Woody Woodpecker lives here

I am most emphatically NOT a birdwatcher. I don’t even own a pair of those khaki safari shorts or a pith helmet. I can point out robins and bluejays and hummingbirds, but get beyond that and all I can say is “it has feathers. must be a bird.”

So when I heard a loud clacking behind me this morning, as I arrived in my driveway and got out of the car, I did not immediately think, “Ahhhh…the sound of a woodpecker hunting for bark bugs.” I thought someone was applauding loudly and turned around to watch.

On a pine tree across the street sat this huge red, black, and white bird, about two feet from the ground, pecking away at the bark. He was about 18-20 inches long, with a thin snaky neck and a bright red crest just like Woody Woodpecker. Most of him was a deep indigo, but he had bright white racing stripes starting at his beak.

He didn’t seem the least bit concerned about my presence, and whacked intently at the bark. Every so often he’d stop and inspect the holes he was making; it was clear that tree was his sole focus. He (or maybe it was a she) had this startingly loud “kaaakaaaakaaaakaaaaaaw” call that drowned out even the approaching mail truck.

I was on my mobile with Mom, the resident bird expert. “That’s probably a pileated woodpecker,” she said. I grabbed the pocket camera out of my purse, approached quietly and got the shot you see here (plus a few others).

I looked woodpeckers up when I got into the house, and Mom’s right. (You can learn more about it here.) Apparently PWs keep the trees healthy (although you wouldn’t know it to see the bark flying when they get going). According to experts, that cry is to tell their mates where they are. And they tend to stick close to home, which means they live around here somewhere. Given the number of neighborhood fir trees–their favorite–that sounds about right.

So I now have a pair of woodpeckers for neighbors, and I can recognize robins and bluejays and hummingbirds and pileated woodpeckers. Not bad for 5 minutes in the morning.

Mess. Mess. Mess.

I work with some noxious substances–it’s just what you do when you cast glass–and I take every precaution to (a) not incorporate the stuff into my body (b) not wind up wearing it and ruining yet another outfit, and (c) not get it all over everything so I don’t have to spend hours getting it off the kitchen counter or the deck or wherever.

So why am I typing this with scaly, resin-coated hands?

I swear, I had the gloves on the whole time I was using this two-part casting resin to make a mold positive. Finished, cleaned up, took off the gloves, and it looks like I’ve dipped my hands in superglue. (This is exacerbated by the fact that I already had superglue all over my hands from last night’s glass session–don’t ask–).

Either this stuff can get through latex gloves, or it waits until I’ve taken off the gloves, and surreptitiously oozes onto my hands when I’m not looking. Kinda like slime mold.

Hmmm. Maybe that’s it.

9-11 remembered

September 11 changed my life in more ways than I thought possible–I have a hard time believing it’s been so long ago.

You have to have lived in New York to understand the World Trade Center’s part in it. It was one of my favorite places–even though I thought it graceless and ugly, architecturally–because it was in the heart of things. Journalists like me were always getting invitations to eat in the restaurant on top.

WTC meeting rooms–where they held the press conferences–had floor-to-ceiling windows kinda shaped like shoebox lids, so that if you squeezed against the window you were actually standing on a glass floor. I’d do that, then look out and down–it felt as if I stood on air, as high up as an airplane. If I turned quickly, I could see the PR people rolling their eyes–”there she goes again” before they politely suggested that we go look at the product they were pitching.

After, if it was an evening meeting, we’d come down the multiple elevators, head out onto the plaza and I’d linger there, people watching. It was one of the best places outside of Times Square to get into the characters that stalk New York streets.

WTC was imposing, it was massive, it would be found largely intact in a million years. Like the pyramids.

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Here’s a depressing thought…

It’s a gorgeous day here in glassland, rained just enough yesterday to turn the car into a mud-spattered mess, and I stopped off at the carwash on the way home. Only about 500 people had the same idea, and while I waited patiently in line I spotted two teenage girls poking fun at a dumpy middle-aged lady.

She was chubby, no make-up, torn sweats and an old t-shirt, hair was a mess. She obviously ran out for a few things and didn’t think it was worth fixing herself up just to go to the store and then sit on a park bench waiting for the bus. Since I’d done just about the same for my errands this morning, she had my deepest sympathy.

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Things I don’t get

People have a funny way of accepting stuff that makes absolutely no sense, stuff that makes you go “huh?” if you only stop and think about it.

Take Gerber. When they’re not scamming babies (i.e., selling brown-tinted sugar water as apple juice), they also insure them. In a long-running (and presumably successful) commercial, the Gerber “grow-up plan” promises $10,000 worth of life insurance for your baby for less than 22 cents per day. And you keep that same fabulous rate until they’re 18, when they become eligible to buy their own.

Huh?

Life insurance for the parents, I get (although $10,000 barely covers the funeral costs these days). But how is paying $10,000 to mummy or daddy when the kid croaks going to protect a baby? Hit up any of the true crime sites and you’ll see story after grisly story describing how loving relatives offed someone for the insurance money. Only protection I see is that $10K is a bit low to risk a murder rap.

According to Gerber’s website, one of the big benefits is that in 20 years your child can withdraw “at least” 100% of the premiums paid…assuming every payment was made on time.

Jeeez, people. Do the math. “Less than 22 cents per day” (let’s be generous and say 21 cents per day). 365 days in a year. 20 years. That’s $0.21 X 365 X 20, or a whole $1,533 after 20 years of faithful payment. If the average cost for the monthly postage stamp to MAKE those payments over 20 years is, say, $48 (assuming you didn’t use free electronic billpay that whole time), you’ve invested $1,581 for a return of $1,533.

Uhhh…you could a better rate of return by sticking your money in a sock and burying it in the backyard for 20 years. Like I said, I don’t get it.

Laptop rentals. For $747, a laptop rental place will loan me a refurbished, barebones laptop with minimal memory, not much more than the OS, no DVD, and a tiny hard drive. I can keep it for a whole month for that $747.

My mom just bought a brand-new laptop, far better equipped, for $799. (She’s graciously agreed to let me borrow it until my new laptop arrives.)

So, I don’t get laptop rentals, either.

Sex as an insult. Then there’s the familiar (especially if you live in New York) epithet: “F*#@ you!” I’ve never understood why someone would invite an enemy to have sex when it should be the farthest thing from both their minds. I dunno…maybe it’s a guy dominance thing. But then why do women say it? “I hate you, please come and have sex with me…?”

Nope. Don’t get that one, either.

Or reality TV. Here’s a chance to have your worst possible side displayed to millions of drooling viewers, to be tormented and taunted, to be caught picking your nose on television (and then see it again and again when the show goes into syndication). Who wouldn’t want that?

And for what? A 1 in 25 chance to win 30% of a million bucks after the taxman and advisors and lawyers get through with you? Marrying the kind of person who WANTS to spend three months looking for someone else’s choice of spouse on national TV? Work hard at being an bigger jerk than the jerk you’re working for, so he’ll give you a permanent position?

Yet another thing I don’t get.

Or the stock market. I’m FAMOUS for not getting the stock market. Company brings out a new product, the stock goes down. Company announces earnings took a nosedive, stock goes up. Company announces sweeping layoffs, a sure sign that SOMEbody screwed up somewhere, stock hits the stratosphere and keeps climbing.

Except right now, of course. My Intel stock options expire in 49 days and all but about 3 shares are seriously underwater. Intel leaks that it’s going to make sweeping layoffs, I think “well, at least the stock price will go up,” and right after the layoff announcement, INTC takes a nosedive.

So how come the one time I want the world to go right on behaving in a nonsensical, irrational manner, it up and gets sensible on me?

Go figure.

Update 10/26/06: On that last one–Intel stock hit $21.70 on the announcement of new chips and fresh layoffs, so instead of a pittance I received a pittance plus 12%. I cashed in my non-underwater options two days before they expired. On the last day (today) the stock hit $21.77, highest it’s been since I left Intel, so $21.70 is relatively great.

So.. we’re at least somewhat returning to irrationality. Thank heavens.