One Perfect Rose

Hello World, So now even the Ides of May have come and gone, and we find ourselves practically right on the very brink of the holiday weekend, because Memorial Day is so early this year since the 31st is a Saturday. Of course, next weekend would be widely considered the unofficial start of the summer season, which admittedly is a rather difficult concept to rally around, since it's been so cold for so long, and in spite of global warming, even this late in the year, a day over 70 degrees remains an elusive objective. But that hasn't prevented Mother Nature from pulling out all the stops, and giving it all she has in the great outdoors. Last week, Bill and I saw a blue bird in the sycamore that was the bluest blue you can imagine seeing out in the wild - in fact, it was so ridiculously blue that you would think it had to be fake, until it flew away. I've never seen anything like it in my whole life, and certainly not around here, that's for sure. Another unexpected sight and recurring visitor to our bird feeders is a white cardinal, which I realize sounds an awful lot like a very bad oxymoron, and I would not have believed it myself, except that I have seen it numerous times with my very own eyes - and don't forget, I can see a lot better now than I used to. It doesn't seem the least bit skittish, or intimidated, at its lack of proper plumage for its species, and congregates in a companionable manner with the other ordinary cardinals, and no one seems to make any issue of it. (Somewhere in the very back of my last two poor addled brain cells, there's a tiny nagging voice of Dr. Martin Luther Cardinal Jr. and his stirring "I Have a Dream" speech about his children's children not being judged on the color of their feathers, or something like that, I'm pretty sure.) And of course, we already had the bright green parrot-like birds in our yard, which prompted this response from a neighbor: ========================== Those green parrots you saw are probably a part of the flock that has been circling Glen Island for the last 10 years or so. They started as maybe 2 or 3 or 4.....but now number at least 15 or so. They first nested in a tree in Glen Island, but after a few rough winters, they got smart and went to the mainland. They somewhere a little southwest of us I believe. We don't see them in the winter now, but in the summer they come swooping by occasionally. Noisy, but great to see, always. Must have escaped from someplace..... ========================== I also heard from a bird watching colleague that these particular birds (likely Monk Parakeets) although native to Argentina, have nested in such large and boisterous numbers throughout the northeast that they are considered pests by local residents, which even their most ardent supporters can't help but admit. (The experts at The Bronx Zoo, explaining the birds' Population Status & Threats, observed archly: "Common throughout its native range, the monk parakeet is considered a species of least concern.") Ouch! I have to believe that somewhere in the great beyond, Dr. Martin Luther Parakeet Jr. is shaking his head, and I can't say that I blame him one bit. In other news with a local slant, and even more improbably, the plucky Rangers somehow managed to claw their way back from a 1-3 game deficit against the mighty Penguins, force a decisive game 7, and actually win the playoff series to advance to the next round. This outcome was so unexpected (although I thought the grief counselors in the locker room were unnecessarily presumptive) that it was greeted with 6-inch type in the Sports section, like the team had just returned from successfully establishing a space colony on Mars or something else equally unprecedented in the history of mankind. Next up is the Canadiens, who eliminated the Bruins in a tough series of their own, while out in the wild, wild west, it's Chicago against Los Angeles - and all four of the teams with the best records during the regular season (Anaheim, Boston, Colorado and Pittsburgh, all well over 100 points for the year) have already been eliminated by the teams below them, that they lorded it over for 82 games, up until the time when it really counted. In hoops action, it only took the juggernaut that is Miami 5 games to oust the overmatched Nets, which had a somewhat bittersweet inevitability about it, nonetheless. Now it's a battle between Indianapolis and Miami, Oklahoma City and San Antonio, where at this point, the only rule is "Win or Go Home." On the local pinstripe scene, hometown loyalists in both camps were miserably unhappy with the most recent Subway Series, as the Mets won both games at Yankee Stadium, while the Yanks turned it around and won both games at Citi Field, and thanks ever so much not. It's really true about no bragging rights there, since the teams are sporting identical .500 records at 19-19, although it's only fair to point out that the Yanks are at the top of their division, while the Mets are in the basement of theirs and already 3-1/2 games out, and once again, thanks so much not. Somewhere off in the great beyond, Dr. Martin Luther Pinstripe Jr. is pounding his fists on the wall, I shouldn't wonder. In spite of their rigorous efforts to maintain the pin-point accuracy which we continually strive for around here, it must be said that our crack research department (who shall remain nameless, but who look suspiciously like me) have been roundly castigated by any number of alert readers, who very correctly pointed out that it was not, in fact, George Pope Morris who penned the immortal lines, "Shoot if you must this old gray head, but only God can make a tree" (and with apologies to John Greenleaf Whittier and Joyce Kilmer, respectively) as the derisive howls of laughter from our old friends the dinosaurs in the Peanut Gallery would have made plain to just about anybody, I'm sure. Of course, Morris was the brains behind "Woodman, Spare That Tree," which was originally published in 1837 under its original title of "The Oak." It's true that part about "My heart-strings round thee cling" doesn't have the same resonance as the reverberating "Shoot if you must, this old gray head," of the legendary Barbara Frietchie - but then, what does? It obviously struck a nerve, or more likely bedeviled enough schoolchildren, to be (at least half-) remembered to this day. Now here's an interesting idea for an online game, take all the partly remembered lines from fusty poems of yesteryear (shoot if you must, the moving finger writes, water water everywhere, why so pale and wan young lover, in Xanadu did Kubla Khan, into the valley of death rode the 600, fare thee well then Hiawatha, quoth the raven "nevermore") and try to make one epic poem out of it all. Do call me when you get to the spot where the fog comes creeping in on little cat paws, and thanks ever so. And just when we thought it was safe to get back on the roads, Bill and I were driving along last week and spotted a commercial pickup truck with a gigantic QR code on the tailgate, like that makes any sense to anybody, but there it was, big as life. Personally, it seems to me that the whole idea would introduce an entirely new level of distracted driving to our mean streets, thanks not, which are already more than bad enough as it is, heaven knows. All we need on top of every other darned thing is people attempting to capture moving QR codes on the backs of other vehicles while driving, as if the indigenous idiot population didn't already have enough ways of trying to kill themselves as it is, and adding in the disadvantage of high speed mobility to the equation besides - not to mention, the innocent bystanders around them, sucked into the craziness vortex through no fault of their own. I don't know about the rest of you, but frankly, the dinosaurs and I are just about ready to join the late and lamented Dr. Martin Luther QR Jr. in throwing in the proverbial towel and calling it a day, or you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din. Elle