Spring is sprunging

What can one say about Spring that hasn’t already been said? Aside from "new life" bursting out all over, the noise level has picked up some -- even before the sun starts to come up the hills are alive with the sound of “music.”(but I already wrote about this didn't I?) The migrants are returning, the Towhee has come back, the Killdeer is staking out a territory along the state right of way (they build their nests in the oddest places – maybe I’ll write about that sometime). Unfortunately, the habitat here has changed so much that the woodcock no longer shows up. For many years we were entertained by the males’ strange whirring courtship flight and their bizarre “song” which sounds something like “bzeep” (thanks RTP for that). And interesting things are going on here at night. Two raccoons were perched on the bird feeder in the wee hours of the morning last week twittering at the cat, who was sitting in front of the window (on my scanner) watching them. And last night when I went to retrieve the suet cakes for the birds (to keep the raccoons from eating them) I heard foxes barking in the brush a stone's throw from the back door (wonder what THEY were up too???) I've never seen the bobcat that the highway workers told us about but I heard it scream once -- at least I think it was bobcat. Well, here is William Wordsworth’s take on Spring for anyone who missed it in high school English:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company.
I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
***
Happy Easter!
The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!!!

Fixin’ it up

There it sits in all its splendor. A bowl of steaming hot gray glop. Oatmeal. A healthy, nutritious breakfast that is about as appetizing as wallpaper paste. So, how to make this palatable? Well, let’s add a couple of tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter. Hummmm. These raisins look good, throw them in too. Let’s see. A little brown sugar. You know what would really taste good? Some chocolate chips. And a little milk. And guess what? It’s peanut butter oatmeal cookie dough! Yummy.

A Map of the World

As noted in an earlier post, we are almost certain our 28-year-old son has Asperger Syndrome. We first became aware of AS when we heard a report about it on NPR as we were driving home from California several years ago. The longer we listened, the more we began to realize that this was a perfect description of our son. At one point we sort of simultaneously looked at each other said “That's him!!" The Internet has a number of helpful Websites on AS; one has a nice list of typical AS behaviors (only now I can't find the URL) . When I looked this list, I saw that he exhibits all of the behaviors except #4, which was an interest in maps, charts, routes, that sort of thing. “Well,” I thought to myself, “at least he doesn't do all of the things on the list.” I took some small comfort in this. Then, a couple of days ago he says to me "Mom, did I ever show you what I got at this clearance sale at the mall. It only cost $50." And then he emerges from his bedroom with two framed reproductions of very old maps of the world that attempted (and failed, in my opinion) to replicate the beautiful illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Age. And then he rambles on about how he wants to find a reproduction of one of those "flat earth" maps. Very big sigh...

Doorbell from hell

This morning a Jehovah’s Witness woman came to the door. I think it was just a fluke that her presence at the back door coincided with the doorbell beginning to ring and ring and ring and ring (it did not stop). She left, thinking nobody was home, and by the time I got to the door she was already headed for the car. After she had trudged halfway back up the driveway, I politely told her to go away and then yelled for R to “do something” about the berserk doorbell. He turned it off. Then about 5 minutes later, the doorbell in his office began to ring and ring and ring and would not stop. We assume this must be connected with the construction crew on the other side of the highway laying pipe. They are probably using CBs or some other type of radio to talk to each other as they work. I believe both doorbells are now turned off -- permanently I hope. We were thinking about rigging up a doorbell and training our cat to use it so we could let her in instead of her clawing on the screen door. R says, do you really want the cat ringing a bell every time she thinks she wants in? Oooh. No. I don’t. This is the cat that goes out the front door, runs around to the back to be let in and then within a minute or two is heading for the front door again to be let out (in other words, she wants to be where she isn’t). I think we will just retire the doorbells for now.