Re-entry has been a little rough all around, and I’m going to blame my mental coma on the heat. We were spoiled in Europe, where it’s basically still spring, lovely, cool and beautiful. We returned to full on NOLA- 97 degrees all week, and we won’t even discuss the humidity or drought.

In life’s Pinky and the Brain continuum, I’m afraid this has been a solidly “Pinky” week, where I make leaps of judgement that seem very logical…to me…at the time…as long as you don’t look too closely…

That aside, there have been two things that have taken a whole lot of mental space that I really should’ve picked up sooner than I did:
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Well, that’s that. A year’s worth of work, obsession, and insanity, fini. It seems I managed to do little else while working on the Wedding that Ate My Soul (WAMS, (TM)), other than also planning the month long honeymoon that was supposed to restore some semblance of sanity.

 

I’m not sure if the sanity part worked, but it was certainly amazing. All of it. We got to have a phenomenal week long party with friends from far and wide before visiting 13 European cities in 35 days- if I said it was anything other than fantastic you’d have to come kick my ass, right?

 

Now it’s back to real life, where I have three different “jobs”- in the morning I’ll be working on getting a small business off the ground. The afternoons will be spent working with a friend on a computer program that’s going to be a blast- and hopefully do some good, too. And at night there’s a new writing project.

 

Wonderful things all. For the first time in a long time I feel really excited about everything on my plate, scary as it is.  And returning to journaling is one of the things I’m looking forward to doing, so…apologies for the extended vacation, and there’s lots of buckling down in store.

 

 

This post should really be called “The Isle of Toys Rejected by Spoiled Parrots.”

Patricia Sund put out a call for toys and perches- anything, broken, used, rejected, because:

I simply cannot thank you enough. This is one cause that is ripping me up. It’s bad. There’s birds who’s only perches are pvc and steel pipe with absolutely no toys. They had a fire not too long ago and it nearly wiped out the entire place. They now have a board of directors but they need help pretty badly.

So into the boxes I dove, knowing I’d find many things that had arrived all hopeful, ready to make some bird happy, but instead were sneered at and rejected. Even so, I was a little surprised at how much I found:

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The Island of Shunned Swings

These, you see, are round. Round is entirely the wrong shape. Round is not to be tolerated. Oh, sure, our rope boings are twisted into spirals, but (apparently) that’s totally different.

The one on the left is a particular disappointment for me- it’s a snuggle ring, made of hundreds of bits of fleecy soft stuff to be rubbed on and preened and to keep you warm. Colorful and cute! I want one of those! But it seems that the birds do not, so into the box it goes.

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Next we come to the terribly sad

Forsaken Isles

These toys were once beloved, including the once favorite of favorites- the caterpillars! But now that we are big birds and are familiar with every joint on their little bodies, we are no longer amused. Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt. Once you can take down a toy in under 15 seconds, you can no longer respect it, so off to find less informed owners they go.

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Here we find the

Reef of Repudiation.

These toys were ones that “everybody” loves. ALL birds love to shred coconut husks! They can’t wait to work those bits of wood out of the metal bars! If the love taking apart the caterpillars, these ball puzzles will be a hit!

Oh yeah? We’ll show you. Rejected!

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Our last stop on our tour of the Islands is Mama’s

Shoals of Shame.

I must confess that the birds aren’t the only ones who’ve misbehaved. Once upon a time I was filled with one of those ideas I get- “I need a PROJECT! I know, I can MAKE the birds’ toys- I’ll save money, have fun, use only the materials they like, it’ll be great!”

Yeah. Not so much.

You can’t really tell the size of the bowl from the picture (though you can see I haven’t dusted this week- sorry!), but it’s big enough to hold 5 lbs of meatballs on those rare occasions when I cook something other than birdie bread.

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If you have anything (including money, of course) you’d like to donate, please contact Patricia through her site and she’ll get you in contact with the shelter.

So now it’s off to the post office to send these to the rescue birds to hopefully make their holidays just a little brighter. As I go, I’ll be humming because while I’ve been writing the stupid song has gotten lodged in my brain:

We took a quick trip out along the Gulf and this shrimper just stopped not far from where we were sitting to rinse out his nets & get everything stowed away.

At least once a year, Charlie starts going through beach withdrawal and we must get down and sit by the water before he starts getting the shakes.

I’m really not much of a beach person, and this year less than most, because there’s so much going but I knew that if I didn’t go he’d be so miserable there’d be no living with him. And of course, it was subject to ‘trip bloat.’ “We’ll go overnight” became 2 nights, and soon 3 while my friends wanted to pop me upside the head for whining about “having” to go to Florida.

So yes, it was very sad, how I was made to endure the unendurable…

You can go ahead and hit me now. I totally understand.

I’m not going to get into a whole 5 year hurricane retrospective, but if you’d like one, they’re everywhere. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to commemorate the weekend, but when the neighborhood association decided to build a new Kaboom! playground for the anniversary, that seemed just about perfect. Better to get out, work with neighbors and do some lasting good rather than navel gaze, right?

This build came together much faster than the others we’ve done, because we had this very specific target date that wasn’t very far away. It seems we’re all old hands at this now- we’ve done 3 others in the neighborhood, one also with Marriott, and Kaboom! has this down to a science.

The hotel has been amazing- after things went to hell here, the Marriott family put out the call to their employees around the world and took donations to insure all of their affected employees had the money and the shelter they needed for as long as it took to get back on their feet. When everything was done, many millions of dollars were left in the pot and they’ve been using that money to fund community improvement projects where the employees who received the help do the work while the donations pay for the logistics and materials.

The organizers were out there around 6, with another 275 volunteers arriving at 8 to build a playground from the ground up in one day- not to mention making picnic table & shade structures, fixing & painting everything in sight and more. Plus the neighborhood raised well over our goal and will be able to buy the kids new football uniforms in the fall.

Kaboom!’s founder was there in person, as were Marriott execs, the police chief, City Council president and more, and everybody had the same message: Forward. I couldn’t agree more.

Although it poured for awhile in the afternoon, everybody kept at it, and even that is pretty symbolic, no?

There have been a ton of late season critters eating the more tender plants, but I waited to see what they’d become and let them to their damage. I wonder if, once they’ve become butterflies, they like to return to the place where they fed and cocooned?

You can see one of the the many orange and black butterflies, and to the bottom left, a very similar looking caterpillar, looking about as big as they get before the change.

A week ago today a friend was killed in a freak accident, and I’ve thought of little else since then. Chip was young, on vacation with his family and having a grand time. It was just…incomprehensible.

As it happens, I’ve been thinking a lot about Chip and his wife Cindy, because there’s nothing like planning for a wedding to make you go over your mental list of friends and family.

I had been remembering their support, way, way back in the day, and in particular something that literally changed the course of my life.

I’d been separated from my husband for some time, but we were living in different bedrooms in the same house for financial reasons. I was young, broke, and muddling through, but finally moving into my own place when a man appeared on the horizon. I didn’t think I was anywhere near ready to deal with any kind of relationship, plus the guy was not without his own complications- it would have been an entirely unorthodox match.

We were sitting in their backyard, laughing, and when I told her I didn’t think I could handle anything else on my plate right now- never mind a man! – she sat forward with great intensity. “Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t you joke about happiness. There’s not nearly enough of it in the world, and you don’t know if it’s ever going to come around again. If you think you’ve got a shot, you’d better take it.”

Chip had come up behind and put his hand out to squeeze her shoulder, nodding. “We would know.”

So now, having followed that advice, I find myself planning a wedding to that same unorthodox man. Life has taken us in different directions, but I’ll always love Cin & Chip and this accident has just reinforced their words.



They found happiness and clung to it for all it was worth. They made a good life together and adored each other like few I’ve ever known. As horribly unfair as the accident was, they had something precious, and they were smart enough to know it.



May we all be wise enough to go forth and do likewise.