don’t have a direct line to Aske but if I did, I’d advise him not to fall into that trap because it’s not going to end well for him.

But 16th century gentlemen didn’t take advice from women, especially women of common origins, so he’s on his own. He can take his chances with Henry and the Lord Privy Seal. Maybe if he’s lucky, the execution will be a quick beheading with a sharp axe.

*****
Do you want to know who doesn’t get safe-conduct; not from York to London and not from Antwerp to Calais and DEFINITELY NOT from my house to my backyard or anywhere else? Mice, that’s who. Yes, the little fuckers are back and I do not grant them diplomatic immunity and I will not offer a pardon, not even if they pledge loyalty and recant their grievous heresies.

It’s probably just one mouse, actually. We saw evidence of its presence on Saturday, and then my son saw the actual creature, IN MY HOUSE, on Saturday night. It was very small, he said, so it might even be a vole. Did I not give them fair warning? Did I not state expressly and without qualification that this warning would be their only warning? They probably failed to read my blog that day, but as in Henry’s time, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. The mouse or mice or vole or voles are condemned as surely as Robert Aske and all of the rest of the rebels and eventually Thomas Cromwell himself. I might lure them to engage in peace talks, dangling false promises of clemency, but once they’re on my territory, their fate is in my hands.

*****
So yes, Memorial Day has come and gone, and it’s officially summer, and we’re still on lockdown, and someone has to pay. I’m going to post notices around the house, to give them one last warning. It’s them against me, and I don’t like their chances.

Home office

This morning, I received an email from a recruiter. She wasn’t recruiting me; it was just a marketing email to her mailing list. She sends them every week or so and I usually ignore them, but today she linked to an article about improving your WFH experience, so I clicked the link and read the article.

The article was full of what is now the standard advice about setting up a dedicated workspace, getting up and moving around, establishing a schedule, blah blah blah. But it was fine. It was well-written and cheerful, and didn’t take more than a minute or so to read.

After I read the article, I looked out my window for a few minutes, doing nothing as I waited for my first call of the day. Before all this (meaning the COVID-19 lockdown, which began two months ago today) started, I only worked from home once a week or so, and I was usually home by myself, so I never really needed a dedicated home office; and I never really wanted one. We have a small house. A real home office, I thought, would take up space that I require for other purposes.

But a full-time WFH schedule during a stay-at-home order that keeps everyone in my household at home most of the time made a dedicated workspace a necessity. My husband and older son both work at the dining room table, and I just can’t look at their piles of paper. I don’t even know why they have piles of paper. It’s 2020. We have technology.

Anyway, at the end of March, I got my husband to bring in an old student desk that we had stored in the garage. We cleaned it up, and I set it up in the most sunlit corner of my living room, and that’s where I’m sitting right now.

It's small, but it has a nice view. 

There are two windows in this corner; one that looks out on my backyard, and one that looks into the (non-crazy) neighbor’s yard. For the sake of privacy (theirs and mine), I would have preferred to set my desk up in front of my own backyard, but the desk didn’t look right there. It looks fine under the other window, and I only see a small corner of their yard (and my side yard), so it’s fine. In fact, the view is my favorite part of my WFH day.

*****
My neighbor’s yard is very English-looking. From the window in front of my desk, I can see a tangle of shrubs, flowering and not; all greener than I might expect given the absurd cold in April and early May. I also see garden implements, pots, spades, watering cans,  and randomly placed flower and vegetable beds, bordered by 18-inch-tall wire fencing, the kind with repeating concentric arches. There’s a wrought iron table and chairs, and a few planters growing I don’t know what. I feel a little guilty about staring out the window at their yard but they’re never out there on weekdays when I sit at this window. And I guess there’s no law against looking out my own window.

Right in the middle of their side yard, my neighbors have a little bird feeder, hanging from a stand designed just for that purpose. There are frequent bird visitors, some familiar and some not. I never see the birds at the feeder; in fact, I don’t know if there’s anything in there for them. It’s a decorative bird feeder and maybe it’s just there for show. But the birds do like the garden, and I don’t blame them. It’s pretty and peaceful and not so well-tended as to be forbidding, but not neglected, either. If I was a bird, I’d be out there, too.

*****
I keep trying to get pictures of the birds, but they do not like the paparazzi. Yesterday, I was listening to a speaker during a demonstration, and a bird of an unfamiliar but interesting type landed in a tree that’s about eight feet away from the window. He sat on a branch for a few minutes, happily picking at something, and he seemed completely unaware of my presence. I reached for my phone, slowly and stealthily, almost still as I carefully moved the phone into photo-taking position. But as soon as I had my finger near the shutter button, the bird noticed me, and he took off like he was fired out of a howitzer, a little feathered mortar blasting itself away from pesky photographers. I was so close.

As I mentioned, the bird was not one that I could identify. This is not unusual. I don’t recognize most bird species other than easy-to-spot common varieties like robins and cardinals and pigeons and bluejays. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen a number of new and different bird species during my recent weeks at the window. I don’t know if this is a function of the “heal the earth” nonsense that crazy people who are enjoying the pandemic lockdown a little too much like to spout on Facebook; or if it’s just a matter of me sitting still and looking out the window long enough to notice what has probably been right in front of me all along.

*****
One morning last week, I turned on the light, turned on my computer, and opened the blinds on the window in front of my desk, just in time to see a fox dart through my side yard. It was 7:15 in the morning, broad daylight. I always think of foxes as nocturnal but apparently they are sometimes active during the day, too. And this was first thing in the morning, so maybe he was wrapping up his day’s work and heading toward wherever he nests so he could go to sleep.

According to my cursory internet research, foxes are also shy and retiring and avoid humans as much as possible. I avoid them as much as possible too, so we shouldn’t have any conflicts. There’s room enough for two in this town and as long as a fox doesn’t bare its teeth at me in a rabid-seeming manner, then I’ll consider the more-than-occasional fox-sighting as just one neighbor running into another. We’ll nod a quick acknowledgement and then go on about our business.

*****
As often happens, I had to go back and read this from the beginning to see how it all started. It’s about a week after I started writing this; Monday afternoon and I’m just finishing work for the day, and still sitting at my desk in front of the window. My only animal visitor today was domestic, not wild; the neighbor’s dog was roaming his property, king of all he surveyed.

People are beginning to emerge from isolation, with or without official permission. We went to our neighbor’s front yard happy hour on Saturday night; everyone bringing their own drinks and glasses, and sitting in chairs placed six feet apart. We chatted and drank wine for a while, exchanged socially distant air hugs and walked home in the finally summery evening air. It’s chilly again today, but we’re definitely turning a corner toward consistently warm weather. The next day, my son met some friends at the pool parking lot. They played a made-up ball game that involved no physical contact, and my son showered and changed his clothes as soon as he came home. Mental health is as important as physical health, and teenagers need their friends.

One of the friends I saw on Saturday is a veterinarian. She told funny animal stories, and I dreamed funny animal dreams in which birds sat still and posed for pictures and foxes reminded each other to social distance and dogs complained about yet another fucking Zoom call. That last one was probably me. But I’m done for today.

The moss is always greener

I’ve always loved moss. When I was very very young (five or six), we lived with my grandparents for a while--maybe a year? Maybe a few months? I don’t really remember very clearly.

My grandparents lived in a row house in Philadelphia. My grandmother, now in her 90s, still lives there. The house is tiny, and it has a correspondingly tiny patch of backyard, which my grandfather (who died in 1994) maintained very carefully. He had two little raised beds bordered with brick--one for flowers, and one for tomatoes; and his grass was green, free of weeds, and never more than two inches long.

The yard has a retaining wall, with a little hill that sloped up to another tiny patch of grass, so it’s almost like a two-story yard. It’s hard to describe. My grandfather planted shade trees in the upper yard. (We didn’t call it the upper yard; we called it “up the hill.”) He would cut the tiny bit of remaining grass on that level with a weed trimmer, because it was nearly impossible to get the mower up there. Eventually, with the shade, moss replaced the grass as ground cover up the hill.

That little patch of moss-covered outdoors was one of my favorite places. It was quiet and secluded and very shady and cool in the summer. To get to it, you had to climb the retaining wall (about three feet high) and then scale the ivy-covered hill, so adults almost never went up there, making it an ideal place to hang out. And it was mossy, making it even better.

My grandfather complained about the moss. He would have preferred a single-level backyard, with a wide expanse of golf course-quality grass. But I loved it. It was velvety soft and plush, and so much more green than the boring grass.

*****
Crazy Neighbor’s house is to our left if you’re looking at our house from the street. On HIS other side live the nice older couple who celebrated virtual Passover via Zoom.

This couple have lived next door to Crazy Neighbor for almost 50 years (he grew up in his house) and I think they’ve had enough. I’ve heard stories from other neighbors about long-standing tension between the families. We’re friendly with both households, making us something of an intermediary.

A few weeks ago, the lady of the non-crazy house (I will call her Mrs. NC) asked me why Crazy Neighbor never cuts his grass. It’s not true to say that he never cuts the grass but he doesn’t cut it as often as he should and he doesn’t cut it nearly as often as the non-crazy neighbors (whose property is immaculate) would prefer. I demurred, of course, and tried to divert her attention but Mrs. NC was fixed on the subject. She complained for a minute or so, and then she leaned across the six-foot social distance divide and said “Why don’t you talk to him? You can do that, right? He likes you. He doesn’t like us so much.”

Well, both of those two statements are true, but do I want to get further mixed up in the affairs of crazy neighbors? Is this some of my business? The answer to both of those questions is a resounding no. I smiled and laughed and said something noncommittal. Mrs. CN walked away convinced that I had the matter in hand, and I walked away having resolved to do absolutely nothing about Crazy Neighbor’s grass.

And do you know what happened? Crazy Neighbor cut his grass! THE VERY NEXT DAY he mowed down a field of grass as high as corn in August, grass that he hadn’t touched since last autumn. I haven’t seen Mrs. CN since we had this conversation, and I’m not sure how to play our next encounter. If I take credit for managing the Crazy Neighbor overgrowth situation then Mrs. CN will certainly expect me to continue to do so. In fact, she will assign me additional tasks. Crazy Neighbor has had a series of broken-down, semi-operational cars that remain on the street for weeks at a stretch before he gets rid of one and replaces it with another. I don’t want to be in charge of getting those ugly cars off the street. I don’t want to be the pest control point of contact. I don’t want to be the hole-in-the-wall monitor. Live and let live, right?

*****
So it’s cold and rainy again in the middle of what should be May, but that’s neither here nor there. It was beautiful last weekend, warm and sunny. On Sunday, I walked around my own backyard. I hadn’t done that in a long time. I mean, I sit out there (when it’s warmer than 50 degrees, that is; and when it’s not raining, that is) sometimes, but I seldom just walk around surveying the landscape and examining things. I’m not a gardener. I'm not in charge of maintenance. That’s why I got married.

Anyway, I walked around, looking at the grass and the flowers. We have a six-foot high wooden privacy fence that I don’t particularly like but that came with the house; and the neighbor’s azaleas are growing right through it, making it look like we have a wall of azaleas. It’s lovely, and we didn’t have to do anything--the azaleas just appeared. The azalea neighbors are the neighbors on the other side of my house, the right side as you face our house from the street; and the left as you face the back of our house from the backyard. I don’t know them very well. It’s just as well. I have all that I can do managing the neighbors whom I do know.

In addition to the azalea wall, we also have a few vole holes. As long as the voles remain in their holes and stay out of my house, they won’t have any trouble from me. As I mentioned earlier, live and let live is my policy, even for rodents. Unless, that is, the little motherfuckers cross my threshold. I hope they read my blog, because this is their only warning.

*****

But  I saved the best part for last. That's right, we have some moss now! We planted a redbud tree in 2006, and it’s a lovely tallish shade tree now. We (by which I mean they, meaning my husband and sons) built a little brick-bordered circular bed around its base, where my husband will sometimes plant some annuals and then complain when the rabbits get to them; and the shady strip between the back fence and the circular bed is now covered with a nice even carpet of soft green moss. Maybe I’ll set up a chair back there. Maybe I’ll move my desk there. Maybe I’ll get my husband to build me a hill with a retaining wall at the bottom and a flat, shady patch of quiet at the top. The voles can probably make their way up a hill, but none of the neighbors will ever find me up there.