American Idle

"Who are you, and what have you done with my mother?"  (Opening statement from my daughter yesterday.)  She knows full well that my recent outbursts of activity and energy are not my modus operandi, housework being my nemesis and least favorite thing to do in the universe.  "But, Mom, you've been my hero!"  It's always good to have someone to point at when the coffee table needs a swipe and be able to say, "I'm not as bad as she is!"  I'm afraid my daughter has found I have dusty feet of clay.  I did say that the housecleaning mania would pass.  Fear not, dear girl.  Your hero once again rides on a scruffy white charger, rusty, unpolished lance in hand.  Managing to totally ignore housework, I opened a book yesterday after chores and spent the rest of the day enthralled with another author Pete introduced, Terry Pratchett.  Reading his series is like watching Monty Python, typical British bizarre, great characters and funny, funny dialogue and story line.  Like peanuts, you can't stop with just one; I'm on my third of his books.

Had I not been sitting on the deck, reading and working on my winter tan (too hot to sit in the sun in summer), I would have missed an amazing sight.  I kept hearing an unfamiliar call from the crows, different from any I'd heard before, and repeated over and over.  Looking up, I saw there were at least fifty crows, maybe more, flying right over the house in the same vortex as the vultures when they migrate.  Only one or two were giving the call to order.  They weren't riding the thermals, but working to stay in formation.  Even more unusual, three red-tail hawks had joined in this ritualistic flight pattern.  These are not "birds of a feather" and do not normally keep company.  I watched until, at some unheard signal, the flock disbanded and scattered to the points of the compass (unlike the vultures that swirl off as a group in one direction).

 No worries, Deb.  Mom is back.