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This week our car got egged. It is the third time it has happened in the last three weeks. No, we didn’t start a feud with Justin Bieber, and he is not skulkily Biebering his way around our neighborhood with a full egg carton in hand. Wait, does Justin Bieber even skulk? After a short lifetime of not subtle, I wonder if he would know how to do so. But, what do I know about him? I can’t even name one of his songs – probably something about “girl, this…and girl, that” – and have forgotten his face, which is now securely replaced in my brain by Kate McKinnon’s hilarious spoof of him on Saturday Night Live. That’s the trouble with loving and being able to recite SNL verbatim since the 70s – my brother and I both growing up with our newling English and clinging intensely to our new TV options after moving from Lima to Los Angeles – some reality goes by the wayside; celebrities are no longer themselves: Gerald Ford is Chevy Chase, Hillary Clinton is Amy Pohler, Sarah Palin is Tina Fey, and most days you cannot help but notice that every room and good situation could benefit from a fine “chandelieahhh.”
One of my frustration-turned-to-humor mottos is: Gravity is a bitch. – this goes as much for architecture and engineering, as for the human body. Life would be a lot cheaper, take away expensive interventions and reinforcements of steel from I-beams to the dreaded underwire bra, if we weren’t constantly at the mercy of these pesky 9.81 m/s2 acting on everything at all times. Gravity’s partners in crime then in this Universal mayhem are water erosion (Say ‘Hello’ to a little feature called the Grand Canyon!) and wind. Wind can be a four-letter word. I think, for instance, about what I now call accidental littering: you didn’t mean for the contents of your pick up truck to end up strewn all over Hwy 5, a Toys-R-Us version of roadkill, but there they are: your son’s red bean bag chair and teddy bear collection, spouting toxic PVC pellets wildly, with the repeated blows of tires from speeding cars, and becoming your own environmental mini mess that your handful of bungee cords could not prevent. Mental note: should have paid more attention in physics class.
Wind was in charge when sadly, Eggmaggedon happened. I realize now, Eggmaggedon happens every spring. There is a stucco ledge under the row of terracotta tiles outside our bedroom window that, for the 19 years that we have been at our little house, seems to be an egg-laying and nursery Mecca for the sparrows of our neighborhood. It is only about six inches in depth but protected from the rain – when we used to have rain in California. The ledge happens to be at a perfect projectile, half-parabola trajectory from our parked car in the driveway. See where I am going with this? So, the unfortunate Gorriones (we use Spanish words for all our fauna around here – from Ardillas to Perros – don’t ask me why. It just is.) have been losing babies every year for the last 5 years. It never used to happen before, and then one spring we noticed the beautiful, papier-mâché-thin, black-speckled white eggs cracked and smashed against the yellow hood of our car. Maybe there is some new, climate change, revved up intensity to the local gusts, but now the Gorrión parents are losing the battle to the wind.
I don’t know why it is so sad to lose a little sparrow egg, knowing that it will not come to fruition. There is something magical and gentle about the little birds and their dainty 3/4"-long eggs, but why the extra care?…this from a society that can easily gobble three eggs per head at any given Sunday brunch. I think it is funny how we have decided that some animal products and animals are OK to eat and how some are just so cute and off-limits. As I touched the remnants of the brittle and ephemeral sparrow egg, I wondered about our contract out on chickens and their eggs. It is as if we have decided that chickens are the skanky cousin of the avian world, too common and too “not adorable” not to eat. But here I was mourning the loss of these little three that would not be, and feeling somehow guilty that the unforgiving surface onto which they had given up their potential at a life was the hard, steel top of our own car’s hood.
Wind was also in charge this Christmas season.
About three decades ago, Jimmy started the tradition of the Beacon in the Night. This started a few years before I knew him; it was a way to have a fun and funky Christmas decoration prominent on the façade of his Victorian flat, with the underlying romantic notion that it would guide his family, visiting from out of town, somehow like the star and the Magi….well, maybe not beckon them from hundreds of miles away, but just be a cute surprise as they were pulling up to the house. The first Beacon in the Night was a Christmas tree decoration, mostly just a light-laden, 2-D depiction. Once we got married and had an apartment of our own, it was time for Beacon in the Night 2.0. That year, 1990, we decided to mount a snowman on the face of the San Francisco fourplex where we lived near Haight Street. I remember the hours it took to punch the 80 holes on the 1/4” white foam core, from which the small light bulbs could peer through as the perimeter that would give the snowman its definition. It was a handcrafted thing of beauty: just good enough for anyone to see, “Oh! A snowman.” and just rough-edged and remedially crafted enough to be endearing.
Years later, now in Berkeley, we had a good run with a brown wicker Rudolph all lit up in white lights that would come out each year and be showcased on our roof. The weather (cue the wind’s aforementioned partner in crime: water) had the best of Rudolph and his wicker grandeur soon disintegrated into a few flaccid twigs. So this year, Jimmy was determined to have the return of the Beacon. He went to a few stores – this was serious decision time – there were texted photos volleying about and then the final find: a great 5-ft snowman at the local hardware store, 50% off, done.
He came home two days before Christmas with the huge box and started assembling Frosty amid the obligatory grumbling and I-don’t-get-these-instructions goings-on, like the Darren McGavin character in Christmas Story, but he got it done and up the ladder onto the roof. Frosty looked marvelous, with the lights and his black top hat. But…wind happens. That evening we heard a big thump somewhere on the roof – not the familiar-to-us palm frond whack! of blustery nights in Berkeley, but a dull thump.
Remember as you read this just how appropriate it will all seem that the Frosty the Snowman song goes, “Thumpity, thump, thump, thumpity, thump!”
To be continued…. [There is a first time for everything!]
80's classic song selection to soothe the fact that I left you with a cliffhanger:
Windpower - by Thomas Dolby
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNyWRyMIdlY
One of my frustration-turned-to-humor mottos is: Gravity is a bitch. – this goes as much for architecture and engineering, as for the human body. Life would be a lot cheaper, take away expensive interventions and reinforcements of steel from I-beams to the dreaded underwire bra, if we weren’t constantly at the mercy of these pesky 9.81 m/s2 acting on everything at all times. Gravity’s partners in crime then in this Universal mayhem are water erosion (Say ‘Hello’ to a little feature called the Grand Canyon!) and wind. Wind can be a four-letter word. I think, for instance, about what I now call accidental littering: you didn’t mean for the contents of your pick up truck to end up strewn all over Hwy 5, a Toys-R-Us version of roadkill, but there they are: your son’s red bean bag chair and teddy bear collection, spouting toxic PVC pellets wildly, with the repeated blows of tires from speeding cars, and becoming your own environmental mini mess that your handful of bungee cords could not prevent. Mental note: should have paid more attention in physics class.
Wind was in charge when sadly, Eggmaggedon happened. I realize now, Eggmaggedon happens every spring. There is a stucco ledge under the row of terracotta tiles outside our bedroom window that, for the 19 years that we have been at our little house, seems to be an egg-laying and nursery Mecca for the sparrows of our neighborhood. It is only about six inches in depth but protected from the rain – when we used to have rain in California. The ledge happens to be at a perfect projectile, half-parabola trajectory from our parked car in the driveway. See where I am going with this? So, the unfortunate Gorriones (we use Spanish words for all our fauna around here – from Ardillas to Perros – don’t ask me why. It just is.) have been losing babies every year for the last 5 years. It never used to happen before, and then one spring we noticed the beautiful, papier-mâché-thin, black-speckled white eggs cracked and smashed against the yellow hood of our car. Maybe there is some new, climate change, revved up intensity to the local gusts, but now the Gorrión parents are losing the battle to the wind.
I don’t know why it is so sad to lose a little sparrow egg, knowing that it will not come to fruition. There is something magical and gentle about the little birds and their dainty 3/4"-long eggs, but why the extra care?…this from a society that can easily gobble three eggs per head at any given Sunday brunch. I think it is funny how we have decided that some animal products and animals are OK to eat and how some are just so cute and off-limits. As I touched the remnants of the brittle and ephemeral sparrow egg, I wondered about our contract out on chickens and their eggs. It is as if we have decided that chickens are the skanky cousin of the avian world, too common and too “not adorable” not to eat. But here I was mourning the loss of these little three that would not be, and feeling somehow guilty that the unforgiving surface onto which they had given up their potential at a life was the hard, steel top of our own car’s hood.
Wind was also in charge this Christmas season.
About three decades ago, Jimmy started the tradition of the Beacon in the Night. This started a few years before I knew him; it was a way to have a fun and funky Christmas decoration prominent on the façade of his Victorian flat, with the underlying romantic notion that it would guide his family, visiting from out of town, somehow like the star and the Magi….well, maybe not beckon them from hundreds of miles away, but just be a cute surprise as they were pulling up to the house. The first Beacon in the Night was a Christmas tree decoration, mostly just a light-laden, 2-D depiction. Once we got married and had an apartment of our own, it was time for Beacon in the Night 2.0. That year, 1990, we decided to mount a snowman on the face of the San Francisco fourplex where we lived near Haight Street. I remember the hours it took to punch the 80 holes on the 1/4” white foam core, from which the small light bulbs could peer through as the perimeter that would give the snowman its definition. It was a handcrafted thing of beauty: just good enough for anyone to see, “Oh! A snowman.” and just rough-edged and remedially crafted enough to be endearing.
Years later, now in Berkeley, we had a good run with a brown wicker Rudolph all lit up in white lights that would come out each year and be showcased on our roof. The weather (cue the wind’s aforementioned partner in crime: water) had the best of Rudolph and his wicker grandeur soon disintegrated into a few flaccid twigs. So this year, Jimmy was determined to have the return of the Beacon. He went to a few stores – this was serious decision time – there were texted photos volleying about and then the final find: a great 5-ft snowman at the local hardware store, 50% off, done.
He came home two days before Christmas with the huge box and started assembling Frosty amid the obligatory grumbling and I-don’t-get-these-instructions goings-on, like the Darren McGavin character in Christmas Story, but he got it done and up the ladder onto the roof. Frosty looked marvelous, with the lights and his black top hat. But…wind happens. That evening we heard a big thump somewhere on the roof – not the familiar-to-us palm frond whack! of blustery nights in Berkeley, but a dull thump.
Remember as you read this just how appropriate it will all seem that the Frosty the Snowman song goes, “Thumpity, thump, thump, thumpity, thump!”
To be continued…. [There is a first time for everything!]
80's classic song selection to soothe the fact that I left you with a cliffhanger:
Windpower - by Thomas Dolby
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNyWRyMIdlY