¿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.

"COLUMBUS" LIVES ON

If this appears ethereal, there is a reason.  There is a story here.  You bet!  This cat represents one of the lives that a cat named "Columbus" has.  It was yesterday, Sunday, after Mass, when I was walking back home and was still about one hundred yards away from the house.  From behind me, over my left shoulder a slinky, tight-bodied, tall and elongated feral cat with a long, stiffly held tail and a determined demeanor gained on me and passed me by without so much a "by-your-leave."  He, I prefer to think it was a "he" for the purpose of this story, slid off to the left through a hedge and proceeded to go toward the garbage disposal area of the houses in the neighborhood.  The neighborhood used to  have brigades of feral cats.  Many of them were the offspring of a household cat that we once had.  His name was "Christopher" when we got him as a three month old kitten.  I am not a believer in names for animals, but the children and Belle insisted that the cat had to have a name.  I said, "OK, but not 'Christopher.'"  You can tell that "Columbus" was a rather easy logical step for them to take in their naming game.  It was also decided that the cat was to be an outside cat and a vermin hunter.  Truth to tell, this worked out rather well.  For about a year.  After that the cat population began to swell perceptibly and the amount of food that they were consuming became more than somewhat considerable. Table scraps, of course.  I have a rule about feeding cats and dogs.  "If you're hungry, go kill something."  Lazy cats that these were, they even learned to eat rice and vegetables, left-overs from last week.  I found out that this was happening when I couldn't find my rice and Brussels' sprouts one day. My mother-in-law got an earful that day.  But we laughed it off.
Now the cat population, as it grew, took on a certain hue that indicated that "Columbus" was one busy guy.  The promiscuity of that "animal" was legendary.  The whole mile-long ridge of Linda vista was crawling with ash-grey cats.  Directly engendered by one, "Columbus," I'm veery sure.  The comical [and frustrating part for me] was that they were finding the major part of their sustenance in our back yard, thanks to "Lola."  There even came a time when we no longer saw "Columbus" for weeks on end.  He had turned into a "C & E" pet.  This went on for a long time.  Some years passed until one day, late in the afternoon, we saw "Columbus."  Laid out in the back yard, rigor mortis was evident already.  He had come back home to die.  Just as in the stories that we have all heard and disbelieved, that cats always come home to die.  He did it.
Now, the rest of the ferals didn't care.  They still wanted to eat without having to hunt.  They got fed for a few more years until Lola [Grandma and second mother to our boys] became incapacitated and could no longer feed the herd. ["Herd" is not the correct term, but you know what I mean.]  The result was that the population went down, but the count of the ash-grey offspring was still holding its own.  By yesterday, we were at least seven years distant from the incapacitation of Lola.  So, I am writing this to celebrate the fact that there is at least one tough looking Tom carrying the "Columbus" gene to the fair damsels, and surely, to the unfair ones too.  "Columbus" was a rather cuddly guy.  This descendant is a "Terminator."  I am convinced that he peels rust scales off of old car parts for breakfast.  So, good job, "Columbus."  You timed it just right, Ol' Buddy. You showed up in my mind through your Avatar on my last day in the neighborhood before I turn 75.
If there are any of you who believe in coincidence, give it up.  It's more fulfilling to believe in Providence.  That way, you'll always have a connection to the higher things in life.
This is not what I was going to talk to you about tonight, but this has been more fun.  Besides, by tomorrow, I will have 24 hours of experience at my new age.  By then I'll be an expert at it and will be able to tell you in great detail about how it feels.