Return of the Birds

This morning, there was a nice cardinal in the oak tree out front. He sat there staring expectantly at my empty bird feeders. It is clearly time to throw off the chains of summer and get my yard in shape for migration. This morning, my walk was quite a bit less fun than my one from Saturday, but it was still nice to be outside. There seems to be a great deal of unrest among the bluejays, who kept screaming, "Jay! Jay!," rather than more calmly singing, "Cheedle, cheedle." Do you think they know something we don't?

I forgot to mention the HUGE swarms of dragonflies I saw at the lake yesterday. What is the deal? They are everywhere this year. Ugh. I just did some thing that drives me nuts, and that is to put a part of a word in italics. One of the main reasons I don't like to read Salinger is that he is constantly putting parts of words in italics and it drives me nuts. Plus, I don't find his characters at all likeable except for Seymour Glass, who kills himself pretty much just as soon as you start getting to know him. Anyway, the dragonflies are really big, almost as big as hummingbirds, and there are thousands of them flying around and I don't remember ever seeing so many before.

Speaking of reading, I have finished reading all of the books I got for my birthday, so now I've got nothing. Kev got out a bunch of collections of short stories, so I read a few of those, and some are really good. There was one by Carson McCullers called Madame Zelinski and the King of Finland, and I liked it a lot even though I was suspicious because that's the same person who wrote the Ballad of the Sad Cafe which I didn't like at all. Most of the time, short stories make me really mad, because if they are good, I want them to keep going. There is rarely closure with short stories. Thurber is an exception, and I love pretty much every word he ever wrote. Anyway, Kev got out a Ring Lardner collection, so I will give that a go. I am always interested in recommendations from people I like, so feel free to suggest reading material.

Well, off to the garage to see if I have any birdseed left from the spring. Get ready, Mr. Cardinal!