¿HOW DO THEY DO IT?

A non-random collection of thoughts.  I'll bet that even you have had a few of these.

BIRDS' NESTS
How do they do it?  We have a pair of Mourning Doves and a pair of Black Headed Flycatchers who have come back to use our patio overhang for their nests for about five years now.  This year the flycatchers did not return.  The doves did.  They ran into a problem.  It seems that the hen laid two eggs before they were able to finish the job and the eggs fell to the floor.  That was over a week ago.  They are still working at building/rebuilding the nest.  They are not succeeding very well.  Why?  Is the relationship on the rocks?  It's bad enough that I wonder how, in a good year, they get the nesting-laying-feeding thing done to begin with.  How do they cope with adversity?  They've been together now for at least five years that we know.  Should they go back to Mama and Papa for help?  Think about that for a minute.  Too bad they can't come to me.  I would take them in.  I already have.  I can't even figure why I, of all people, even have feelings for this couple.  But, I do.


BIRD FOOD
Where do they find it?  Birds, as a genus, are omnivorous. There are birds that eat fish; mollusks; seeds; grains of all kinds; insects, on the wing and on the ground; small rodents and even carrion.  It is a wonder where they find all that stuff.  True they have good eyes, but the time that they have to spend finding the stuff is enormous.  They do have some success.  If the results of the metabolistic process are any indication, birds are not in the process of starving to death.  Just ask any whitened statue in any city in the world.  Now, I just had quite a thought fly through my head.  No lie.  Just this very moment without any previous warning whatsovever.  I thought about the "David" in Florence.  Poor, David...

FERAL CATS
After old people die, who feeds them?  These are very interesting animals.  They are urbanites.  The "wild" for them is the city.  The "Really Wild" for them are the suburbs.  I ask the question because now that my dear mother-in-law has died, we not longer have the swarm of feral cats slinking around our house in San Diego.  I suppose that they have found another 90 year old soul who pities these poor kitties and who keeps them in table scraps on a regular basis.  I grant them the freedom to be homeless, but to be totally, purely, conservatively Republican about it, I think that they should just go out and kill something if they want to eat.

HUMAN BEINGS
Where does all this food come from?  How many super markets are there?  How many "mom & pop"markets are there? How many billions of people are there?  All we see is what we see in our immediate environment.  We have so much food that we feed the feral cats, the house cats, the feral dogs, the house dogs, the house birds and we even feed the occasional house boa constrictor with specially raised rodents. What do we do with the feral humans?  Admit it, this is role reversal at its best.  I once heard a professional curmudgeon [not Christopher Hitchens] say: "Seeing-eye dogs?  What the hell for?  Go find yourself a homeless human and make a friend who needs a friend of your own species."  Think about that for a moment.  See what you come up with in the depths of your soul.

ME
I eat anything.  I am your quintessential omnivore.  I am also your quintessential sleep professional.  I can sleep anywhere, at any time in any position I happen to find most accommodating for the occasion.  I'm easy.  Not easy to get along with, but easy on the environment.  I eat anyting from raw squid to fried beetles.  I eat pigs ears and fish heads...even with the eyes still in them.  I eat left-overs either hot or cold, depending on my mood.  Once I've done that, naturally I get sleepy, so I sleep.  Sometimes I do wish I could be like a big snake.  Eat farmer John's big goat and curl up somewhere and sleep for a year while I metabolize the last meal I had.  Sound good to you?  Some days it does, most days, I'm very happy to go from seeing the ceiling to feeling the floor beneath my tootsies.  That, dear friends is one part of who I am.