Try Again, Vivaldi

Spring is supposed to be a time for new beginnings.  In the natural world, it certainly is.  But I don't live in nature.  I'm a human being; I live in an artificial world with its own rules.  And it seems that one of the differences between the human world and the natural world is when things start.  For some reason, artificial things mostly start in the fall.  Particularly the first week of September.  School starts, new TV shows debut, financial years start.  But there's lots of little changes too:  here and there the familiar shifts just slightly, and you spend a week reorienting yourself.  Oh, Rachel Ray is on an hour earlier, McDonald's boxes are corrugated now, half the tenants in the building have changed.  And all my ancestors had were blooming flowers.

In Soviet Russia, the Birds Watch You

I'm not a bird watcher, but I have picked up an interest from my parents.  Like so many people, I know it's only a matter of time until I buy binoculars and a Peterson Guide.  But even as a senior citizen, I don't see me having the patience for bird watching.

So I'm going to put my own spin on it, and become an Inverse Bird Watcher.  That is, I'm not going to count the different species of birds that I see; I'm going to count the different places I see birds.  Already I've compiled a pretty good list just this year:

• my balcony
• treeless urban streets
• the local grocery store
• several shopping malls
• my building's parking garage

As long as sparrows keep reproducing and cities keep sprawling, my new hobby will keep going.