A Report From The Sidelines Re: Neighbor Vs. Birds

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[Note to readers: we live in a neighborhood with homes built on wooded ravine lots.  With many trees.  In which birds build nests, as they are wont to do.  These are facts.]

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The neighbor woman who lives behind us has upped her anti-bird campaign.  She’s still out to chase all the birds away from her property, but she has a new tactic.

Now, in addition to her shouting and noise-making, she has begun to place bright shiny silver & red metallic streamers in her trees.

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She wanders around her backyard throwing these streamers up into the air near tree branches.  Then when a streamer gets caught on a tree branch she loosely ties it to the branch, leaving yards of streamer fluttering in the wind.

This means that when the sun shines and hits the moving streamers, her backyard has bright lights randomly twinkling.  It reminds me of an old-fashioned used car lot, which I guess she thinks is a turn-off for birds.

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I find this new behavior alternately entertaining or annoying.

What entertains me is that her neighbors on the property immediately beside her have put a large bird feeder on a shepherd’s hook.  They’ve positioned the shepherd’s hook in such a way that she’ll see the bird feeder ever time she steps outside onto her deck, but they cannot see it from their deck.

Don’t you just love passive-aggressive behavior?

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However, what annoys me is that when the streamers are twinkling their brightest the light from them is strong enough to be noticed on our TV screen.  Inside the house.  Across the ravine.

Meaning that if we happen to be watching something on TV, our show has little sparkly red dots of color superimposed on it.  It’s kind of like stroking out without going to the bother of having a stroke.

Now how strange is that?

Tweeted Twaddle: A Blog Post “Written” Without Doing Much Of Anything

•  I can’t see straight today.  My April allergies are in full swing making my eyes itchy & watery.  This happens every year, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.  Now does it?

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•  Because I refuse to stop reading while my vision is blurry, I have set my Kindle’s font to old-people-rheumy-eyed large.  It’s a feature on there. Really.

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•  Naturally, while reading I became a bit peckish so I tried a new-to-me snack.  I did not like it, so I had to share this fact on Twitter.  That’s what Twitter is for, right?

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•  So in closing of this eclectic [some would say filler] post, I leave you, my gentle readers, with this tweet of creative writing in which I summarize what I wish was going on outside today.  Because a girl can dream. Yes?

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The Bean Abides

A Poem on the Occasion of the Beginning of my 12th Year in the Blogosphere

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I started small because I didn’t know,

What to expect from this blogging show.

My friends in real life ignored my blog dream,

It made me so mad that I wanted to scream.

But continuing on I wrote each day,

Knowing that others would head this way.

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My mantra simple, my goals were clear:

Give the readers a story to cheer.

“I will not whine, nor over-share,

I will show up and rarely swear.

I am authentic, I refuse to mock, 

I enjoy learning, and taking stock.”

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Perspicacious am I, willing to share,

Light of heart, but still I care.

Nuanced and nutty, in equal part,

I have been quirky, right from the start.

Stick-to-itiveness, I think you’ll agree,

Is the word that best describes me.

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Free-spirited, niche-less, with content well-written,

Yet editors varied with me are not smitten.

No Freshly Pressed badge, will you see here,

It seems what I write, they just do not hear.

But now gentle readers, in you I confide,

No matter what happens, the Bean will abide.

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A special thanks to la peregrina at Santiago Dreaming who’s been here with me from the beginning AND to Margaret at Stargazer who’s been around here for almost as long.  You both paid attention to me when no one else did– and helped me, a reserved introvert, gain the confidence to keep on writing.  Love you both.

[H/T to D. Parker at yadadarcyyada whose wonderful post “Why I Will Never Be Freshly Pressed” put me in a mind to write this poem.]

In The Spirit Of Gardening, I Am

IMG_0008We have no pansies in our planting beds this spring.

I don’t know where my mind was last fall, but it wasn’t on planning ahead for pops of color, courtesy of pansies, around the house.

My bad.

No, instead, the little bit of color that we have in the planting beds is from a few bedraggled, unenthusiastic, ancient daffodils who look like they’re huddled together outside taking a smoke.

If they could speak, they’d be talking in an old guy NJ accent, asking each other for a light.  “Hey, Murray!  You got a lighter over dere?  Whatcha say you lets me use it.  Tanks, buddy.”

I feel that I’m working with the landscape crew in spirit.

The crew started our spring cleanup yesterday, but it takes them a day or two to complete our property.  When we used to do the clean up ourselves it took us at least 4 weekend days, working together for 8 hours each day, to get this yard looking snazzy.

Too much for us.

So today while the crew is making things tidy outside, I’m inside perusing garden websites and gardening catalogues.  It’s amazing how many plants and garden doodads we need when I apply myself to the task of helping the landscape crew in this way.

And that, kids, is what’s going on around here.  I’m waiting for the big reveal after the landscape crew finishes, feeling that this expensive indulgence is worth the price.  And I’m grooving on the idea that when you get down to it, middle age has its perks.