February 05, 2005
Like Minds
After braving thin ice this morning to capture the nests in the Heron Rookery in Littleton, I returned home to find this email from Adam: "I forgot to mention the observation that had actually prompted me to call as I passed your house yesterday -- how cool the Heron Swamp on Rt. 2 looked, all snowbound and with a heavy overlying fog in the pink/purple setting sun. "
The interesting/disappointing thing is, from Rt. 2, with the added elevation of ten or so feet, the nests are much more impressive than when seen from ground level. I always want to stop and shoot from the side of the road, but there is barely a shoulder and I have visions of getting arrested or erased.
Because I have done this myself.
Diane hiding from the rain in Switzerland.
I had an estimate this morning and I met, in addition to the woman interested in me doing the work, Jazz.
This is the 500th entry.
My friend Mary Mac had a parrot, a gift from a patient’s family to her Dad, the pediatrician. This parrot, whose name was Jake, had a really foul mouth. He could also imitate any sound, like the telephone or Mac’s mother’s voice. Now, Mac’s family lived on the 9th and 10th floors of their apartment building, and while there was an elevator, it was really a pokey old cage of a thing and taking the stairs two at a time was the quickest way from Lobby to 9. I cannot tell you the number of times that damn bird assumed a Scottish brogue and intonation and called out the window, “Maaay-Reeee,” sending Mary and friend (me in the college days) flying up the nine flights only to learn it was Jake calling and not the indomitable Mrs. M whom one dared not ignore.
Parrot stew anyone?
Bravo, Mr. Mike, bravo!!! Most happy quincentenary!!! And we, your loving readership (and occasional contributors) stand gratefully in salute. But it ain't the quantity, it's the amount (if you can parse that frail distinction.........). Which is huge.
Jazz looks a little skeptical, but friendly enough. An excellently-plumaged budgerigar (WAG).
Posted by collaborator.I do that too when I watch an old anything...tv show, movie...looking through old photo albums. Sometimes I'll even say "he's still alive".
Happy 500th. We've all had fun with this.
Posted by me too.I once went into an exotic pet store with La Chica, age 6ish. She wanted a parrot or something like it. I was relieved that the prices were such that clearly we weren't going there, but trying to be polite to the salesman. He bragged something along the lines of "They have the intelligence of a three-year-old, and they live to 40." (My numbers may be off by a factor of 2.) I couldn't think of a worse fate. Even La Chica seemed daunted.
Posted by jennifer.There's my life going by times 500.
If there is no way to preserve this precious memoir, I will have to wonder about the new age.
Oops, I got so distracted by that damn bird that I forgot to say ... You done good with that heron rookery photo. You really think it would be more impressive from the road angle?
Posted by jennifer.Jake reminds me of David Sedaris’s sister’s parrot, the one he describes in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.
“Of all the elements of my sister’s adult life --the house, the husband, the sudden interest in plants--the most unsettling is Henry. Technically he’s a blue-fronted Amazon, but to the average layman, he’s just a big parrot--the type you might see on the shoulder of a pirate.
“How you doing?” The third time he asked, it sounded as if he really cared. I approached his cage with a detailed answer, and when he lunged for the bars, I screamed like a girl and ran out of the room.
**************
“Who’s hungry?” my sister asked.
“Who’s hungry?” the voice repeated.
I raised my hand, and she offered Henry a peanut. Watching him take it in his claw, his belly sagging almost to the perch, I could understand what someone might see in a parrot. Here was this strange little fatso living in my sister’s kitchen, a sympathetic listener turning again and again to ask, “So, really, how are you?”
I’d asked her the same question and she’d said, “Oh, fine. You know.” She’s afraid to tell me anything important, knowing I’ll only turn around and write about it. In my mind, I’m like a friendly junkman, building things from the little pieces of scrap I so casually pick up, and they’re sick of it. More and more often their stories begin with the line, “You have to swear you will never repeat this.” I always promise, but it’s generally understood that my word means nothing.”
----------
That last paragraph has little to do with parrots, but it reminded me, as did Jennifer’s parrot, of me. To reflect a bit more, in the almost two years of the blog’s life, I think I’ve been mostly circumspect about revealing personal details about other people’s lives. I’ve yet to be screamed at by anyone, and that includes Diane, and my for-a-while-there prime target, Matthew. I am, however, somewhat amazed about what I have written about myself. Sometimes I wonder What on earth possessed me to reveal that?
On a more significant note to me are my typos. They are persistent and have gotten noticeably worse. I typically write in the morning before work, and maybe I’m always in too much of a rush, but in the name of all that is good and holy how can I reread a sentence seven times and each time read what I thought I wrote as opposed to what I did write?
The last issue is image size. What size for the main page and what for view larger? I visit Chris and I can’t find them on her twenty-inch screen. I hurry home and make them larger. Mark and Ginger’s monitor, which is small and running a resolution not seen since the first days of the internet, can barely display the small image. I scurry back and make them smaller. Unresolvable, I suppose.
----------
Lastly, yes, I do think the rookery is more impressive from the road. I’m not sure why. My latest guess has to do with seasons. I see it most often from the highway and it’s always a neck-snapper. The morning golden sun reflected upon the water against those hauntingly barren trees topped with upside down Volkswagen Beetle-sized nests, “or with a heavy overlying fog in the pink/purple sun.”
The only season I can get close to nests is the winter when the ice is covered by pure white snow and the trees are framed by crayola blue skies. Those blue skies enhance mountain peaks and about everything else, but they rob the rookery of its post-apocalyptic well-fed vulture story.
Posted by michael."Who's hungry?" We're all hungry, and you feed us well!
Like I can in anyway speak for The Greater Blogship, but we would not bring ourselves to this daily watering hole as personally were you not to write as personally. And I know you've absorbed lots of off-line feedback on the matter and should have some confidence in our confidence in you.
Bigger pictures. Not by much, but heck, that's what scroll bars are for, and besides, none of the 'Ship can afford pixels more than the Newtonian Luddites, so maybe it'll even prompt them to upgrade.
Some fine, atmospheric evening I'll stand by waving the highway flares from the bed of your idling pickup while you take the definitive rookery image on a steady tripod before we race away from the distant sirens for a cold beer and some jazz at The Inn...............
Superb last line. As it should be.
Posted by well fed.I guess I wanted to "rob the rookery of its post-apocalypic well-fed vulture story". The photo you posted is more honest. As are the more interesting-to-me blog entries.
My mother was a writer. There were no blogs to try out stories. Her trial venue was the dinner party. I never accepted "poetic license", but it was also difficult when she captured something real and true of me. Tons of non-physicists have a gut feel for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. (I was going to tell y'all to look it up if you didn't know it -- but then I had to, for the spelling, and discovered the statement of it is such that the connection would not be obvious. I REMEMBERED it as: "you can't observe anything [subatomic particles] closely without changing it.")
Posted by jennifer.As for satisfying everybody with some ideal picture size, I agree that there is no way. Your compromise of a few-dozen K file sizes for the primary picture, with a clickable link to the multi-meg picture is the best that can be done to satisfy the dialup/15-inch guys (like my home self) and the ultra-wideband/21-inch guys (like my work self) simultaneously
The only thing wrong with the heron picture is that there is no sense of scale. How big are those nests, anyway? If your herons are like our sub-tropical Bowie herons, they must be about a foot across. But my first impression was that they are only a few inches wide, but that must be wrong.
Too bad there was no "pink/purple" sky. Sometimes the skyblue blue can be boring.
Posted by Michael at February 5, 2005 09:48 AM
My friend Mary Mac had a parrot, a gift from a patient’s family to her Dad, the pediatrician. This parrot, whose name was Jake, had a really foul mouth. He could also imitate any sound, like the telephone or Mac’s mother’s voice. Now, Mac’s family lived on the 9th and 10th floors of their apartment building, and while there was an elevator, it was really a pokey old cage of a thing and taking the stairs two at a time was the quickest way from Lobby to 9. I cannot tell you the number of times that damn bird assumed a Scottish brogue and intonation and called out the window, “Maaay-Reeee,” sending Mary and friend (me in the college days) flying up the nine flights only to learn it was Jake calling and not the indomitable Mrs. M whom one dared not ignore.
Parrot stew anyone?
Bravo, Mr. Mike, bravo!!! Most happy quincentenary!!! And we, your loving readership (and occasional contributors) stand gratefully in salute. But it ain't the quantity, it's the amount (if you can parse that frail distinction.........). Which is huge.
Jazz looks a little skeptical, but friendly enough. An excellently-plumaged budgerigar (WAG).
Posted by: collaboratorat February 5, 2005 12:48 PMI do that too when I watch an old anything...tv show, movie...looking through old photo albums. Sometimes I'll even say "he's still alive".
Happy 500th. We've all had fun with this.
Posted by: me tooat February 5, 2005 06:30 PMI once went into an exotic pet store with La Chica, age 6ish. She wanted a parrot or something like it. I was relieved that the prices were such that clearly we weren't going there, but trying to be polite to the salesman. He bragged something along the lines of "They have the intelligence of a three-year-old, and they live to 40." (My numbers may be off by a factor of 2.) I couldn't think of a worse fate. Even La Chica seemed daunted.
Posted by: jenniferat February 5, 2005 07:31 PMThere's my life going by times 500.
If there is no way to preserve this precious memoir, I will have to wonder about the new age.
Oops, I got so distracted by that damn bird that I forgot to say ... You done good with that heron rookery photo. You really think it would be more impressive from the road angle?
Posted by: jenniferat February 5, 2005 07:39 PMJake reminds me of David Sedaris’s sister’s parrot, the one he describes in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.
“Of all the elements of my sister’s adult life --the house, the husband, the sudden interest in plants--the most unsettling is Henry. Technically he’s a blue-fronted Amazon, but to the average layman, he’s just a big parrot--the type you might see on the shoulder of a pirate.
“How you doing?” The third time he asked, it sounded as if he really cared. I approached his cage with a detailed answer, and when he lunged for the bars, I screamed like a girl and ran out of the room.
**************
“Who’s hungry?” my sister asked.
“Who’s hungry?” the voice repeated.
I raised my hand, and she offered Henry a peanut. Watching him take it in his claw, his belly sagging almost to the perch, I could understand what someone might see in a parrot. Here was this strange little fatso living in my sister’s kitchen, a sympathetic listener turning again and again to ask, “So, really, how are you?”
I’d asked her the same question and she’d said, “Oh, fine. You know.” She’s afraid to tell me anything important, knowing I’ll only turn around and write about it. In my mind, I’m like a friendly junkman, building things from the little pieces of scrap I so casually pick up, and they’re sick of it. More and more often their stories begin with the line, “You have to swear you will never repeat this.” I always promise, but it’s generally understood that my word means nothing.”
----------
That last paragraph has little to do with parrots, but it reminded me, as did Jennifer’s parrot, of me. To reflect a bit more, in the almost two years of the blog’s life, I think I’ve been mostly circumspect about revealing personal details about other people’s lives. I’ve yet to be screamed at by anyone, and that includes Diane, and my for-a-while-there prime target, Matthew. I am, however, somewhat amazed about what I have written about myself. Sometimes I wonder What on earth possessed me to reveal that?
On a more significant note to me are my typos. They are persistent and have gotten noticeably worse. I typically write in the morning before work, and maybe I’m always in too much of a rush, but in the name of all that is good and holy how can I reread a sentence seven times and each time read what I thought I wrote as opposed to what I did write?
The last issue is image size. What size for the main page and what for view larger? I visit Chris and I can’t find them on her twenty-inch screen. I hurry home and make them larger. Mark and Ginger’s monitor, which is small and running a resolution not seen since the first days of the internet, can barely display the small image. I scurry back and make them smaller. Unresolvable, I suppose.
----------
Lastly, yes, I do think the rookery is more impressive from the road. I’m not sure why. My latest guess has to do with seasons. I see it most often from the highway and it’s always a neck-snapper. The morning golden sun reflected upon the water against those hauntingly barren trees topped with upside down Volkswagen Beetle-sized nests, “or with a heavy overlying fog in the pink/purple sun.”
The only season I can get close to nests is the winter when the ice is covered by pure white snow and the trees are framed by crayola blue skies. Those blue skies enhance mountain peaks and about everything else, but they rob the rookery of its post-apocalyptic well-fed vulture story.
Posted by: michaelat February 6, 2005 09:45 AM"Who's hungry?" We're all hungry, and you feed us well!
Like I can in anyway speak for The Greater Blogship, but we would not bring ourselves to this daily watering hole as personally were you not to write as personally. And I know you've absorbed lots of off-line feedback on the matter and should have some confidence in our confidence in you.
Bigger pictures. Not by much, but heck, that's what scroll bars are for, and besides, none of the 'Ship can afford pixels more than the Newtonian Luddites, so maybe it'll even prompt them to upgrade.
Some fine, atmospheric evening I'll stand by waving the highway flares from the bed of your idling pickup while you take the definitive rookery image on a steady tripod before we race away from the distant sirens for a cold beer and some jazz at The Inn...............
Superb last line. As it should be.
Posted by: well fedat February 6, 2005 09:52 AMI guess I wanted to "rob the rookery of its post-apocalypic well-fed vulture story". The photo you posted is more honest. As are the more interesting-to-me blog entries.
My mother was a writer. There were no blogs to try out stories. Her trial venue was the dinner party. I never accepted "poetic license", but it was also difficult when she captured something real and true of me. Tons of non-physicists have a gut feel for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. (I was going to tell y'all to look it up if you didn't know it -- but then I had to, for the spelling, and discovered the statement of it is such that the connection would not be obvious. I REMEMBERED it as: "you can't observe anything [subatomic particles] closely without changing it.")
Posted by: jenniferat February 6, 2005 08:40 PMAs for satisfying everybody with some ideal picture size, I agree that there is no way. Your compromise of a few-dozen K file sizes for the primary picture, with a clickable link to the multi-meg picture is the best that can be done to satisfy the dialup/15-inch guys (like my home self) and the ultra-wideband/21-inch guys (like my work self) simultaneously
The only thing wrong with the heron picture is that there is no sense of scale. How big are those nests, anyway? If your herons are like our sub-tropical Bowie herons, they must be about a foot across. But my first impression was that they are only a few inches wide, but that must be wrong.
Too bad there was no "pink/purple" sky. Sometimes the skyblue blue can be boring.