Tuesday -- I've Worked Twenty Minutes on a Title and Nothing Fits

“For the birds” is an American phrase that was coined after WWII – something about a situation being such that there weren’t even enough seeds in the horse manure for the birds.  So, anything of little consequence became “for the birds.”  Here’s a little post for the birds.

• We hear the chickens squawk and the owls hoot all year, but in the spring we also hear the red-winged blackbirds, doves, killdeer, and quail.  Some of the killdeer have already hatched while the rest are building their nests and laying eggs everywhere.  I always wonder when I come across a blue robin’s egg lying broken on the lawn.  Did she not make it to the nest in time for delivery or was it a kidnap gone bad?  Calvin said he doesn’t know.  

• Saturday I moved a good solid nest that was built on a ladder onto the top of the post.  Funny how people think everything needs to be zoned with codes, but birds build wherever they want, whenever they want, with whatever they want – dryer lint, hair, string, mud, twigs, tinsel, leaves.  Birds are prudent.  

• Every year a male and female bird will either build or extensively remodel their nest.  Building a house is a trial for even the hardiest human marriage, but birds do it year after year after year.  And they do it debt free, too.  How do they do it?   

• Few birds die of old age.  Their life is filled with adventure and hard luck.  No matter.  They chirp and sing amidst risks, rain, or shine.  

• Few species are as naturally optimistic as the bird.  I read about one sweet, unmated female canary who laid a few eggs in her cage.  She was so happy that she offered food to the unfertilized eggs and chattered and chirped encouraging them to hatch, which they never could.  Compare that with the turtle that lays her eggs and then leaves – not one word of word of encouragement or advice for her young. 

• One Mother’s Day we played a mother-can-you-guess-your-child’s-answers game in Primary.  One of the questions was, “What animal does your mother most resemble when she wakes up in the morning?”  I supposed that Ande, who was about 8 or so, would say a bird and answered thusly so – after all, wasn’t I cheerful?  didn’t I fairly sing when I woke them?  not to mention I made perky breakfasts.  I assumed a lovely bird could be her only logical answer.  But, Ande said I most resembled a porcupine in the mornings.”  I said, “Ande!  A PORCUPINE?  But I’m happy when I wake up.”  She said, “It’s not that . . . it’s your hair.  It’s always sticking out when you wake up.”  (Frankly, I could benefit from a burkha.) 

• I think these views on why the chicken crossed the road are funny.     

Albert Einstein. “Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.”

Plato: “For the greater good.”

Aristotle: “To fulfill its nature on the other side.”

The Pope:  “Because of Satan's influence. Crossing the road is heresy. The chicken must confess to its sins in order to be saved.”

Darwin: “It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.”

Emily Dickinson: “Because it could not stop for death.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson: “It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.”

Ernest Hemingway: “To die. In the rain.”

Mark Twain: “The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.”

Johnny Cochran: “The chicken never crossed the road. Some chicken-hating, genocidal, lying public official moved the road right under the chicken's feet while he was practicing his golf swing and thinking about his family.”

John Wayne: “Cause a chicken's gotta do what a chicken's gotta do.”

William Shakespeare: “Tell me where lies fancy's egg, in the breast or in the leg?”

Douglas MacArthur: “In order to return.”

Richard Nixon: “This isn't about roads and chickens. I don't think you quite understand that what you believe I may have meant isn't what you think I said.”

Julius Caesar: “To come, to see, to conquer.”

Bill Clinton:  “What exactly is your definition of a chicken?”

George W. Bush:  “The chicken has a responsibility to hunt down the vermin and evil on the other side of the road and help develop a democracy for the future travelers.’

Robert Frost: “To cross the road less traveled by.”

Sir Isaac Newton: “Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road.”

And there you have it.  A Tuesday post full of a whole lot of nothing with no title.