Four and twenty birds

Bananas, avocado, citrus and

bird

with champagne bottle from Sam's Bac result,
bread basket and nut bowl

Yes, that's right. Bird. In my fruit bowl.

Of course there's a story.

I think it was yesterday that I first heard the noise, a scrambling, beating, frantic sound that appeared to be coming from the wood stove flue. As one does with all possible problems that haven't fully gelled into a clear and immediate, I chose to ignore it. My brain very helpfully came up with several plausible possibilities, each of which released me from any responsibility to a living thing very likely caught in my 125 mm diameter metal chimney flue.

First, there was merely a nest up under the "Chinese hat" that protects the opening to the flue.

Second, well, there was no second.

Today, I was sitting in the living room, debating the real or imagined necessity of going to the shopping mall to buy something to wear to a party tomorrow evening, and a few pairs of lightweight summer pants -- it's awfully hot for jeans, and one pair has spot inside the thigh that has worn thin enough to become a hole; definitely not alright for my husband's wife --, when it started again. I got up and went to inspect the wood stove, and clear as day there were animal paw prints in the oven cleaner I hadn't bothered to clean off the inside of the glass window after applying it, oh, Sunday.

That's great for the animals to ingest when they clean their paws, said myself, with a distinct air of criticism.

My thoughts raced to Baccarat, who had refused to eat her dinner last night, and her breakfast this morning. While these were absolutely and definitely not her prints, was it possible she had licked Wisp's, and for that, wasn't it more likely Shadow, since they were quite high up? Shadow being much larger.

Look, there are white paw prints on top of the stove, too, myself pointed out. And there were. Wisp. I couldn't imagine Shadow up there, but could the animal have gotten out and gone back in? Are you completely crazy or only stupid? asked a surprised self, shaking her head. Like it could possibly get out of a flue covered with the ceiling panel of the combustion chamber and then choose to climb back in there. Oh. My. God.

I didn't like the sound of that, but there wasn't much to say, so I returned to my emails. It was quiet, for a little while. I got up and went to knock on the chimney flue. No response. I knocked again, and returned to my computer to put off deciding whether I was going to the mall and to call the vet. I got up again and headed over to get Baccarat's untouched breakfast off the dining table and offered her the bowl. She lowered her head and nosed it, then, she ate a bit. It took longer than usual, but she ate all but a last bit she left in the bowl, which Rapide finished off and then licked the floor.

Watching Rapide lick the floor, I thought about calling the Morso salesperson, a very nice ex-professional jockey, to ask him if a bird or small animal could really get into the chimney flue tubing. I mean, didn't they have screens exactly for that purpose? I returned to the sofa to think it over, and then, it started again, with even more insistence. I jumped off the sofa and knelt in front of the stove. It sounded like the trapped -- for trapped it without question was -- animal was right above the wood stove, in the bend of the tubing. I knocked, and it flapped on, a bird, possibly a squirrel; I have seen a couple of red ones around lately.

You're going to have to take it apart, said myself. There are instructions in the manual. It didn't look that hard, if you'll recall. You should clean it anyway, you know. Myself is becoming bossy and officious these days. There was no point in arguing.

"I know."

It looked straightforward enough, to a formerly-practicing and decently competent architect. Just push the top panel up, to release the side panels, remove them, and then tilt the top panel to remove it and to get to the one above it to remove that one, and I should be at the opening to the flue. If the animal were nearby, or descending the tube, it should eventually fall out, or die.

Then you'll have to call the Morso guy, said myself. We were both imagining the bad smell.

[Tho' ye subjoct be but a fart, yet will this tedious sink of learning pondrously phillosophize. Meantime did the foul and deadly stink pervade all places to that degree, yt never smelt I ye like, yet dare I not to leave ye presence, albeit I was like to suffocate.]
-- Mark Twain, 1610

[Credit to Monsieur Renard du Marais]

The top panel budged, but it wouldn't come out. The frenzy in the tubing continued and even picked up a degree. I reached for the instructions. All it said to do was precisely what I was doing.

"Not helpful," I said.

You'd better figure it out, said myself.

I looked more closely. There was quite a bit of accumulated crystallized soot on the top of the ledge that holds the ceiling panel of the combustion chamber in place. Was it enough to jam the panel, preventing me from being able to move it enough? I reached for a bit of wood and started to clear it out. More fell onto the ledge from above, and more and more until I was able to lift it and slide it out, revealing the second ceiling panel above. It came out, covered with a pile of shiny charcoal briquettes.

Probably another sign that you really should have bothered to cut the wood smaller, unnecessarily commented my better self.

"I've had enough, thank you."

Myself wisely elected not to reply, and we both sat back on our heels to listen for noise. It had stopped sometime while I was struggling with the panels, and myself and I hadn't even noticed. The noise did not return. Here, the way was open, and the animal had died? I went to wash my hands and sit on the sofa. I couldn't very well go to the mall and leave the animal, in the event that it wasn't dead yet, to my animals. Wisp or Shadow would see to that in no time flat.

I looked around. I thought about calling the vet, the Morso guy, and a friend, whose father I learned from my email had died last night. I sent a text message, and then, the noise started again, Wisp and Baccarat battled to be the first to the open door of the wood stove and before I could react, a small gray bird flew clumsily out, half falling, half flying, and careened across the living room and dining table, animals dashing along behind, crashing into chairs, as it came to light on the table.

What? The open door was just beyond, and it lands on the table? Baccarat looked confused. Wisp prepared to jump, and it took off in flight, making it less than a meter before it half fell and half flew to a halt near the radiator.

The radiator? Again? What is it with radiators and birds?

I got on my hands and knees alongside the animals, milling all around me, and hunted behind the slats, around the dust and cobweb-filled shopping bags used to carry the paper and glass recycling to the bins, stuck behind the radiator to keep them out of site, shoving Wisp out of reach, and moved the litter box. There was movement. A little ball of gray bird hopped and then flew up into the dust-filled air, back across the living room and into the entry. Wisp was far ahead of me, and heading for the rear staircase.

But there are no open windows at that end of the house, and we can't see it! said myself.

"I know. Move, Wisp. Now!" She was forcing herself between the vacuum cleaner and a fire extinguisher on the stair turn that had no business there, and struggling with her, I searched the air for the bird. Nothing.

Hop. Hop-hop.

It was there, just past Wisp's needle-like claws and teeth and the fire extinguisher, wedged into the space against the stair riser. I reached. It hopped. I reached again, using the extinguisher to body-block Wisp. It hopped, and then it flew, like a drunken pilot, back across the entry, the living room and the kitchen towards the door, only to land in --

The fruit bowl.

"Aright," I said. "If you're not in a hurry, I am going to get my camera."

It was there, nestled in between the avocado and un radis noir, covered with a bit of paper, the feathers on its head somewhat gelled by the soot from its several-hour experience in the chimney flue. It blinked and swiveled its head around. Wisp meowed in frustration, and Baccarat looked utterly perplexed, and then the bird took off again. This time it ran straight into the open panel of the kitchen casement before finding its way out through the enormous, gaping hole in the wall the open window makes, before diving dangerously and helplessly near the lawn, onto which Wisp and the ailing Baccarat had made it just as fast. I had to negotiate the table to get to the door and outside, where I joined Rapide, looking as confused as her blank expression permits.

There was no sign of the bird, and Wisp was back, inspecting the dismantled wood stove interior.

Already.

Leaving Rapide and I to wonder, "What's with me and the birds? And does it have anything to do with having been chosen to recite Four and Twenty Blackbirds in the kindergarten pageant?"

Sing a song of sixpence
AKA blackbirds in a pie

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?
The king was in his counting house counting out his money,
The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey
The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose!
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/sing_a_song_of_sixpence.htm

Which, if you trust Snopes.com -- and who doesn't? --, might explain something about my taste for Patrick O'Brian novels, history and adventure.

And I'm down to what, 19 now? Just click on the "Bird" tag and start counting.
....

Nature: Further lessons in futility

Wisp in my straw bag

Cute, isn't she? That's what I thought I'd write about when my son found her in my bag and suggested I get my camera. Sweet, adorable, cute kitty cat.

Predator, prowler, huntress cat is more accurate. I know this. I know that I can't fight against it. Invite a cat into your home and garden -- or don't, you don't have to; they show up in the garden anyway --, and there are other animals that don't stand a chance, like birds. Birds just like the one I saved yesterday, carrying it home in my sweaty hand, half-rolled into the bottom of my t-shirt on the last kilometer of my run.

It might have been the first bird ever to go on a one kilometer jog.

I was returning to the house from down at the barbecue to wash up while the coals whiten, when I saw Wisp, crouched in the lawn by the fish and frog "pond" in that horrible, tell-tale position that says, "I am protecting my prey" or "I am consuming it right this very moment". She looked up at the dogs and I as we crossed the brief expanse of lawn and licked her maw as she watched us approach, then she got up and retreated to the front steps, leaving a stone colored object in the grass. I approached and bent my head to get a better look; it was a bird just like the one I saved yesterday, only its head was missing and the muscles of its legs were exposed, entrails inviting Baccarat for a little snack.

"I don't mind if I do, thank you very much, Wisp," said she.

"Don't count on my welcome," replied Wisp, "for you have ruined my supper," and the bird, in one bite, was done.

Baccarat gazed at me across the lawn, "Have I," she asked, "perhaps done something wrong?"

"You'll both," I menaced, pruning shears in hand, "soon be long gone, if we ask Audouin."
....

A shoe story

In the glass of the falling-off kitchen door

or, what I do with my days
for those who ask

I did it. I finally went for my first run in my (fake) Vibram fivefingers running shoes (thank you, China), and I loved it.

This is for those of you who have asked me to let you know what I thought. I won't just let you know what I thought; I'll also tell you what my friend, the one who told me about Christopher MacDougall's book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen and Vibram fivefingers barefoot running shoes, had to say after running his first marathon in his:

The Edinburgh Marathon went well until 16 miles (on target for 4:30) when I tripped over, tore my shoe and cut my right big toe. Thought about giving up, sat around for about 20 minutes - then thought I might as well finish. By this point my legs had stiffened up so I ended up walking trying to get my legs going for at least Five miles - only to fall over again. Cut my left foot. Decided to keep on keeping on with it. Overtaking [an old school friend and inspiration to the world] in the final few yards. Two hours later than intended!

So what did I learn?

Five fingers don't make you run faster.
The last year has made my legs strong enough to do a marathon without any pain the following day.
A small piece of grit inside your shoe will drill holes in the soles of your feet.
I weigh 106kg and ran a marathon with no joint pain whatsoever!

They might not make you run faster, but I will tell you that they let me run faster, and I put them to the true test.

The True Test:

1. Do not run for at least 3 weeks. At all. Sit around as much as possible and let yourself start feeling really mentally and physically sloggy, convinced you could never walk your usual course again -- ever --, much less run it, in any form of shoe.
2. Take a nice hour and a half long stroll through the Marais in your brand new Paule Ka sandals with 5" wedge heels. Notice there is a large screen TV showing a world cup first round game, cross the rue Vieille du Temple and watch Donovan Landon score the goal against Algeria for the 1-0 win that qualified the USA for the second round, taking first place in their group over England, mind you, with a small crowd attracted by the celebratory noise coming from this chic gay bar filled with young professionals sipping cocktails on a lovely June evening.
   
3. Go out to a cerebral discussion with a terrific British performance artist (and very good friend of the friend above), who uses dramaturgy and video to explore social forms in a philosophical inquiry and a third-rate French philosopher (need I say more?) in Paris at The Centre Pompidou, and follow that up with a half bottle of a Touraine blanc (a bottle for two, keeping pace), followed by a falafel from over at the falafel café while walking over to the Montorgeuil quarter to enjoy an Aligote and more conversation until the cafés closed.

1. Walk back to the motorcycle and ride 50 minutes back up the highway, home to the countryside.
   
2. Arrive at 3 am. [Find text message from son telling you the doors are locked and you will need your key to enter by the one furthest to the left facing the house, which is the only one you can open if the house is locked, but it was a dear thought to let me know I'd need to search my bag for my keys to get inside.]
3. Putter around the house, read a chapter of Emma in bed.
4. Get up at 9:30 am, make coffee, scrambled eggs with coriander and soy milk with calcium and eat them with apricots. [I recommend that whether you are about to test yourself or not.]
5. Read email, reply to a few, and do a little discount online shopping. Swear to cut back on expenses next month, and go get your Vibram fivefingers.
6. Slather on plenty of sunblock (Anti UVB), set your pink running cap on your head, slide your Oakleys in place and head out.
7. Feel the difference.

Oh my!

My legs moved more freely than they had with my running shoes, be they Asics, New Balance, or Mizunos. I felt more power in each stride, as though my muscles didn't have to work as hard, and the hill --

Was there a hill?

I am sure it has to do with the increased surface contact of the splayed forefoot and toes, using all of those muscles to push off, rather than having them just grouped helplessly together in the toebox of your running shoe. Someone who knows yoga well mentioned that it is similar to how one uses the splayed forefoot to increase contact with the ground in a standing posture, adding strength and stability.

The only drawback was the development of a blister on the pad of the ball of my left foot, just below the big toe, but I had already started to feel something there, walking around Paris in my city shoes the previous evening. I stopped to walk a little, thinking of the high-heeled strappy Stuart Weitzman gold mules I'd be wearing to a wedding Saturday, but it didn't make any difference. Blisters hurt no matter what speed you move, unless it is 0 kph. So, I picked up the pace again, ran down the hill from the ridge to the road into the village, and just entering Moosesucks, there, right at the edge of the pavement, was another bird.

He stood there, blinking, his little beak opening and closing as though he'd say something if he felt up to it. It was the same as the baby one that died after the animals found it, probably fallen from the linden tree, and the same as the dead one I found in the bike lane along the Transamazonienne one of my last runs on the balls of my feet in my old New Balance running shoes. I bent and lifted it up in my sweaty hand, cupping it gently. It gripped my finger with its claws, holding on tightly. I stood there and thought about it: did I place it in the grass along the side of the road, or did I carry it the last kilometer home and watch it? With my track record saving birds (excuse the pun), that didn't seem worthwhile, but I am no good at leaving weakened creatures to die, exposed.

Much better to let them die in my hand, or in a box in my house.

I started to walk towards the house, thinking what a shame it was that I wasn't getting to see how much faster I could do the same run in my fivefingers. I hesitated, and started to go back to put the bird down. My hands were wetting its feathers. It clutched my finger. I turned around again and started to jog gently, looking down to see just how much it was being bobbled and jostled around.

It looked alright. I kept on, bringing the bottom of my t-shirt up around it for a little extra support and watched the cars of neighbors I recognized pass me by.

They're probably thinking you are clutching your left arm and that you have hurt yourself, said myself.

"I know, and if anyone stops to ask me if I need a ride home, they are going to know I am crazy for certain." Myself nodded in agreement.

Let's just hope, said myself as one of the former adjunct mayors drove by in his British Jaguar. His mother was Irish. I'm sure that explains the right-side steering wheel.

Entering the more populous section of the street, the neighbor from across the street and her teenage son passed me. I saw him recognize me and tried to look natural with my right hand grasping my left forearm and t-shirt bottom. I picked my pace up a little and smiled brightly, making a little nod of my head.

Coming down the home stretch, I saw the owner of the Jaguar's neighbor, heading home from the café, what looked like a portfolio tucked under her arm, her straw hat removed from the cord of the venetian blinds she has hung over her street window and tied to the old boat on which she has set several pots of flowers, her own shaded sidewalk terrace, everything painted a sunny yellow. She speaks English with a charming BBC accent and stops by to visit with me regularly.

I haven't had the courage to explain to her that I don't do much "visiting".

I slowed, hoping not to hear my own bell ring at my gate. Reassured she had walked on by, I darted up along the wall of the house and into the gate, the bird still breathing, looking over the edge of my t-shirt hem.

We sat together outside for a very long time, and then moved in to read more email.

Are you going to stay home now, instead of go get the things you need for the wedding? asked myself.

"I don't know. I mean -- I guess so. I did bring it home; I can't just pop it into a bush and wish it luck."

No. Wisp or Shadow would have it in an instant, if Baccarat didn't get to it and try to bathe it with her tongue first.

"I guess we'll see," I said, checking once again to see if it were my own pulse I were feeling or if it were still alive. The eyes opened and the head swiveled to look at me. I sat there opening my hand to avoid boiling it in my overheated palm and soaking its feathers, and to let it know it was free. Time passed, and then, in a rush of movement, it had flown, crashing around the living room, up on top of the ceiling beam, up the stairs, back across the room, and there was another rush of movement as two cats and two Labrador Retrievers nearly knocked the dining table chairs and everything on the table down, trying to get to the bird on the loose. I swore at myself for having come into the house, and then, there was silence.

Only there was a problem; Wisp was far too interested in the radiator. The window above stood wide open, but not only Wisp, but all the animals were staring at the radiator. I got up to look, and there was a mass of gray feathers topped by a little head and beak.

It's dead? asked a panicked self.

"I don't know. I'll have to try to touch it and see," I said, turning to get something I could stick through the radiator. I saw the bread knife, but that was definitely too threatening. You don't poke stunned, and possibly injured birds, with the end of a bread knife. I got out a regular kitchen knife and stick it gingerly through the coils. It moved. It looked at me. It took us another five minutes to get it out from behind the radiator, me slapping Wisp and Baccarat back. It flew in loops up to the ceiling and came to rest in the handle of a basket up on the cabinets. I got a chair and reached to pick it up, but it flew away toward the open window, and banged directly into a pane of glass, coming to rest on top of the radiator. I had visions of it sliding down between the coils again, but it flapped and flew out to come to rest on the ivy growing on the garden wall, all four animals racing out the door nearest them, Wisp taking the most direct route out through the same window as the bird.

I have finally, at last, possibly been of help to a poor bird.

And as for my Paule Kas? Besides a threatening blister? I did get two "ooh et aah" compliments in Autour du Monde Maison from a clerk and a terribly well put together French woman, who stopped to watch me put them back on after trying on a pair of Bensimons, which I did not buy.

See? I have some self-control. Besides, my sandals were much cooler than another pair of Bensimons.

Even the Liberty of London print ones.
....

The huntress and the hunted

Savannah

Instinct. Genetic memory. Wisp has found her own private savannah, contested only by the only other feline in residence, Shadow, although the dogs think it makes a great hiding place for for the cats for Hide and Seek, rather subverting the purpose of a savannah, if you ask the cats.

I was looking for an excuse not to do something, drawn for the millionth time to the French doors to watch the sunshine in the garden, the frogs sunbathing on the edge of the basin, the fish milling around the lily pads and Japanese Horsetail, the peonies bursting into flower as the wisteria fades into fuller leaf and the rose bushes prepare their appearance next on stage. The dogs lazed about, and then -- movement and chaos in a split second.

The body of Wisp appeared above the ledge of the basin on the far side, twisting like a skateboarder high above the lip of a bowl, her paws came together around a small dark object that had darted over the garden and swooped too close to her hiding place, screened in the Angel Hair grass in the warm sun. She fell back as the dogs raced me to her, shouting her name.

She was lying in a crouch, the small dark object motionless between her paws. I grabbed her haunches, surprising her enough to make her let go. The bird flew away instantly, up through the grass, alongside the linden tree and away over the neighbor's garden.

She didn't even look at me.

"Bad cat. Bad, bad, bad cat."

The dogs looked at us and headed off to lie back down in the patches of clover rapidly filling in for the missing lawn. I considered anew the fate of the baby bird I thought had maybe fallen out of the linden tree, the one I found surrounded by Wisp and the two dogs the other day, and who died a short while later in my hand.

And who I forgot is still in one of the bird nests of our collection from the garden, sitting on the wainscoting in the living room.

I had a new appreciation for Wisp's previously unseen hunting skills and a far better idea how she had survived at all those months she was alone in the sand quarry and the forest in the middle of the boucle de la Seine. She is, after all, a lithe and skilled huntress of birds.

Great.

Chouette. Just chouette. Do I have to keep her inside, or an eye on her all the time until all the baby birds have had a fair chance to learn to fly and beware?

This evening, I stuck my other pink running hat on my head and headed out the gate, seriously considering going really easy on myself.

"Baby," I told myself.

What? C'mon, I already ran again yesterday, and it was almost as hot out there in the sun all covered up from head to toe, and I did it, and today we could barely walk. It was true. We'd had to go down the stairs placing both feet on each step, crabwise, to get to the bottom. Can't we do the shorter run?

Myself definitely should have kept the question to herself. I turned right at the top of the hill and headed to the Transamazonienne, thinking how very slow I am; how very much I really had lost since Easter. At least it was evening, and cooler, a breeze skimming my cheek, and I had on shorts, and not leggings. I turned onto the Transamazonienne and headed up the gentle rise back to the top of the ridge, and there on the bike lane in front of me was a small body. I stopped in front of it. A bird, exactly like the one that had died in my hand the other day, only bigger. A parent.

It was warm in the palm of my hand, its eyes black and shiny still, but its head rolled faster than its body, and my heart beating fast still from the rise, I only felt one heartbeat: my own. We stood there for a moment, and I took it over and laid its warm body by the fence, in the shade, where no car or bicycle could do it further harm, where nothing could do it any more injury. I laid it down and stepped back to the bike lane as a car sped on up the rise, traveling the same way I headed back out again.

"Be careful," I wanted to tell everyone barreling up and down the Transamazonienne, racing to make it to the supermarket before it closed or home from work, heedless of the small animals that have no choice. "Faites attention."

I forgot to think about how much better about myself this run would make me feel about myself. I ran on, the fields opening on my left, the forest on my right. I forgot to think about how much better my jeans will fit and the compliments in which I soak when I hold my feet to the fire and run. I ran on, the forest returning on my left, the traffic circle approaching below. 3 kilometers past; 4.5 to go. I forgot to think about the blog entry I write in my head as I go, rather than listening to music. I ran on, repeating "light and easy, light and easy" with my breathing, laboring. I thought about the bird. I slowed, and I walked, the fields now on both sides again, the evening sun low over the grasses waving in the breeze, lighting their feathery tips.

A car approached, driving lazily, unlike the others, the Audis and the four wheel drives, who rushed past in a blur and a burst of modernity, puissance. An old white Peugeot, timeless, made merely to move. There were two people in it. I imagined them relaxed, content. I saw the tufts of grass at the edge of the road alongside my feet, and I thought, It could be so long ago. It could be anytime. Except my New Balance sneakers, of course.

They kind of wreck it.

I thought, I could be gone tomorrow (I must have been thinking of the bird), and it would be alright for this evening.

I looked up at the wind turbines just past the crest of the ridge up on the other side of the Seine, the rolling hills covered in fields and patches of forest, the lines of houses showing where the villages went and finally ended above the road over there along the Seine.

We have wind turbines here.

I arrived at the posts of the road across the field, alongside the little orchard, back to the road home, and began to run again. I felt terrible. Terribly thirsty, and tired. I wanted to stop.

"No. You won't."

No?

"No. This is about the mind. This is about choices, and I am the one deciding. Go. At least to the bend, like yesterday, and then we'll see."

Silence.

I made it home in 5 minutes less than yesterday's and the day before's time. A full 5 minutes off 4.66 miles.

"Thank you," I told myself.

But, there was only panting, and a faint urge to be sick on the sidewalk, but I have my appearance to keep.
....