O Sweet Long Weekend

While chickens are by far the most amazing and beautiful birds, my heart has softened for one particular breed that dapples the sidewalks on my way to work every day. In my ever-present peptalk that accompanies the morning walk to the subway, I've found great comfort in the sight of these little tweets, so sweet I can barely stand how dear they are. I've been cruising the Internet, trying to figure out what the hell they are, when I finally depended upon my rusty memory banks to just guess what they might be.

As a writer, one of my most embarrassing weaknesses is not knowing the names of things: trees, flowers, general frickin fauna, birds--birds! I know chickens...even different types of chickens, kind of...but nothing else really. SO. One of the only bird names that came to mind was, finally, SPARROWS. Funny, since they play such a huge role in a great Stephen King novel (and HORRIBLE movie), The Dark Half. Who'd have thunk it? These twee birds carry the dead back to the underworld? Get out! How could they? As they are so unbelievably twee?


So I present to you the sparrow. Couldn't you just pop one in your mouth? They are small enough. I'll never call them "sparrow," though, because on my walks of anxiety and stress, I've already named them. Heretofore, let them forever be known by their true and shiny name: Sweetiebirds. I first thought of them as "tweetiebirds" of course, but the natural progression to "sweetiebirds" now seems inevitable.

Ha!

I'd only ever seen them fleeing in terror of me as I walked the walk, but the other day had the pleasure of having them dive bomb Yasmin and I as we ate in the park. So I guess that the "taking the dead back to the underworld" thing makes more sense...yet. Lookit! How sweet is that face? You could kiss 'em or eat 'em--too sugary perfect for words!

And now, some random house pics. Because I could. Would. And will.