Keep the wolf far hence, that's foe to men

[pameladean]

I wrote this a few days ago but never posted it, and find I want it in here:

The sky, which has been dark and lowering all day, just lightened so abruptly that I looked outside to see if the sun might be visible. It is not: instead, a huge downpour of very noisy, bouncy precipitation, like dollhouse hail, is falling. The birds are making a fuss, and I don't blame them. This is my fuss.

We return you now to current events, where it is quite cold but the sun is shining and the wind is blowing the glitter of yesterday's snow off the branches. I must gird myself presently and go wade through snow to fill the bird feeders.

In other news, it being the new year, I have dutifully looked at the short-story fragments that erupted from the condensation of my novel. I immediately saw a completely boring and reprehensible assignment of gender roles -- girls make friends with girls, boys with boys, and the girls talk about social stuff while the boys do astronomy. Well, screw THAT. I can't make Con interested in astronomy, but I can swap out the other brother-sister pair and let Sophia explain telescopes to Beldi.

And where, I ask rhetorically, did I choose to read aloud these two fragments? At Wiscon.

Oh, brain. Will I ever get all the cobwebs out of you?

Pamela

Comments

[mmseason.livejournal.com]

So relieved that you do that too. We have few defences against years-old conditioning!

I hope the birds thanked you.

[pameladean]

I thought I had got out of the way of it, but no, let my brain wander and there it all is. I don't really mind finding such stuff in early drafts; it was the decision to read the early drafts out loud that I am regretting a little.

So far, the squirrels are thanking me, but if they leave anything I am sure the birds will as well.

P.

[biblio-tech.livejournal.com]

My bird feeder remains depressingly full (weeks). We seem to have a resident cardinal and a few chickadees. The squirrel-proofness of the feeder seems to be proven. We have some hanging around on the ground, but they don't even attempt to get in anymore. And no English sparrows! Both of these things are fine with me, but they're odd. Further oddness, is that I've seen a small flock of robins by Mayflower church and a single one by Lake Nokomis.

[pameladean]

That is very weird about the house sparrows. I have dozens and dozens.

I believe that in the past ten or twentiy years we have gotten flocks of robins from further north wintering here, as well as some who find warm spots, like heat vents at the university, and just stick around. I saw a huge flock a week or two ago, plundering berries from a gigantic hackberry. Poor guys, they were all fluffed up, which I have seldom before seen in a robin. They'll eat other dried fruit too, if you want them at the feeder.

P.

[mmseason.livejournal.com]

:) Squirrel manners can't be predicted, so it's great that you have polite ones.