beautiful morning

There's a sheen of ice on the edges of the pond behind the house, the first I've seen this season. In January or February, children will play on that pond, slipping and sliding over the ice on sleds and whatever else they can get their hands on. The houses on the other side of the pond are set up higher, on a slight hill, so neighborhood children make a sliding path down that hill and across our tiny waterhole. Sometimes they can slide nearly all the way across the pond before they stop. Right now, though, the hill is dotted with grazing Canadian geese. Many people here hate them because they really can leave a mess behind. (The fowl who foul... sorry. Couldn't help myself.) But I think they are magnificent. Growing up in the Deep South, I never saw these geese unless they were simply flying over. So both the esteemed one and I have taken lots of pictures of them to send home to the families. Geese, the occasional blue heron, lots of ducks, doves... We have some beautiful bird species up here, as well as the usual types seen everywhere.

In Spring we'll have our pugnacious little robin who, thinking he's guarding his territory, will fly against our windows, at his own reflection, until he knocks himself out cold. We've tried everything to keep that poor robin from his self-destructive route, but he seems to ignore the things we stick on the windows. If he can see any part of his reflection, he will pick himself back up and fly full-speed ahead until "WHAM!" The whole house reverberates, and I wonder just how much more the window can take. Surely either the glass or the bird will break.

The geese lack the comic interest of the robin. Like placid cows, they slowly plod around on the grass and eat whatever it is they eat. To be honest, before we moved here, I probably thought they ate fish, but obviously, they don't. The heron eats fish. He's quite a sight as he stands like a sculpture in the shallow reed-filled water and waits. Then suddenly his head plunges downward and almost as quickly, shoots back up. As the fish is being swallowed, the heron's neck contorts in such a way that it resembles a cartoon. Sometimes the fish is sideways, and the long skinny neck is crossed like a T. We actually watched one day as the heron apparently was having some trouble getting his fish swallowed. Wondering to each other whether it was possible to Heimlich a heron, we were relieved when the horizontal fish lump got turned around and headed downward to digestive heaven. (Or hell, depending upon the point of view.)

But my favorite birds are the doves. Sadly, many people here want to have a dove-hunting season. I can't imagine eating these beautiful gentle creatures whose cooing softens many an evening for me. They seem such loving couples, too. I don't know if doves are monogamous the way geese are supposed to be, but we humans could take a lesson from birds in how to treat our families.

Speaking of families--smooth transition, just as I teach my students to do, ha ha--we did talk to both sons last night. Younger Son and wife arrived at Older Son's house in late evening, just in time to chow down on turkey, ham, and all the fixin's. Both my sons love to cook. I don't know why. They obviously inherited the gene from their paternal grandmother because they didn't get it from me. Older Son and Wife have the most complete set of kitchen gadgets of anyone I know. One day, after he finally gets a position as a lawyer and starts making the Big Bucks, they will no doubt seek to buy a house that has a humongous kitchen. The one in their current apartment is big but useless. It's better now that her grandfather made them an elaborate kitchen island, but before, it was a big room with two walls taken up by appliances and only a dab of counter top.

Today is Black Friday, the day when crazy people elbow each other around shopping malls. I plan to remain safely inside my house. I want a death with dignity, not one where the obituary says that I was trampled to death in a stampede toward discount I-pods or, worse yet, crushed in a massive wave of humanity trying to get the very last Razr scooter in stock. They're still playing that video clip from last year when the poor woman at a local Wal-Mart had her wig ripped off her head as thousands raced for cheap laptop computers. No, that is not my preferred one-way ticket outta here. I want to be reading the last page of the last Stephanie Plum novel (by Janet Evanovich) and simply laugh myself to death. Bury me with a huge grin on my face. Okay, so maybe that's not death with dignity, but if I can't live to be 110 and pass away in my sleep while dreaming of being 19 again and having wild and crazy sex, then it's the next best thing. Dr. S.