I’ve decided to write about my coots.

Anyone not interested in birds should probably just go and play Wordle or Call of Duty, because this might be lengthy and detailed.

 

Coots are a type of water bird. My coots are not really coots. They are cousins to coots. Actually, they are gallinules, also called moorhens. But the word “gallinule” doesn't flow easily over the tongue, and “moorhen” makes them sound too folksy. So I call them “coots.”  Coots actually have a yellow beak, while my gallinules have bright red beaks with a yellow tip.  Both coots and gallinules have a black body with thin, white streaks along the side and white streaks along the tail feathers. They are about the size of ducks, but are a very different species. The feet of coots/moorhens are interesting, not webbed and duck-like, but with long thin toes that allow them to balance easily on matted marsh grass and other debris lying along the banks of small bodies of water.

 

Gallinules are shy birds. They seem to think humans are out to get them, and will quickly skitter away if you wander into their feeding ground. They are not hostile, however. They will occupy the same lake area with a group of ducks, ibis or a heron or two, without much conflict. I know this because I have been observing the habits and reproductive cycle of a number of gallinules over the past five years.

 

I live on a small lake, and I feed the local birds. It started with a hanging bird feeder, but then I noticed the ducks and other water birds would gather around the bottom of the feeder that is set near the water’s edge. They were there to catch the drop-off of seed that other birds scattered when feeding. This led to my scattering a bit of extra seed on the grass for them. Now, the water birds are waiting for me on the lawn at the same time each day when I come home from work. A black crow has joined them in the waiting game. And a number of mourning doves. Other birds fly in periodically to the feeder, but the water birds have made it a real communal dinner event.

 

Coots (gallinules) will take a mate and build a nest in a clump of reeds at the water’s edge. There, the female will lay eggs and disappear for a while. The mate will continue to feed along the banks of the lake. If any bird or human approaches the site of the nest, the male will come swooping in, low over the water from wherever he was, making a total racket with his disturbed birdcalls. Some week after noticing the male in his lone feeding forays, the babies arrive.

 

Gallinules are very good parents.  They will zealously guard the nest for some time after the babies arrive. Eventually, the babies are brought out of the nest by the mother, who will feed with them on the seed I scattered over the lawn. These babies are identical to their parents, even down to the red beak with yellow tip--a perfect miniature. However, as they grow larger, the distinct coloring fades to a mottled brown/gray with blackish beaks. This is their adolescent phase, I guess. It takes quite a while before they develop the black body with white streaking the adults sport. And it takes even longer for their red beaks with white tips to appear.

 

Generally, there are about 6 babies in a brood. As time passes, fewer show up with the mom. Occasionally, when I’m sitting indoors, I hear a loud, extremely distressed call, which I assume is the mother mourning the loss of one of her brood. As a human mom, this is extremely upsetting to hear. But the momma coot carries on, teaching her remaining babies what to eat, where to find it and what to be careful of. Usually, only one or two babies remain at the end of the infancy period to become adolescents. These adolescents often help tend the babies of the following brood, which I assume gives them a better chance at survival.

 

One of the dangers, my tiny coot babies face is predation from hawks. These hawks will sit in trees near the lake or on rooftops, surveying what’s available for prey below. I do not tolerate hawks on or near my property—because of the coot babies--and they are quickly chased away. But I suspect the hawks take quite a few of the coot babies when I’m not on duty, though I have never actually seen this occur.

 

Currently, I have three coots remaining in my yard, which appear to be the grown babies and one of the parents. A new coot/gallinule showed up, out of the blue, and attached itself to this core group. It is quite large and has a rather aggressive attitude compared to the other birds, always pecking them out of the way he wants to feed.  I assume he is male because of his size and attitude. His personality is different enough from the other coots that I am sure he is a newcomer. His ensures some fresh coot genetic material coming online, which I am happy about. I as yet have no sign of new babies in the works. But I’m looking forward to enjoying the cycle all over again, even though it has its joys and sorrows.

 

Nature is red in tooth and claw, so if you’re the squeamish type, you have no business being up close to it. Still, I'm grateful I have this opportunity to observe the Life of Coots, generation after generation, right here in my backyard--though they aren’t actually coots, they are gallinules.

 

And they are spectacular.

Rome


So I took a trip to Rome this year, actually one of those package group tours of three cities--Venice, Florence and Rome.  Husband wanted to see the Coliseum, and I wanted to see Florence, the birthplace of Renaissance art, and a medieval city known for its architecture and history. And the "Floating City" of Venice, well, we couldn't quite even imagine it properly, despite all the videos we watched. I really didn’t know what to expect from Rome, a big city--and I'm not particularly fond of big cities, preferring quieter, more intimate communities and natural settings.


But Rome did not disappoint.


You may have heard Rome is a sprawling city, with mad traffic, constant noise and exuberant residents. All of this is true. But Rome is also a clean, well-organized and worldly city. It is no stranger to—well--strangers. Probably from its earliest days as the center of the Roman Empire, the city has absorbed captured slaves from faraway lands, traders, clerics, pilgrims, mercenaries and diplomatic emissaries. Everyone came to Rome, and everyone still comes to Rome. The city’s residents are not unnerved by unfamiliar clothing, faces and habits. You will barely get a blink. Maybe it is this history that makes every individual feel so comfortable in Rome. Rome is also a bustling place. There’s plenty of commercial and financial activity going on in Rome, and people are engaged in going about their business. It’s a prosperous place and can afford to cast an amiable eye on anyone who comes to visit.


Rome knows what it is. The city has a fundamental confidence in itself--as someplace with a long history, and with ruins sitting right in plain sight, mixed in with all the conveniences of a modern society, would be expected to have. It views the millions of visitors that come to the city with the same calm assurance, “Yes, we are, in fact, that old…we’re old hands at this whole civilization thing…you're certainly welcome to learn from all we’re experienced.”


Rome is dazzling. From the illuminated Trevi Fountain to the imposing ruin of the Colosseum. From the cobbled streets and the bone-jarring cab rides to the wine sipping at the sidewalk cafes. From the shops and restaurants and museums. You cannot have a bad time in Rome—it just doesn’t fit. You must be doing something very wrong. You will be met with throngs of people from all over the world, but you will also mix with the stylish young Romans, the multi-generational families, the distracted businesspeople, the everyday workers, clearly willing to do all they can to make your visit a pleasant one. This is Rome—and you will enjoy every layer of it.


We got what we came for—and more—because Italy never disappoints and always adds more than you expect. I’m not on their tourism payroll, but I should be, because I go on for hours about the experiences people can enjoy there. If you haven’t been, go. If you have been, go again. This is a destination that welcomes you with open arms and a wealth of experiences.

Three Days in a Hurricane Shelter

I live in Florida, but hail from Chicago, so the contrast between living in the two areas of the country is very stark to me. The experience of having to periodically run for my life from hurricanes has become a reality. As I scurried about, preparing for Hurricane Irma, it struck me that friends and relatives who were calling with their concerns, never participated in this tradition that is a regular feature of life in southern, coastal areas. Here, we begin our seasonal preparations every June as naturally as breathing--stockpiling batteries, canned goods and water, testing radios, bringing in outdoor furniture, checking shutters. We spent Hurricane Charley huddled in our walk-in closet back in 2004, so I felt we have some experience under our belts and had a certain confidence about the year’s series of storms as they rolled across the Atlantic. However, this year’s hurricane season brought Irma and a new experience—the stay in a local hurricane shelter—and, given the series of hurricanes in the news, I thought I should relate what it’s like for people who deal with hurricanes on a regular basis.

Hurricane shelters are local buildings that have been deemed appropriate for housing large numbers of members of the community during times of severe weather. It’s hard to describe the kind of damage 130 mph winds can do to homes, businesses, roads and utilities in a community. You’ve seen the pictures— in your imagination, just put your whole life and all you cherish in the middle of those images. Hurricane Harvey had hit the Houston area a few weeks before, and the images were very fresh for us. When Hurricane Irma suddenly changed course and headed toward my home city (we joked news stations may as well have mentioned our home address on weather reports), we got scared. We considered hitting the road for a safer area, but Irma covered the entire state, and hotels well into Georgia and Atlanta were already booked with evacuees from the coming storm. So, we headed to our local hurricane shelter.

Day One:  Our shelter, one that took pets to accommodate our little Chihuahua mix, Bella, was a huge and relatively new high school. We stood in line for some time to “check in,” to have our names and our dog registered and to receive our identifying wristbands. Police personnel were there to check IDs against their database. We had our blankets, pillows, food and water, as recommended. We set up our little encampment in a well-lighted hallway on the second floor. And we waited, safe and secure, for the hurricane to roll in.

Day Two: The high school was built to serve about 2,000 students. It was expected to hold about 3,000 evacuees. Scared, last-minute stragglers ballooned this figure to 4,000. About 500 pets were sheltered in a separate part of the building. By the time the hurricane actually hit on Sunday afternoon, there were people lined along the hallways and filling the auditorium, with carefully cleared “walkways” between blanketed homesteads. All types of people were there, older white people, young black families, Hispanic extended family groups—everyone was there, from the tiniest newborns to most fragile elders. There was not a ripple of discord, because we were all sheltered against the storm—an exterior danger that made us all more tolerant of more adjacent irritations. There were volunteer helpers to answer questions and fire department medical personnel for health emergencies. Babies napped, older gentlemen followed the hurricane track on their phones, children connected to others and played companionably. Shelter authorities provided basic meals three times each day and gave weather updates over the public address system. People slept fitfully during the night, but they slept, stumbling at various hours in the morning to the school bathrooms to brush their teeth and make themselves presentable in this unusual situation.

Day Three: Evacuees read, did puzzles, talked of past hurricanes, listened to music on their phones or watched streamed weather reports. People collected at the glass-enclosed entryway and at windows to watch the storm pass over. Trees bent, and the rain pounded. It came and went uneventfully for us. At no time did any of us feel threatened. The lights stayed on, and the air-conditioning continued to run. A curfew was in effect, so no one could leave even after the worst of the storm was over. We settled in for our last night as a refugee community, with a sense of relief and some anxiety about what we would find when we returned to our homes.

All in all, our time as shelterers from the storm was enlightening. If you ever wonder if our public educational facilities are truly necessary, a time like this helps you understand they are more than just buildings for education—they are centers of the community. They provide a location—and an organizational structure—for many important services. Secondly, you learn that people really are all alike. They love their families, they have certain basic physical requirements, they respond emotionally in a uniform manner. Thirdly, you understand how much we all need each other. The concept of “self reliance” is an illusion—and always has been—in the face of nature’s power. And finally, we should all remember we all live on the edge of a knife. Our technology can disappear abruptly, the flow of fresh water can stop in an instant, our homes can evaporate, medical care can be entirely absent. Those who live in hurricane-prone areas understand this on a visceral level.

I hope I don’t have to do this too many times in the future, but I would not have missed this experience for the world. It brought us back to a primal level of human connection.

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Thoughts On Buying A New Car

I had to buy a new car. I don’t know how it is for everyone else, but the entire process of changing vehicles is a huge and difficult passage for me. I am madly attached to my vehicle, regardless of how much trouble it gives to me in its later years. My car is like my favorite pair of comfortable shoes—it has carried me through many an experience. It sat with me in cheesy motel parking lots on road trips. It helped carry my loved ones to hospital emergency rooms. It ushered me to concerts, summer festivals, family reunions, wedding receptions and school events. It also joined in a number of somber funeral processions. My car is like a witness to my life. And letting go of it is like saying goodbye to an old friend—fraught with sadness, anxiety and uncertainty about what comes next.

Another anxiety-producing event was removing all my personal effects from my old car. And since I had the car for such a long time, it turned out to be a time capsule of all the intervening years. Repair receipts, old parking slips, theater stubs, reward cards from stores, favorite CDs, small cologne containers, half-rolls of Tums, a pepper spray, spare tissues. The things we keep in our cars to make us comfortable are very telling. Some people keep guns in their glove compartments. Some people keep emergency snacks. You probably keep something in your glove box you’d rather people not know about. The collection makes one think of George Carlin’s old comedy routine about “stuff,” whittling down your personal “stuff” into smaller and smaller bits to carry along with you as you go about your life. Your car carries a micro-supply of “stuff” you feel you need as you travel down the road. 

Then, there’s the issue of choosing a new car. I don’t need to tell you that buying a new car is a major expense. Payment for a car has to be carefully structured into your household budget or disaster ensues. The price of a new car is often at great odds with what you would like. Your final choice is often a significantly scaled-down version of what you first hoped to have. On top of that, so many of the car models look remarkably similar—it almost doesn’t matter what make of car you like. You may as well go for the cost and whatever consumer rating companies recommend—unless you are willing to spend the amounts needed for a truly remarkable vehicle. I’m not. My car will always be a method of getting me from here to there. It is not an expression or gratification of my ego. I’d rather spend the money on clothes. Or a vacation. Or new carpeting for my home, which my dogs always destroy in one way or another.

The current trend toward loading the car with all sorts of electronics is disturbing for some of us purist car drivers. I don’t know how many electronic views I’m going to need for backing up—one seems sufficient. And having everything “syncing up” with my phone seems unnecessary, or even reckless. I’m certain I will not be using about 50 percent of the features on the car. I’m not sure if these features are adding to the cost of vehicles. Maybe they are so cheap to produce, they just throw them in. But I don’t really think people find them necessary—or even helpful. But hey—thanks for including them, I guess. And another thing, all these features make reading the owner’s manual a laborious task that takes up too much of my free time.

The process of negotiating the price of the car seems to have been cleaned up a bit from previous eras. You no longer feel like you’re going into hand-to-hand combat with the dealership salesperson. Salespeople are much nicer now, overtly straightforward, even solicitous—so much so, that you come out feeling, “Oh, I don’t feel beat up—I must have been screwed over in some clever, underhanded way.” But I do appreciate their effort to make the process more painless.

So, now, I have a new car. Like all relationships, we have started out on tenuous terms. We don’t know each other’s little habits, and we don’t entirely trust each other yet. That will take time. It will take the experiencing of good times and bad, sickness and health, laughter and tears. I’m sure we will have words, vented in momentary anger. There will probably be some close calls where my car comes through for me. There always are. I will probably spend anxious moments in a repair shop, praying for its recovery. Car owners always do. Right now, it’s all new car smell and fears about that first scratch. I eagerly await the time when we can relax and be comfortable together.

I may be too emotionally wrapped up in my vehicles. Well—you know how it is.

I can’t be the only writer who sees the creative possibilities of the Trump habitation of the White House. The entire situation is set up perfectly for a sit-com, with an arrogant, blustering, slightly out-of-it father as president, a gorgeous but completely unaware 3^rd trophy wife, a bevy of ex-wives constantly stopping in on the White House making demands, three bumbling adult kids doing all they can to profit off their father’s fame and position, a self-serving son-in-law, and a little boy, the latest child and pampered offspring of the president, who is so privileged he cannot even begin to fathom the importance of his father’s decision on the people of the country. The mix is rich in comic possibilities.

I can see it providing week after week of comic situations as the outside world gradually spirals down into an abyss of chaos and destruction (mentioned as side info in ordinary conversation). Kind of a dark comedy. Here’s just a sampling of the possible episodes:

Episode 1

Trump has trouble finding his way through the White House. His wife can’t find her way either and limits herself to two adjacent rooms. Trump’s adult kids have to talk him through, room-by-room, to get him from one meeting to another. Trump mishears the instructions and finds himself in closet after closet. Merriment ensues.

Episode 2

Melania tries to settle into her role as 1^st Lady. However, she keeps gets phone calls, emails and texts from old boyfriends blackmailing her with sex tapes & porn videos. She sells White House decorations to buy them off. Trump comes into rooms, wondering what happened to that portrait of Lincoln that used to be on the wall, etc. Son-in-law keeps shoving executive orders that profit only him in front of Trump to sign.

Episode 3

The three adult Trump kids tear through the White House, looking through closets, desks and cupboards looking for objects that can be sold for profit. The oldest boy is constantly on his phone, doing deals with foreign leaders and corporate heads that profit himself. He is constantly interrupted by his father’s calls for help finding his way around the White House. In between conversations between the adult kids and hunting for saleable items, the daughter takes continuous calls from her children’s nanny.

Episode 4

The Trump ex-wives descend on the White House, demanding access to state events and access to perks of the executive office. They make themselves at home in the White House, to Trump’s consternation and the visible fury of Melania, whom the ex-wives treat with complete contempt. Trump’s adult kids try to help him get the ex-wives out but are put in their place by the matrons. The lesser-known adult child of one of his exes makes an appearance, but Trump has no idea who she is.

Episode 5

Trump’s young son tries to get comfortable with life in the White House. The Secret Service agents become his closest friends. He bumbles into important meetings, where his father asks him for his help and advice on crucial world issues. The child occasionally finds his father wandering around and has to lead him back to the private quarters of the White House. The boy takes a few calls from world leaders while waiting for his father to find his way to the Oval Office.

These are just the bare bones of the most obvious story lines. Surely, you yourself could think of story lines that would make plausible episode in the sit-com that is Trump Goes to the White House. 

Maybe someone with artistic talent can set up a graphic novel on the subject, with weekly installments based ongoing, real life events. I’m sure we will all be needing the comic relief as long as Trump holds the White House.

Channeling Ursula LeGuin Part 2 - The Adaptors (cont'd)

Not sure where I'm going with this. Any suggestions?

....
 

Marcus had inherited a sufficient amount of his line’s ‘desire to please’ to feel sad at his father’s disappointment.  Every time he touched the traditional guitar, every time he touched paint to canvasere, every time he put words together on the composer, he was aware of the waywardness of his brain and emotions. He was in a chronic state of reining himself in and endured a constant state of tension. He feared he would eventually succumb to suicide like others of his kind. He was clearly a poor design. A misfire. What would happen to him when he was fully grown? Would he be able to take on the duties and privileges of his rank? What kind of women would accept someone like him into a pair-bond?

Jonathan was the only one of his peers who understood, Jonathan who had mastered the art of deception. Jonathan suspected he came from a line of old actors, who could take on the characteristics of their environment without difficulty and without compromising their inner selves. Their behavior was just a cloak they donned for the occasion, and the assimilation was seamless. This ability came so easily to Jonathan that he tried to impart the skill to Marcus, without success. Marcus always knew he was playing a part, donning a falsity.

“It’s not that hard, Jonathan would say. “Look—see that guy over there? You’re him. Get into his skin. Feel the simplicity. It’s just a surface layer. You don’t need to know anything else. Just stay at that level. Feel on that level. Talk on that level. Play with it a little.  Before you know it, you don’t even have to think about it.”

“I can’t do it for more than a few minutes. It exhausts me.”

“Just keep practicing. Try it with different people. You’ll get the hang”

But even Jonathan fell victim to an ‘accident’ provoked by his reckless behavior at a gathering one night. His constant antics revealed his real self. And Marcus found himself alone with his own rebellion. That was perhaps the turning point. That was when he knew that deception would never be enough.

Ever notice how the best speculative fiction always has an element of sociological or psychological reality to it?  Here's something I'm working on, tentatively titled The Adaptors:


When the tribunal came to power it was only natural that they seek the best way to consolidate that power among the populace. They looked for those personality types who were most inclined to crave a “favored” position in the hierarchy. This tendency was not difficult to test for, the questions plumbed the applicants views on ‘traditional values,’ acquisitiveness, imagination and ambition. It was easy to sort out who would march along with the tribunal to continue to receive their advantages.

Problems occurred with the children. This singular adaptiveness could not be relied upon to pass on to continuing generations. In fact, a disturbing number of the offspring tended to be otherwise, which caused loss of status and its attendant material advantage—which made the parents unhappy. So they stated selecting for adaptability at conception, which made the whole system work much more smoothly. Over time, however, even that became a delusion, as if the genetic adaptability itself changed into unusual behaviors over a period of time. Fewer and fewer truly adaptive children were born. No matter how hard the geneticists worked on it, they couldn’t reach reliable compliance. The jello-like matter of the code kept morphing into different combinations.

David felt this failure deeply as he looked at his son. The boy had passed all the tests, pre-birth, or he wouldn’t be here, but something was still out of sync. He was well trained in all aspects of culture, as his family’s position dictated, but he still seemed to wander outside the bounds.

Though the young people were given a certain amount of leeway in their adolescent developmental years, it was all kept within pre-defined limits. Anyone who scouted too far from the norm they were taken out, though no one was allowed to know it as such. They just became victims of their own recklessness—a less to the others—albeit they were helped in their demise. Of course, these individual were never allowed to reach the age were they were allowed to reproduce.

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