Sounds of Spring

I took Theo to the park on Thursday morning and the river, which is low, was absolutely still, so I took this picture. In an interesting note on Blogger, I'm posting this on Saturday, March 18 but I did start writing it yesterday, which would account for the date & time stamp. Hmmm. Ah well.

I am probably insane, but the birds around here are talking. I don't know whether it's one of those functions of the odd human brain, like the one that makes you see the man in the moon or think that a particular cloud is shaped like a horse, or Satan, or a cow, or, let's be honest, a penis, but when the birds wake me up at 6:00 am or so, I hear their comments in plain American English. They're not great conversationalists; in fact, they're repetitive as hell, since they say the same phrase over and over. There's one bird who says Right ch'ere! like a Brooklyn native, or at least an enthusiastic Brooklyn transplant, and there's one who says. . .

Well. I wrote that yesterday and went outside to listen to the birds and they refused to say anything and somehow, I can't remember what they usually say in the morning, even though I know that I've heard them say stuff like Robert DeNiro! and so on, but over the past 24 hours, nothing. So this post is fairly worthless, ah well.

There are other sounds of spring, though, and they're centered around young M (he who shall not be blogged about) who is back from his school's 3 week field trip, in which he visited Tennessee & Kentucky & West Virginia & Pennsylvania and, last and apparently best, Assateague Island, where a pony stole an apple out of his hand and, as he said, "I was just about to wrangle a deer when this teacher stopped me." He came home on Thursday night, bedecked with beads and a green head piece with sequins that says Irish! on the antennae and said he was rediscovering his Irish heritage and wanted to listen to the Pogues and dye his hair green. And paint himself blue, which he always wants to do, even though it is a Pictish tradition and we are not, so far as I know, Picts. All we have is purple hair dye, alas, and while he was up for purple, he balked at the hour it would take. So M is home and he and A have been chasing each other around the house with pillows and I am happy in the middle of the chaos. I even made corned beef & potatos & cabbage & carrots - that heinous traditional boiled dinner - and it was good. Well, maybe good is too strong a word. Edible. Comforting. And leaving of pink blobs of gruesome fat on the plate with which one can taunt a sibling.