Birds - Identification and Behaviors

 

I'm Meeting Someone

In the early days of newspaper ad dating, I agreed to meet at guy at Sparky's in SF. We described ourselves to one another on the phone ahead of time. He was 6 feet tall, with dark hair and blue eyes; I said I'd be wearing a blue sweater.

At the time of the date, I went to the restaurant and ordered a coffee at the counter from the waiter, telling him that I was meeting someone there. A tall guy with dark hair came in and told the waiter the same thing had said - that he was meeting someone.

I asked, "Are you Paul?" He looked at me and said, "Nope." A minute or so later, he left. I felt the blood rush to my face, since I was sure he had just bailed.

I was working up my nerve to ask for the bill so I could leave, when another tall guy walked in. I didn't say anything.

The waiter studiously wiped the counter down.

The guy kind of cleared his throat and said, "Um. Are you Darcy?"

The waiter burst out, "Oh, thank GOD!"

Video #2: Breaking Down in Mechanicsville

Mishaps have brought me some of my best memories. I really enjoyed making this video, partly just because of the process itself, but also because I spent some time remembering back when I was first on the tour. We didn't get travel or a  hotel room included in our pay, so we would stay in groups, seven or eight to a room, sleeping on the floors and bribing the maids to bring us extra towels and hoping they didn't tell on us.

Funny that the memory of times like these -- car fires and sleeping on floors -- bring me such happiness. So, here is my story:

Breaking Down in Mechanicsville

He Who Represents Himself

At 7, when making his case on something, Paul performed a trial to prove his innocence. He wore a Henning Underground cap as the lawyer, "Where were you on May 12?" and then put on a Giants cap to answer as Paul, "Playing on the slip-n-slide." Henning underground cap: "I pronounce me not guilty!"

A Story About Skipping

One time, I was sitting in front of the Learning Resource Center at ARC, and a woman was sitting on the bench opposite me. To the left of me, there was a long, gently sloping walkway. From way-y-y down the walkway, I saw a very good-looking, athletic guy skipping enthusiastically toward us - with really high skips. The woman and I watched wordlessly as he skipped up to where we were sitting, flipped his empty drink bottle into a recycling can without pause, and skipped past. 

Stunned, I blinked at the woman across from me and asked, "Did you just see that?" She replied in similar tone of pleased wonder and without a note of sarcasm, "Yeah. He recycled!"

You Need SCOPE

I am in the backseat of my mom’s 65 Mustang with my brother Andy, pretending to take a trip to Arizona. We’re bouncing around on the tan seat, talking about what we see on the way. Sometimes we sit in the front seats, one of turning the wheel and leaning into the turn, the other one leaning along as we pass each roadrunner and saguaro cactus on our way to the exotic land of extended family, people we see only every couple of years, but with whom we instantly fall into comfortable synchronicity. These people always have Popsicles in their freezers.

But Andy and I have wearied of the front seat, and have decamped to the back, when we realize that this is the perfect vantage point from which to observe and critique the neighborhood. Conveniently, our neighbor across the street pulls up, parks and exits his car and stoops to reach in and remove items from his trunk. Andy, recognizing the possibilities of our anonymity, yells out the window,

“You need SCOPE in your BUTT!”

We fall to the floor of the car to hide, giggling madly at the wit, buoyed by the heady danger of saying such a shocking and hilarious thing to not only a grown-up, but a neighbor. We lie there for a long time after he has gone inside, laughing on those tan seats, pleased and proud.

What've You Got in that Bag?

Years ago, I went to see a play "The Curse of the Starving Class" at Sac State with my boyfriend Mez. I was quite ill with bronchitis, but I really wanted to go, because my dear friend Dan was in it and so was my former drama teacher, George Roth. Rather than stay home and recuperate from a respiratory illness that was bordering on walking pneumonia, I took a bottle of codeine cough syrup to sip from quietly, so I wouldn't disturb the audience by coughing. These were the types of decisions I made in my twenties. 

Anyway, when we got there, Mez said, "Uh-oh." A friend of his sister's, let's call her Cynthia, was at the play. She hated me, because she asked Mez out on a date about seven minutes after he and I started going out, so she felt like I had stolen him from her. She also hated me because I had been in a class with her in junior college, and I guess I was annoying, according to what she told Mez's sister, who told Mez, who then told me. This stressed me out. I couldn't even remember her, so I couldn't judge if maybe I had done something awful, which would make me terrible, or if I wasn't so bad, in which case she was unreasonable and maybe I wasn't so terrible. These were the types of things that bothered me in my twenties. 

The play started and all I remember about it is that George and Dan were really good and that I was desperately suppressing coughs and swilling opiate cough syrup. Also, there was full frontal nudity by a guy in the cast (not George or Dan) and there was simulated pissing. Bet you haven't seen that. 

So, after the play, I ran up to Dan and hugged him because I wanted to get away from Cynthia's dislike, and after chatting briefly, he said there was a girl in the audience who hated him, because she had asked out his boyfriend Joe, and Joe had told her he was gay and dating Dan. Of course, it was Cynthia. So, now I was the person who had stolen Mez and I was happily hugging the man she had just found out had stolen Prospect #2 from her, like, the night before. 

I fled outside. George Roth was out there, talking to people. He had an opaque white paper bag, the size of a lunch bag, in his hands. Rather desperately, I said, jokingly, "What've got in that ba-a-a-ag? TOOTSIE POPS?" 

George looked at me with a pleased expression. He reached into the bag and withdrew...a Tootsie Pop. He unwrapped it deliberately, showed it to me pointedly, put it in his mouth, nodded, and walked slowly away.