Today I was pondering a lot of different business/work decisions/ideas through my head on the way to my father's house. And when I arrived there was a blue jay on a wall, with a cardinal about 6 feet away on the grill. The jay was foraging, the cardinal…kinda just hangin'. I was fortunate enough to have a camera with me, but just unfortunate enough to have the cardinal fly off before I could start snapping. Although when I switched the camera to movie mode, the cardinal reappeared for a cameo before darting off again, kind of like what Christopher Walken does in some films.
Not long after, a gaggle of finches (don't know what to call it, but it was quite shy of a flock) came storming by like some sort of multiplayer whilring dervish, you know like binary stars, except with more than two. Must have been a courtship ritual with the young bucks trying to impress a dame. (It's really odd calling a finch a young buck, is it as odd to read?)
They departed as quickly as they arrived kind of like a teenage driver at a tangential relative's family function. The blue jay was completely nonplussed. He kind of looked at 'em like they were a bunch of fools, and went about his business. And yeah, it could have been a she, but I don't know enough about blue jays, except that they supposedly can be pretty nasty, but I believe that's when they perceive danger to their young, and I thing most of us would act the same, pecking on skulls and gouging out eyeballs and that sort of thing.
Anyway I thought this strange coupling may have been a sign that I was on to something with what I was thinking when I arrived, although then again maybe it was just a “Thanks for throwing down some new grass seed at the cemetery today, Son.” Or maybe it means I should go ahead to that bird preserve I was thinking about with my son this weekend. You know, once you start thinking too much you tend to ruin everything.
And the thinking never ends. The thing with the blue jays and the eyeballs a few lines back got me thinking about that “slicing up eyeballs” line in “Debaser” by The Pixies. So even though my much imagined mp3 blog, hasn't happened…yet. I'm gonna drop some Pixies on you for a limited time, and if Charles or Kim want me to take it down sooner, I invite them to let me know.
Pixies – Debaser
UPDATE: July, 24, 2008: I now know a little more about birds than I did 2 months ago. My so-called finches were actually sparrows, and apparently I don't have the movie file with the blue jay and the cardinal. Oh well.