Okay, technically turkey vultures, but we called them buzzards growing up. They'd circle the thermals out in the country, waiting for something to die. Since they're vultures they're carrion birds which means they eat dead animals, but you knew that. In the mornings in West Texas, where they have to roost on the ground, you can see them standing on fence posts with their wings outstretched to dry so they can begin the day's scavenging. They're big too, like two or three feet tall. And stink... whoo boy. They're all over the countryside around Texas.
And now, evidently, they're operating well within the San Antonio city limits.
Time was you knew you were in the country when you started seeing buzzards. Last week I saw two of them perched on a lamp post near my house, and just today I saw two perched on a lamp post near my mother's house. Two different sets of buzzards, lurking in suburban neighborhoods.
Unless they were the same two buzzards both times, stalking me as they wait for me to keel over from the heat...
Ignoring my paranoid conspiracies, I don't think having turkey vultures in town is a good thing. Aside from them being terribly ugly and not at all in keeping with the non-Gothic architecture, vultures are country birds, they don't belong on lamp posts. And yet, there they are, like Beaky Buzzard* in Death Valley.
Why?
What has changed to bring turkey vultures into the city? And I don't mean on the fringes, I mean smack dab in the middle, with miles to go in any direction before they find what used to be their natural habitat.
Kind of scary, if you think about it. I don't mean in my paranoid 'are the buzzards following me?' kind of way, I mean in the 'why did a species of wild animal change its habits so drastically?' way.
Besides, they creep me out, hanging around like my street is some kind of Old West Boot Hill. They need to go find a dead armadillo or something and leave me the hell alone.
*reference courtesy of the Warner Bros Archive of Cartoons Kids Don't Watch Nowadays
Showing posts with label pecans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pecans. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Sunday, November 7, 2010
If A Tree Falls On El Molino...
A tree fell over in my neighborhood today.
We're not having any violent weather, no rain, no fire, no wind, no nothing. Nobody hit it with a car or took a chainsaw to it until well after it had toppled. One minute it was standing tall and the next it just... fell over.
I happened to walk right past that tree on my way home from the gym not an hour before its demise. I've passed by this tree on foot several times a week for years now, with never a second thought as to its sturdiness or fortitude. It's a tree, for God's sake, it's a landmark, an ecosystem unto itself. As a matter of fact, a little dog was taking a leak on that exact tree as I walked by.
Must have been one serious whiz.
But as I watched the city workers carve it into little chunks small enough to fit into the wood chipper, I got to thinking. There is no constant in the world but change, after all, and when a neighborhood tree just pitches into the street you'd better take notice. Is this a metaphor I need to pay attention to? Is this some sort of message that the pillars of my identity are built on an unsturdy base? Am I that tree, purportedly strong yet fragile enough to collapse under my own weight? (no fat jokes, please) Is everything I am and everything I thought I would become - the branching of my own life from acorn to oak - rotten inside? Do I need to delve into myself and re-invent who and what I am before my proud canopy lies ignominiously in a metaphorical street?
Or is it just a freakin' tree?
I'm voting for number two. But I might start taking personal stock. Just in case.
We're not having any violent weather, no rain, no fire, no wind, no nothing. Nobody hit it with a car or took a chainsaw to it until well after it had toppled. One minute it was standing tall and the next it just... fell over.
I happened to walk right past that tree on my way home from the gym not an hour before its demise. I've passed by this tree on foot several times a week for years now, with never a second thought as to its sturdiness or fortitude. It's a tree, for God's sake, it's a landmark, an ecosystem unto itself. As a matter of fact, a little dog was taking a leak on that exact tree as I walked by.
Must have been one serious whiz.
But as I watched the city workers carve it into little chunks small enough to fit into the wood chipper, I got to thinking. There is no constant in the world but change, after all, and when a neighborhood tree just pitches into the street you'd better take notice. Is this a metaphor I need to pay attention to? Is this some sort of message that the pillars of my identity are built on an unsturdy base? Am I that tree, purportedly strong yet fragile enough to collapse under my own weight? (no fat jokes, please) Is everything I am and everything I thought I would become - the branching of my own life from acorn to oak - rotten inside? Do I need to delve into myself and re-invent who and what I am before my proud canopy lies ignominiously in a metaphorical street?
Or is it just a freakin' tree?
I'm voting for number two. But I might start taking personal stock. Just in case.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Copper Tastes Bad
Over the past three days plumbers have replaced the hot and cold water pipes in my building. Aside from the plaster bits on my bathroom floor and the long sheets of plastic lining my carpet, the plumbers left something else.
Really, really, really gross tasting water.
Fresh copper pipes make water taste horrible. Awful, like blood when you bite the inside of your mouth. Just nasty, or, as my sister used to say in high school, 'rasty.'*
I don't know what to do, that's the sink where I brush my teeth. I rinse my mouth out there, and I don't want to go to sleep with coppery-fresh breath. So I'm thinking I need to go get a supply of Perrier and swish with that for a while, until the new copper gets a sheen of mineral slime on the inside and it stops tasting horrible.
You know... there are times I'm really thankful that the most I have to worry about is that my bathroom water tastes bad. I could be living in Somalia or Afghanistan or some other place where the best water is the one with least amount of parasites and a safe home is a distant memory.
Maybe I'm just gonna drink the damned copper water and count my blessings.
* Really nASTY
Really, really, really gross tasting water.
Fresh copper pipes make water taste horrible. Awful, like blood when you bite the inside of your mouth. Just nasty, or, as my sister used to say in high school, 'rasty.'*
I don't know what to do, that's the sink where I brush my teeth. I rinse my mouth out there, and I don't want to go to sleep with coppery-fresh breath. So I'm thinking I need to go get a supply of Perrier and swish with that for a while, until the new copper gets a sheen of mineral slime on the inside and it stops tasting horrible.
You know... there are times I'm really thankful that the most I have to worry about is that my bathroom water tastes bad. I could be living in Somalia or Afghanistan or some other place where the best water is the one with least amount of parasites and a safe home is a distant memory.
Maybe I'm just gonna drink the damned copper water and count my blessings.
* Really nASTY
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
They Tried To Make Me Go To Rehab
I've given up bread for a while. Complex carbohydrates, that is, bread and crackers and corn and potatoes and what not. It's been a week, and I'm doing okay, I've only fallen off the wagon a little bit and then I hopped right back on. I'm doing it to see if I can lose some weight, and to increase the amount of vegetables in my diet. And, truth to tell, Drew Cary lost 70 pounds doing the same thing. I don't have 70 pounds to lose, but it's worth a shot.
It's a challenge. I feel like a junkie, jonesing for a slice of pizza. Or a cracker, for God's sake. I didn't know I ate so much starch, honestly. I knew I ate too many sweets, but chips and pretzels and sandwiches and pita bread... too much.
I was in the grocery store today, getting bananas, carrots, cherries, and fruit juice. Like a hippie. And I picked up a pack of peanut M&Ms. No wheat in that, right? I was an addict, substituting the fix at hand for my regular drug of choice.
If I'd had a beehive hairdo I could have been a portly Amy Winehouse. I walked around the grocery store for a good five minutes with that pack of M&M's, and then I 'happened by' the fresh-made pizza section. The chocolate-covered peanuts were the devil on my left shoulder, tempting me to completely give up my week-long attempt to drop some poundage. Summoning up my reserves of willpower I put the delicious, oh-so chocolately morsels on the shelf next to the pizza.
Score one for me. I've replaced my toast and butter with green beans, at least for the next few weeks. I actually do feel a little more alert, but that could be the DTs from not having flour in my system.
If you see me with a doughnut in my hands, feel free to slap me. Or at least feel free to try.
It's a challenge. I feel like a junkie, jonesing for a slice of pizza. Or a cracker, for God's sake. I didn't know I ate so much starch, honestly. I knew I ate too many sweets, but chips and pretzels and sandwiches and pita bread... too much.
I was in the grocery store today, getting bananas, carrots, cherries, and fruit juice. Like a hippie. And I picked up a pack of peanut M&Ms. No wheat in that, right? I was an addict, substituting the fix at hand for my regular drug of choice.
If I'd had a beehive hairdo I could have been a portly Amy Winehouse. I walked around the grocery store for a good five minutes with that pack of M&M's, and then I 'happened by' the fresh-made pizza section. The chocolate-covered peanuts were the devil on my left shoulder, tempting me to completely give up my week-long attempt to drop some poundage. Summoning up my reserves of willpower I put the delicious, oh-so chocolately morsels on the shelf next to the pizza.
Score one for me. I've replaced my toast and butter with green beans, at least for the next few weeks. I actually do feel a little more alert, but that could be the DTs from not having flour in my system.
If you see me with a doughnut in my hands, feel free to slap me. Or at least feel free to try.
Friday, September 4, 2009
How Hard Is It To Scan Groceries?
I'll be the first to admit it, I have a bit of free time being 'between assignments.' But that time is my own, and I guard every little bit of it jealously. I look for jobs (yes, I really do), I write, I work out, I do a bit of design work in Adobe Illustrator, I try to keep busy. If I wanted to learn a new skill, believe me, I'd be able to devote as many hours to it as it would take to master.
This is the long way around to saying that I really don't want to spend my time figuring out how to run the 'Self Service' machines at the grocery store. My local Von's has a bunch of these things, and when I'm shopping somebody comes over the intercom every five minutes or so, really pushing people to do their own labor. They kind of lay on a guilt trip, saying 'no waiting at the self-service, you should try it,' or 'regular checkout is full, but self-service is available,' that kind of stuff. Like your lonely grandmother worked there or something.
Seriously, if I wanted to be a grocery store clerk I'd join the freakin' union and wear an apron and a nametag. I want to pick out my groceries, wheel my cart to the front of the store, and make awkward conversation with someone while they silently judge my eating habits. Then I want some high-school student to put all my canned goods on top of my carton of eggs and roll his eyes when I tell him to re-do it.
I don't ask the grocery store clerks to fill out my unemployment form for me, why are they asking me to scan and bag my own stuff?
I definitely feel a cranky old-man tirade coming on...
This is the long way around to saying that I really don't want to spend my time figuring out how to run the 'Self Service' machines at the grocery store. My local Von's has a bunch of these things, and when I'm shopping somebody comes over the intercom every five minutes or so, really pushing people to do their own labor. They kind of lay on a guilt trip, saying 'no waiting at the self-service, you should try it,' or 'regular checkout is full, but self-service is available,' that kind of stuff. Like your lonely grandmother worked there or something.
Seriously, if I wanted to be a grocery store clerk I'd join the freakin' union and wear an apron and a nametag. I want to pick out my groceries, wheel my cart to the front of the store, and make awkward conversation with someone while they silently judge my eating habits. Then I want some high-school student to put all my canned goods on top of my carton of eggs and roll his eyes when I tell him to re-do it.
I don't ask the grocery store clerks to fill out my unemployment form for me, why are they asking me to scan and bag my own stuff?
I definitely feel a cranky old-man tirade coming on...
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Sun's Out, Guns Out
One of my friends took me to a gun show yesterday. Not my first time, I've been to my share of questionable events, but certainly my first gun show since moving away from Texas years ago.
I gotta say, I missed the atmosphere. Definitely not the Algonquin Round Table, but there is a certain poetry in hobbyists - gun nuts, right-wing crazies, call them what you will - indulging in their passion. I'd nearly forgotten how familiar an afternoon at the Joe and Harry Freeman Coliseum with the 'from my cold, dead hands' crowd can be.
You have your cranky old coots... lots of them. And with them the intolerant bumper stickers, the grousing conversations about how the country isn't going the way Rush Limbaugh thinks it should, overheard remarks about prostates in various states of disrepair, etc. You have the rednecks looking for a good hunting rifle, you have the rednecks looking for a rocket launcher. You have the occassional black man. You have the 'not a gang member' young Hispanic guys trying to spot the undercover cops in the crowd and not realizing I can understand the bad Spanglish they're speaking. You have the for-real historical gun hobbyists, who know waaaaaaay too much about the provenance of the their WWI Browning rifles. And there's the patch guy, the ammo guy, the taxidermist, and - best of all - the candied pecan vendor.
Along with the enormous pickup trucks in the parking lot, this was a really good welcome home. It'll make me think twice next time I decide to have tofu back in SoCal. Don't want to stray too far from my roots.
I gotta say, I missed the atmosphere. Definitely not the Algonquin Round Table, but there is a certain poetry in hobbyists - gun nuts, right-wing crazies, call them what you will - indulging in their passion. I'd nearly forgotten how familiar an afternoon at the Joe and Harry Freeman Coliseum with the 'from my cold, dead hands' crowd can be.
You have your cranky old coots... lots of them. And with them the intolerant bumper stickers, the grousing conversations about how the country isn't going the way Rush Limbaugh thinks it should, overheard remarks about prostates in various states of disrepair, etc. You have the rednecks looking for a good hunting rifle, you have the rednecks looking for a rocket launcher. You have the occassional black man. You have the 'not a gang member' young Hispanic guys trying to spot the undercover cops in the crowd and not realizing I can understand the bad Spanglish they're speaking. You have the for-real historical gun hobbyists, who know waaaaaaay too much about the provenance of the their WWI Browning rifles. And there's the patch guy, the ammo guy, the taxidermist, and - best of all - the candied pecan vendor.
Along with the enormous pickup trucks in the parking lot, this was a really good welcome home. It'll make me think twice next time I decide to have tofu back in SoCal. Don't want to stray too far from my roots.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
