BirdBrain

Perhaps for the blog — or just you guys…

We had a great Parents Day visit with Chris. Because of all the rain, our focus was on talking and eating. But of all the many things one expects to hear from our son, this was one was a surprise… in the midst of talking about his dorm, the kids, his friends, he says mentions that he’s worried about Halloween. Why? “Oh, didn’t I tell you? My room is haunted”….

Check the list of “haunted places in Massachusetts”and here’s the story:

Springfield – Western New England College – Berkshire Hall – Room 401, the students feel that when they are getting up they cannot, like some force is holding them down. Supposedly a former student had hung himself in the room upon hearing that his girlfriend had broken up with him. The students also wake up with sound of broken glass.

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I’m tagging along on BirdBrain’s post. From this weekend:

“Matt, check out my new shirt. It only cost four dollars.”

“Dad, It’s ugly. And it doesn’t have one ugly color, it has six.”

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Got my teeth cleaned today. Andrea, the hygienist, on her way to the tooth she wanted to x-ray, was diverted by the molar I’d broken.

“Eeew, when did you do that?”

“A few months ago.”

“Was it sharp?”

“It was.”

“It was?”

“I filed it down.”

“You filed it down? What did you use.”

“Somethin’ from my shop.”

“Like you use on wood?”

“Or maybe it was the file that comes with nail clippers. I can’t remember which.”

White Rabbit

Hurt

Mike,

For the last few years I’ve been noticing changes in the freeway sound barriers in Maryland. They seem to be gathering foliage at a much faster rate than they used to. Can this be a harbinger of climate change? Botanists say that Kudzu and Creeping Charlie and some other vines are growing 2 or 3 times as fast as they used to because of increased CO2 in the air. (This has been proven by growing the vines in sealed greenhouses under controlled conditions with varied CO2 concentrations.)

But here in the mid-Atlantic, the advance of Kudzu and its cousins is not an unmitigated curse. The sound barriers on the highway to Annapolis and on the Washington Beltway look quite nice with all the greenery draped over them. And in late October and early November, their autumn colors are quite fetching. For quite a while I’ve been trying to get some photos of the better examples of colorful freeway foliage. It’s difficult to find a time of day when you can stand in a freeway and shoot a picture of the walls. But yesterday, early Sunday morning, I had some good luck getting shots.

Freeway Art

The walls where you can see these organic murals are in downtown Bowie, where the city fathers just last year erected some sound barriers around Annapolis Road. On the back side of these walls, the homeowners must have some colorful scenes much like these, but I haven’t climbed over to look.

The wild colorations of these vines must not even exist further south like South Carolina and Florida, where autumn is just a later part of summer, and perhaps the same vines don’t even inhabit New England, where fall colors are best. But as time wears on, and CO2 increases, Maryland may become part of the deep south, and the fall colors of freeway walls will disappear. New Jersey, then New York will get the vines and the colors. And inevitably, I think, New England will be invaded too. Then will the maples fade away?

-rakkity