July 2007

The Sparrow Chronicles: Monkey studies

Today the monkey came out of the house with her canary captive. The poor girl was so ill. She couldn't stand on her own. It's such a terrible shame when a lady lays too many eggs like that! It rarely happens with us free folks because we're free to hatch and raise our chicks so we only lay a single clutch. When a hen's clutch doesnt' hatch though, or perhaps it was taken from her, we really don't know, she keeps laying more!
On another note, it's been noticed that the monkey has some skill with mimicry. It's really quite cute to hear her trying to speak. She can speak only the most rudimentary of words, one or two syllables at best. It's clear too that the dumb beast can't understand what she's saying, although sometimes the words she does come up with are uncannily in context.
Sript has been forbidden by council from interacting with the beasts any further. They've said firstly that it's cruel to tease them. Secondly they don't want any of our younger folks from getting wrong ideas about wild animals. Lastly, it's feared that they might get tamed and too familiar with people, that could only have negative consequences. After all, we must never forget how large and dangerous these monkeys are, even if these particular individuals seem gentle.

The Sparrow Chronicles: How Sript Tamed The Beast, Chapter Two

Once more Sript The Brave has uncovered another great secret. This time it was the large monkey with the long feathers on it's head. We believe it's a hen because Sarong The Wise has said she percieves it so. She has special senses and can sense these things. She says the long feathered one is female and the new Monkey who came last summer is her mate. She says the small black creature is one of their chosen companions.

We've also seen people with them. We've seen a pair of canaries, one yellow and one orange, very exotic people of a race never seen here. We've seen a large fellow with raptor beak and green feathers. He also is strange and exotic. He can mimic us all and speak the monkey's calls too. He is very clever. The people are not brought out very often and are kept prisoner in metal boxes. We cannot get near enough to see if they can be rescued. We've long feared the monkeys because of this if not because of their size. Will they kidnap us and keep us prisoner too?

Today the female was taking our berries again. Every day she comes out and strips all our berries from the bush. We have to get in very early and we have to resort to eating unripe berries to get any of them. They're so tasty, it's terrible how she steals every last one, sometimes twice a day. Sript got mad. She sat at a table in the garden with the berries in a basket, fiddling with a strange thing that makes noise. We have no idea what it is but she spends a lot of time fiddling with it and staring at the lighted panel on it. Sript wanted a berry. Our berries were right there, but very close to her. The green fellow called piteously from inside the nest, trying to exhort her to freedom or to come back to the flock or let him join her. The small creature lazed about enjoying the summer air.

Sript flew boldly up to the table and perched on the basket right by the Monkey. She stopped tickety tacking on her device and looked at him. She held still but opened her beak, baring her mandibles. He stared boldly at her, showing his courage, or foolishness. We still don't know if he's smart, psychic, gifted, or just incredibly stupid. We'll see how long he lives.

Well she did not move to drive him off but held still and made soft noises at Sript. Sript hopped down to the side of the basket and began to eat a berry. Still she did nothing to drive him away. She continued to make soft noises at him, to watch him, tilting her head almost like a person. She almost seemed to have intelligence there in her eyes, although we all know she is naught but a dumb beast.

Presently, Sript had had his fill of sweet berries and decided to test this creature and his hold over her. He flew up onto her device, perching on the lighted panel, and scolded her. She scolded back, but still made no move. He did a victory dance of conquest and she continued to only make noises. She had her beak wide open and made strange high pitched noises that sounded uncannily like the sounds a mother makes when he children first hatch or learn to fly, as though she were happy.

Sript took umbrage, seeing this as ridicule, and flew at her, driving his beak and claws towards her face. She moved her forelimbs and pushed him aside with an angry noise and he perched once more on her panel. She made softer angry noises at him, waving the end of one limb, but still did not move to strike him down. Finally Sript had enough and flew saucily to the bushes to collect his accolades.

We still ahve our natural fear, and of course you can't ever trust a wild beast, but it's good to know finally that this monkey at least is a gentle creature not interested in hunting us.

Now if we could only figure out how to get it to stay off our berry bushes!

The Sparrow Chronicles: How Sript Tamed The Beast, chapter one

Today Sript The Hero made his name. He is a sparrow brave beyond all people. In fact it's said he simply lacks the fear impulse and will surely die for it one day. For now however, we celebrate him as a hero. He it is who discovered the gentleness of the animals here in this tiny land bounded by wooden walls and filled with sweet meadow. There live here two giant monkeys and one small black creature. These animals have never killed anyone but they are great and fearsome.
Today while eating up the spilled seeds on the stone, Sript was disturbed by the small black animal. It leapt at him, it's beak open, it's feathers fluttering (they have very strange feathers without structure that flow smoothly and they cannot fly). Sript did not fly away but rather leapt back at the creature. We began to mourn, readying our voices for the sad song when the animal stepped back and closed it's beak. Sript leapt upon it again, pecking and singing with fury and courage. The animal backed up and gave way. Sript did a victory dance and the animal danced along, tapping the ground with it's four feet and leaping with Sript but not harming him. You'd almost think the dumb beast understood play and joy. Since then we boldly seek our meals in the presence of this creature. While the animal still sends us fluttering to the bushes when it comes out of the Great Nest, we no longer fear for our lives or our children. It is good. Sript has shown us that this creature is no predator and is gentle to us.

Good bye Tibor

Tibor died yesterday. He was not a close friend of mine. I'm not even sure if friend is the term. Nor colleague. I worked in the theatre he ran. That's about it. He always greeted me like a friend and I felt towards him friendship but I never was invited to his home or anything of that sort nor even sat over cups of coffee chatting. Lets face it, he was a busy man with far more friends than he'd have time for and I was naught but a cleaning lady. Yet his death grieves me no less than were he a dear friend. A dear acquaintance I guess.
Tibor, as everyone is saying, was a man who started out in Hungary, endured a failed revolution, and moved to Canada to start a new life. He worked hard at menial jobs, drove himself to acquire the necessary credentials then broke into the theatre scene like a bat out of hell. In the fifty years he was in Canada he became a force on the theatre scene that will not be forgotten for a long time. His legacy is the enduring professional theatre of Persephone Theatre. That's where I worked for 9 years. I was there a long time. I won't visit my petty grievances, they're here in the blog.
Tibor was a large man in character, if not in stature. He stood shorter than me but his personality filled not only the room but an entire building. He terrified those who didn't understand and delighted those who did. I used to trade jokes with him. He treated me caringly and I cared back. I still remember him riding my moped and stating that he wished he could have one but his wife wouldn't let him.
I remember him telling me he'd never married his wife formally, just stood in a fabulous hungarian church one day and said "do you want to marry me? Well then, I marry you. There, we're married." I have no idea if it's true, but then that's not my business, is it? It's between him and Rosalie.
I can't begin to imagine what she must be feeling. Bad enough to be widowed but when you loved someone so magically special it would be worse I think. I think too of the crowded office he called his home for so many hours a day. What in the hell will they do with all that stuff? He had gifts from such a wealth of shows and actors in there that they crowded every horizontal surface. I couldn't possibly have dusted it. I remember too the wonderful stories he offered from his life, as others have said. His time in the revolution, his memories of being a child actor, and more. I am sure someone will catalog them, but even if not, it's not that important. He can't be defined by these tales.
Tibor never asked much of me. I vacuumed occasionally, sometimes did a bit of dusting and wiping, but for the most part wasn't expected to clean his office at all. He always thanked me when he saw me for the change I brought to the theatre when I arrived. For how I took the stink out of the men's room and the dust off the corners.
They say you can tell a man by how he treats those he doesn't have to treat well. He treated me like a gift to the world, a friend and a welcome sight. What more could you need to know about him?
Grieve oh world, even those who don't know what you lost, for a great man has left a great hole and it will hurt a long time for his lack.

dreaming

Sometimes I have dreams that are pretty much a whole story and I get stuck in them, wanting to solve the story. This morning was one such. I dreamt Dan and I lived in an apartment rather than a house, for one thing. Our rabbits were behaving like parrots, climbing up high with their teeth and back legs, sliding down rails, very weird. I remember worrying about feeding the rabbits and me and Dan and the parrot, just as I always do. Then one day a child came running in the front door, a little oriental child. I knew somehow he was vietnamese and that, in fact, an uncertain number of them, adoptees, inhabited the middle bedroom. Dan had adopted them and when I married him and moved in, they became my charges too. However, I'd never met them, intruded into that room, or ever fed them anything. Very odd and it didn't seem right, yet I had just moved into the family, I wasn't making the rules.
Now this child comes running in from outside, he's in trouble. He's been arrested for breaking into various places to sleep, to find food, essentially behaving as a homeless boy. I'm shocked. It never occurred to me that the status quo in this household wasn't working! I comforted him, for the first time I behaved as a caring adult towards one of these children. These independant children of a troubled past, self reliant and studious yet also so badly in need of real guidance and caring.
Not long after, of course, the social workers show up. Just as I'm trying to figure out how we'll tie this family together and I've started cooking meals for them and trying to convince them to put their food in the communal kitchen and eat from said kitchen and generally trust and rely on us as parents, not just landlords, a pair of "well meaning" social worker women show up. by that I mean, nice bitches bent on uncovering our sins and proving abuse. You know how it is. Guilty as soon as they're called, you have to prove yourself beyond the norm. Unfortunately, that's when the alarm started going off. I kept hitting snooze and trying to get back into the dream but it was all disintegrated and messed up. I had a few scenarios where I brought the kids together for meals and we got to know each other. In some dreams there were 3 and in others there were tens of them. It was all pretty weird and stayed with me. Is it perhaps that latent motherhood instinct creeping up from behind?
I've never regretted being childfree. I've had some instinctive/biological urges to carry and hold and nurse a baby. I have it in me to nurture a child were it to happen, yet I also know I'd be a marginal mother at best and an abusive one at worst. I think now I"m mature enough to control myself away from being abusive, but not sure I'm able to tolerate childish needs and moods well enough to be a loving parent. I certainly don't miss having to pay the bills a child generates. They consume like crazy. They break things precious to you. They steal sometimes too. They give you every possible sortof grief when you least expect it. Even when they're well raised they can raise hell. No, I never did regret it and I don't now. I think if a child landed on me, by chance, by nature, by god, whatever, I'd step up and do the right thing, but I wouldn't actively seek or choose it and I'm glad I've not had to deal with it.
It's not like there's a shortage of humans anyway.
So, that was my weird dream today. It's purged now and I can get on with my day.

sublime summer day

This moment is one of those. It takes me back through my life to other such moments, stretching in a long lovely arc of peace. The music is mellow. The incense is sweet and keeping the bugs at bay. The air is languid. The birds call to and fro while the dog lazes in green grass. I can hear the fountain stream and assorted urban noises here and there. The moment is at once peaceful and exciting, like perhaps later today we'll go into the city and play, or take a long trip, or see something completely new. Maybe we're camping and playing, or maybe friends are coming over later. None of that is in fact happening, it's just another hot day at home trying to motivate myself to do some chores, but nevertheless it has such a lovely feel I was moved to record it. One of those hot summer mornings.

mind blowing african safari footage

These tourists caught something on camera that you would never expect. The interactions of animals in the wild are every bit as complex as your own relationships. What what these animals go through here. It may seem to start out a bit quiet but it quickly builds into a heart stopping adventure (no, the tourists don't get attacked.)