Race day

Posted on May 5, 2019 by Jay McLaughlin

5 May, 2019           Race day

Today I celebrated my thirty-second year (!) of being a triathlete! This was my bike at Lake Anna this morning just before noon, maybe forty-five minutes after I’d finished the race:

My bike shortly after the race

This was me about half an hour earlier. A group of athletes asked if I’d do a group photo of them; I asked them to return the favor, though I was only racing in a group of one:

Me today after the race – 32 years of triathlons! My gratitude knows no bounds

I carried my phone on the run; I took this picture at 11:12, a moment before crossing the finish line:

The finish line awaits

All this was today – these irises were ~30 seconds walk from the finish line:

Also at the finish line. Beauty everywhere I looked.

My brother Kevin had been at Davidson college recently at a volleyball tournament with his daughters. He photographed this and sent it to me. Late in the race I was having a problem running; the quote was perfectly timed:

Late in the race I had a problem with running. Voila.

I got a cricket frog at the river Thursday – check this out:

Cricket frog at Pony Pasture

Tadpoles ~1 / 4 of a hop away from that frog:

Cricket frogs to be, a.k.a. tadpoles:

Ev’s roses are still stunning (and will continue to be, if history is any guide):

Another stunning rose from your yard:

I got up at 4:45 this AM to do that race, drove to Lake Anna, raced and came home – and I am way too tired to blog much more. But a couple other things at Pony Pasture caught my eye Thursday. One was I was lamenting that I’d missed the locust blossoms in 2019. They are as ephemeral as any trout lily but they smell 1,000x better – or more – since trout lilies don’t smell. Locust blossoms smell stunning – possibly better than a gardenia or honeysuckle. I wanted to write this week about what you miss when you read a blog – you miss smells. Flowers are blooming like mad at Pony Pasture (and everywhere else) now, and they’re pleasing to the eye buy you have to smell them! Here are the locust blossoms:

These locust flowers are simply beyond compare

And while I was drinking them in, their scent attracted the first hummingbird I’ve seen in 2019. This is a female ruby throat. Although they’re called “ruby” throated, only the males have “ruby” throats. Her throat is white. She just stopped at the locust flowers for an instant then flew across the trail to some other tree. Here she is. You have to look carefully – she’s to the left in the center. You can see her eye and her slender bill and white throat:

Female hummingbird, center-left:

I still have to walk Mackey and Turner before they – or I – go to sleep. So have a great week! Come back next week!

All best,

Jay

Posted in Endurance, Flowers, Fun, love, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, roses, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), triathlons | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Eavesdropping and “money problems” – a true story

Posted on April 28, 2019 by Jay McLaughlin

28 April, 2019           Eavesdropping and “money problems” – a true story

I woke up for work before dawn Wednesday, thinking I had “money problems.” I fixed my oatmeal and read an article in the New York Times called Letter of Recommendation: Eavesdropping by a woman named Jeanie Riess. I’ll return to that at the bottom of this post.  

I’d seen a white squirrel or two when I was younger, and we used to see lots of black squirrels too. This is a white squirrel. But it’s not an albino. Much more common is a “white morph” of a gray squirrel. The “morph” in the name is the same morph as in “metamorphosis.” Here’s the one I’ve seen twice this week at Deep Run Park in western Henrico County, VA:

White morph gray squirrel (not an albino)

While I’m posting spectacular images, check out the first rose Evelyn coaxed into bloom in 2019. I took this picture with my phone (!) Thursday (4/24) morning. All I can say is I’m speechless:  

Blaze rose blooming beside our garage this week:

I got pictures of snakes again this week, but it’s the same old northern water snakes on the same old pieces of granite at Deep Run. They’re cool – they’re always cool – but I got a different reptile in better light, and it doesn’t make people cringe as much as snakes do. Check out this five-lined skink I saw Friday:

Mature five-lined skink:

That one is an adult. There were juvenile skinks running around – I am not making that up – and hanging out in the sun. Check out these two:

Two juvenile five-lined skinks, identifiable as juvenile by their blue tails

The Virginia Herpetological Society says this about the youngsters:

“The blue tail of juveniles is an antipredator adaptation that serves to attract the predator away from the vulnerable part of the lizard, its body. Juveniles escape potential predators by disappearing into the leaf litter, lashing their tails back and forth above the leaves. The blue tail, contrasting with the brown background, attracts predators (birds and small, lizard-eating snakes) to the less vulnerable appendage. Once broken off, the tail twitches for a period of time, distracting the potential predator further. This increases the probability that a juvenile will survive to maturity. At onset of sexual maturity the tail color changes from blue to a cryptic gray-brown. This change occurs at a time when energy requirements for tail regeneration are also important to the growth and reproductive output of the adult (Vitt and Cooper, 1986c). Tail loss at this time decreases a female’s ability to produce and brood eggs and a male’s ability to win aggressive bouts with other males (and presumably to reproduce with the females in his area).”

Always something new to learn.

Speaking of flowers – like the rose posted above – which I still have trouble looking away from. Evelyn guessed and our rose aficionado friend Marion confirmed (btw) that was a “Blaze” rose. Speaking of learning something new. So I googled it – while I was typing this blog post – and learned a Blaze rose is a “Rambler Rose.” According to Wikipedia. The same source goes on to say – again, I’m learning this as I type it – that “’Rambler Roses’, although technically a separate class, are often included in Climbing Roses.” There is, as I’m certain you can imagine, much more to it, but Sundays only last twenty-four hours, so I’ll let it go at that.

I digressed. I’m sure that comes as a shock. Evelyn also had a new dogwood planted in our backyard last year – right next to our redbud – and it’s blooming enthusiastically. In fact I’m a few days past “peak bloom” but I stepped away from my computer after the last paragraph and went out in the  backyard and took this picture of our new dogwood:

Graceful new dogwood in our backyard:

I photographed this azalea without even going outdoors. I opened the window and the screen and leaned out and took this picture:

I just opened the window and leaned out and took this picture:

This one is in the backyard – I actually had to open the door and walk outside to take this picture:

Outdoor azalea – got a little more exercise:

Anyway, I enjoyed writing the story I wrote for the end of the blog post this week. It helped me maintain my equilibrium. Have a great week, come back next week, all best,

Jay

Oops – late to this blog post – I had Mackey and Turner and Yuki at the river this morning. This northeastern tip of the park is ~1/2 way on our hike and we like to take a short break there:

Taking a break at the halfway mark

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Eavesdropping and “money problems” – a true story

I’d just gotten an estimate for a car repair that was four times higher than I’d budgeted. I was walking through the Y toward the pool whining – in my head, to myself – about my money problems when I walked past two members having a conversation. In the random second in eternity that I was walking past these two strangers, one was telling the other “she was putting flowers on her son’s grave.” Like an eighth of a second later I turned left into the locker room.

“If you have a problem and you can solve it with money, you don’t really have a problem.” That’s an expression I heard decades ago and after doing pet therapy  with children who died, I know it’s not trite – it is as legitimate an expression as any I’ll ever hear. But I’m human and although I don’t need to be reminded, sometimes I  forget how true it is.

The article I’d read over breakfast that morning – Eavesdropping – mentioned overhearing things not intended for your ears. But when we speak aloud in public, we are – by definition – not private. In her article, Ms. Riess wrote “Being too much in your own body can make you obsessive about your own problems, causing you to lose the ability to understand the scale of your own life compared with the lives of others.” I wasn’t “eavesdropping” – but I overheard a conversation not intended for me. And it made me remember the scale of my own life was the cost of repairing my car. Against the cost of a person putting flowers on their child’s grave.  

This week, I hope your worst problems are the kind you can solve with money.

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Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James River, love, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, roses, simplify, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The second most memorable thing

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Jay McLaughlin

21 April, 2019           The second most memorable thing

The 15 year old girl in the ICU had the largest pores I’d ever seen. They were the second most memorable thing about her. I saw her once, twenty years ago, and I’ll write more about the most memorable thing at the end of this blog post. She and my dog Ivory were in a book chapter in 2009; I put that chapter in this blog last September. I wrote a bit more thoroughly about her and Ivory this week.

There were a number of (IMO) memorable things outdoors in central Virginia this week, although some ophidiophobe (people who have an irrational fear of snakes) followers may find them forgettable. Or wish they hadn’t seen them at all. There’s a snake or two in this post, but I’ll give fair warning. One is an Eastern Ratsnake and one is a Northern Watersnake. Neither are poisonous. I suspect they’re the two most numerous snakes in Virginia, though I don’t travel all over the state.

I’m going to open with an image I don’t often open with. In fact I don’t recall ever getting an image like this before. This is what I call the “business end” (the talons) of a Red-shouldered hawk. It was perched on a neighbor’s fence not far from me in western Henrico:  

“Business end” of a Red-shouldered hawk in western Henrico County, VA

Here’s the upper half of the bird just moments earlier, perched on a bird feeder. A bird on a bird feeder waiting to feed on birds. Or more likely on chipmunks coming to pick up scattered bird seed:

The owner of the inarguably fierce looking talons in the preceding picture:

Also if you’re living in central Virginia right now (or any place that has a lot of  pollen) this image will come as no surprise. The dogs and I were hiking at the river Tuesday and we saw this raccoon footprint in the pollen:

How we know it’s April in Virginia. I wonder of raccoons sneeze?

Hmm. Not a ton of pictures this week that are not snake or raptor pictures. So let me put in a Mayflower I saw at Pony Pasture – they’re not often in great light and they’re so fleeting. Like everything, in its way. I’m always so happy to be in the woods at the same time these plants are. Here’s a Mayflower – even though it’s still April:

Mayflower in April – isn’t that graceful and elegant and delicate? And gorgeous?

I’m also still seeing ospreys on both nests (south near Stony Point and north near West End Assembly of God). Here’s one (I think this is the male) coming onto the nest at Stony Point Wednesday:

Osprey landing at Stony Point nest Wednesday

I saw a beautiful catbird on my feeder for the first time this year. I never knew they existed before starting this blog:

Catbird on my feeder Friday:

And a bird I did know about before this blog – long before this blog – an Eastern Bluebird:

Bluebird in the same spot about two seconds later:

I have a million birds on the feeder this week, and I don’t love feeder images – they don’t take any skill – you just sit there. But a grackle came in this week and it was striking (IMO) so here’s a grackle too. I always like the way their eyes look:

Grackle on the feeder this week

Okay – I’m going to get into the snakes. Here is an Eastern Ratsnake from Bryan Park:

Eastern Ratsnake at Bryan Park

Deep Run Park in western Henrico continues to be loaded with snakes, although this week I’ve only seen water snakes. But I’ve seen many. If you don’t know where to look, you probably won’t even know they’re in the park. Here’s a pair on a rock:

Two obvious Northern water snakes. Next picture is this one zoomed out

Here’s the identical picture zoomed out a bit. You can see them in the center to the left:

See them? Near the center? On the left?

This third image is with the camera pointed in the identical spot. The snakes are in this picture – I promise you – in the identical spot as in the first two pictures. I took all three pictures in quick succession. Look in the lower left quadrant of the picture:

Same snakes, same time, REALLY hard to see – lower left 1/4 of the image. Look hard.

Anyway, enough snakes this week. Read this story – it has a great deal of meaning for me. I hope it’ll resonate for you too. And have an excellent week, and come back next week. Please! And if you celebrate Easter I hope it’s been fantastic, and if you don’t celebrate Easter, I hope your Sunday, April 21, 2019 was fantastic.

All best,

Jay  

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The second most memorable thing

Besides having enormous pores, she had six fingers on her right hand. You may or may not remember a person’s pores; everybody has them. But if you look at a person’s hand and see six fingers, you’ll remember. The person’s pores will be the second most memorable thing about them.

My dog Ivory (ancient when he died years ago) and I did animal-assisted therapy at VCU’s Medical College of Virginia (MCV) for ten years. Ivory and I were included in a book called To the Rescue: Found Dogs with a Mission by Elise Lufkin and photographer Diana Walker. If you’ve read it, you’ve heard this. Or if you’ve known me for a while. I just dug through an old journal, it happened on the morning of Tuesday, March 9, 1999 – twenty years ago. If you haven’t heard it, it’s a good story. One of the more meaningful in my life, and I’ve had many.

We’d done Pet Therapy for two years when we met this person. Ivory and I spent part of each visit in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). We were never given special instructions unless there was a person there who needed a special visit or a person with a dog phobia or allergy or who we needed to avoid for some reason. Some people with Cystic Fibrosis or sickle cell anemia visit often and were “frequent flyers” and we knew them well. But that Tuesday in March we met a new person and we’d never seen her before. She had the unmistakable appearance and aura of neglect – I could tell in an instant she’d never been well cared for. But I’d worked in human services for a decade at that point, and met lots of people who were uncared for. It is inevitable and it is inevitably sad. I don’t know her name. So, for the purposes of this, “Mary.”

She was around fifteen years old and had the look of neglect. She was bloated and pale and her hair was matted and mouse colored and her bangs were straight and oily. Her pores were enormous. But if people are awake and can see I always look at their eyes, because that’s how we all communicate. Hers were downcast – always downcast – as though she didn’t want to look at the world, or for the world to look at her. But I’m a counselor, and everybody is the same. And she reached out to pet Ivory, and her hand had six fingers. I don’t care about physical appearance – if she’s not hurting herself or Ivory or anyone else, it’s meaningless. And I have a “patter” when I’m doing Pet Therapy, and I can keep it up in any circumstance, and I did. But the voice in my head was saying “six fingers! SIX fingers! Human beings have FIVE fingers! What is this!” Meanwhile, Ivory’s gorgeous fluffy half curled tail is doing its slow, metronomic, back and forth swish while she petted him. His eyes are just sort of half shut, he’s relaxed, he’s peaceful, he is entirely and one hundred percent in the moment. He wasn’t suspending judgment – he didn’t judge in the first place.

I’m a professional, and we both stayed there for some time and I hope were therapeutic. We made our way around to visit the rest of the people in the PICU, and completed our rounds. I remember getting back in the car that day in the dark parking deck at MCV and thinking about the way Ivory reacted versus the way I  reacted – as a well educated supposedly open-minded counselor. Ivory was doing it right – he was connecting with a human being on what appeared to be a perfect level. I don’t know if dogs “love” – but I suspect they don’t judge. And I do know I was focusing on how that person was different from me. And Ivory couldn’t have cared less.

As I pondered it, I realized – correctly – that a dog had shown more empathy and compassion and acceptance and grace than I had. And – I’ve always talked to myself this way – I said to myself “do you realize you have to raise your level of humanity to equal a dog? Not to equal Gandhi or Mandela but to equal a dog?” I’m not a particularly humble person by nature.

Looking back on this and my career working with people with disabilities, I think about that day twenty years ago. And I realized that Ivory’s lesson in kindness and warmth and caring and connection was the most memorable thing that day. The girl’s sixth finger was the second most memorable thing.

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Posted in Birds, Bryan Park, Flowers, Fun, James River, ospreys, Pony Pasture, Raccoons, raptors, red-shouldered hawks, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), Snakes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Birds, flowers – Spring images

Posted on April 14, 2019 by Jay McLaughlin

14 April, 2019            Birds, flowers – Spring images

This is my 388th (!) blog post since I began blogging on March 2, 2011 (!). I apologize, I’m bringing less energy than normal. Fortunately the sun is over the horizon now for 3 and a half hours more than it was in December, so it’s providing a lot more energy with each passing day. I had enough energy to swim at the Tuckahoe YMCA Monday morning, and when I came out this handsome Red-winged blackbird was showing off out front:

Red-winged blackbird at the Tuckahoe YMCA

I almost neglected to inform ophidiophobes (people who have an irrational fear of snakes) – I got some pictures of Northern Water Snakes at Deep Run this week. They’ll be at the bottom of the post.

I saw my first Purple Martins of 2019 the same day at Bryan Park. I was unable to get enough light to do them justice. I’ll get something better this week. 

Our front dogwood at home is still blooming nicely, but the time is passing. Always a happy tree for me:

Dogwood in our front yard Wednesday

I “got” ospreys at Stony Point (Fulton Bank parking lot) early Wednesday afternoon then drove across the river and “got” more ospreys, this time at West End Assembly of God:

Osprey on Parham Road overlooking West End Assembly of God:

I have to walk about a quarter mile down the side of Parham Road to get the sun on the right side, and there are gorgeous dogwoods growing there too. Right on the side of Parham Road! They’re not even in anyone’s yard – just growing there. Very pretty landscaping:

Another dogwood – like the other one, I know – but this was on the side of the road? Wild! All the more lovely.

Yuki came over to visit on Wednesday. His favorite place in our whole house – every time he comes over – is under our dining room table. It’s his own little “fort”:

Yuki in his “fort” under our dining room table

Thursday we made it to the river for a short hike. We didn’t see much and we got back to the parking lot and got in the car. I started the engine, and at that precise instant a Red-tail flew in and landed on a cottonwood in the middle of the parking lot. He wasn’t large; I believe it was a male:

Red-tail in the parking lot at Pony Pasture – lucky shot!

He was only there for an instant before he flew off. I was lucky to get the picture. Here’s the tree about two minutes after he left:

The red-tail shown above was perched in this tree a moment before I took this picture

Ev was away this week (she got home this evening, thank goodness) but she gave me careful instructions on taking care of our gardenia: one cup of water per day. It worked! It bloomed twice while she was gone! Here’s a beauty:

Thanks to Evelyn’s careful instruction this bloom actually appeared WHILE SHE WAS GONE!!

Okay – here’s a Northern Water Snake (or two) from Deep Run. I saw four that day, and I hardly walked at all. And I’m sure there were more. Have a look:

Two of the FOUR Northern Water Snakes I saw at Deep Run Friday:

Anyway, I’m going to wrap it up – sorry about the lack of energy. I don’t eat as well when Evelyn’s not here! I’ve got a couple of good story ideas; I may put one together before next week. Have an excellent week! All best,

Jay

I almost forgot! Ev has flowers blooming everywhere in our yard, including more varieties of daffodils than I even knew existed. Here is a little clump of beauties:

It’s hard to look at daffodils and not smile. Great job Evie!

Posted in Birds, Bryan Park, daffodils, Dogs, dogwood, Flowers, Fun, Gardenias, love, ospreys, Pony Pasture, raptors, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, simplify, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), Snakes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The opposite of Attention Deficit Disorder

Posted on April 7, 2019 by Jay McLaughlin

7 April, 2019           The opposite of Attention Deficit Disorder

There is no deficit in Turner’s attention. See the deer in front of him? Possibly a surplus of attention.

You could have knocked Turner over with a feather when a deer had the audacity to walk across the path in plain view Thursday morning at Pony Pasture. He was focused so intently on that deer I thought a little curl of smoke might start rising. Like when you use a magnifying glass to focus the sun’s light on a dry oak leaf in the autumn. Turner was beyond riveted. 

The woods were full of them:

These deer hardly have a care in the world. I suspect I’ve been walking dogs past that spot since their grandparents lived there, so they’re used to us.

Spring is continuing to burst out at every corner along the riverbank. Before I started hiking at Pony Pasture I never knew what an “ephemeral” was – only the meaning of the word. But wikipedia says an ephemeral plant is “one marked by short life cycles.” Possibly that’s why I never even knew trout lilies existed until I spent time at Pony Pasture. Here’s one I saw Thursday, not long after the deer riveted Turner’s gaze:  

Trout lily at Pony Pasture – a delicate and beautiful ephemeral

 

Male osprey near Stony Point. Look at that sunlight gleam in his eye

It’s in my nature (no pun intended) to focus more on fauna than on flora. Even I am ephemeral, though on a much (I hope) longer scale than a flower. Ospreys arrive on the upper James at around the same time Trout Lilies bloom at Pony Pasture. But the trout lilies will be long gone by the end of this month. Ospreys will stay through August or September. Then they’ll be gone – until trout lilies return in the Spring of 2020. 

Everything is ephemeral on some scale. Spring included, come to think of it. But redbuds come at the beginning of Spring, when the woods are still bright and damp and fresh. Ev planted a beauty in our backyard. This one was from Pony Pasture:

Pony Pasture Redbud – classic Spring image of a classic Spring plant

Since we have mourning doves 365 days a year in Virginia, they could make a case for not being ephemeral. I suspect these two will be raising baby doves very soon. This was on the south side of Patterson Avenue in front of the Tuckahoe YMCA Wednesday morning:

Mourning doves in the morning – they don’t appear to be in mourning

I rushed this shot a little today and I wish I hadn’t. This is a fiddlehead fern and they’re quite graceful; I didn’t capture it. And “fiddlehead” is a stage of fern growth, not a type of fern, and thus is very ephemeral – they’ll be regular old ferns real soon. But it’s a neat image:

Poorly executed image of a lovely fiddlehead fern

This adult male bluebird posed obligingly at Pony Pasture this morning when the dogs and I sauntered past. I was fortunate to see him in good light perched on this maple tree over the water:

Male bluebird on a maple branch this morning at Pony Pasture

This is not an elegant image (even less than the rest of my images) but I enjoy it. Our friend Tim has been bringing us plenty of firewood. I like to stack it up now in the back corner of our back yard. This stuff would do fine in the woodstove right now if we were having fires (we’re not) but it’s going to be perfect around Halloween when wood-burning season begins in earnest:

In our backyard now. Thank you Tim! This will be perfect for burning around Halloween, when wood burning season begins again

My favorite (and only) editor is out of town, so there may be more mistakes than usual! Sorry! And have a great week! And come back next week!

All best,

Jay

Posted in Birds, Dogs, firewood, Flowers, Fun, James River, love, ospreys, Pony Pasture, raptors, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), whitetail deer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“That’s what’s up”

Posted on March 31, 2019 by Jay McLaughlin

31 March, 2019            “That’s what’s up”

“That’s what’s up”

I know a barista at Starbucks; she’s been a steady employee for years. She’s calm and efficient and reliable; I know Starbucks is happy to have her. The location is always busy and our exchanges invariably brief and to the point. But Friday I was there with a client and it was slow and she was spraying tables and wiping them. As she passed our table I showed her the phone with my handsome nephew’s picture. She stopped in her tracks, spray bottle in her left hand and cloth in her right, stared at the picture for a moment and simply said “That’s what’s up.” I could not have been more charmed. It was the absolute last thing I expected to hear – and therefore of course the perfect thing.

Oops – I’m inserting this after I finished the whole post. It’s too great to leave out. I first met Wesson in September of 2015, when he was five or six weeks old. There’s a great picture of him in 2015 on this post if you want to compare. He’s still brand new IMO, but you can see him when he was really brand new in this blog post: This just in!

There is a snake picture later in this post – just giving advance warning. I’ll put it nearer the bottom.

Evelyn and I sent a box of Fannie May Mint Meltaways to my nephew Wesson and his family in Blacksburg earlier this week. My grandmother (my mother’s mother, a.k.a. “Gran”) and her husband (“Grandaddy”) always had them at their house in Arlington, VA when we were growing up. Except we called them “you-know-whats.” And they were only green – no brown ones. And I think they were larger, but perhaps they only seemed that way because I was smaller. And these boxes are only 9 x 9 rows; I am certain the boxes at Gran and Granddaddy’s house were 12 x 16 or bigger. But they taste just as great now. Man do those things taste great.

I need to put another picture in here. It’s not a great one – but there’s another new osprey nest beginning on my normal route. This one is over near Fulton Bank in Stony Point. These are (I’m thinking) young, inexperienced birds who are coming up here late in the season. They don’t exude confidence and their nest is haphazard. I’ll go back this week and see if it’s improved. This was Wednesday:

Newly arrive ospreys on a disorganized nest

Wesson and his dad (my brother Shane) found a recently emerged (and still muddy) Eastern Gartersnake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) while we were hiking at their home in Blacksburg at 11:00 this morning. There will be a picture later in the blog post. Ophidiophobes, you’ve been warned! When I googled that word – because I love words, and I’m not making this up – the third google hit was to a link called “luxury rehabs.com.” I’m not even kidding. You can attend a luxury rehab to treat your fear of snakes, if it is somehow causing difficulty in your life.

The moon has been waning this week and the sky’s been clear a lot so I got a few decent images. I took this one Thursday morning (3/28) at 6:20. It’s officially a “waning crescent” moon, 48% full. This was relatively low in the southern sky, and it had only risen at about 2:30 that morning. It had risen at 49% full and it set at 12:30 that afternoon at 45% full:

48% full waning crescent moon

Here’s a pileated woodpecker from Bryan Park Tuesday when Evelyn and the dogs and I were hiking there. Look at the size of this hole!:

Bryan Park Pileated woodpecker with GIANT hole

I’ve mentioned in earlier blog posts my father’s favorite tree was a dogwood. Evelyn just planted one in our backyard; it’s just leafing out for the first time. We have an older, more established dogwood in the front yard. This is one of its blooms from today:

Front dogwood – watch this space next week

Evelyn also planted a favorite tree of mine in the backyard, and it’s blooming for the first time this year. Redbud flowers are edible and delicious; next year when this tree’s a bit more established I’ll grab a handful and eat them. Eating redbud flowers has been a spring ritual with me since I began hiking with Ivory and Nicky on the Appalachian Trail in about 1990.

Brand new Redbud Evelyn planted in the back yard last year – delicious! Thanks Evie!

I actually just walked out back – it’s 8:30 Sunday evening – and ate a small handful of buds so I could write about them with the taste in my mouth. They’re what Spring tastes like. IMO.

This just in – one more picture from this weekend. Photo credit for this one goes to Evelyn:

All of us walking in Blacksburg this morning – except Evelyn! She took the picture! Thanks Evie!

Thank you Evie! She also took this one of Mackey and Turner while we were driving to Blacksburg yesterday:

Mackey and Turner, road trippin’, by Evie:

Anyway, I’m running out of gas (figuratively speaking). Let me post the picture of Shane and Wesson’s garter snake from this morning and hit the sack:

Garter snake Shane and Wesson found this morning in Blacksburg. Maybe 16″ long:

Have an excellent week! Come back next week! All best,

Jay

Posted in Birds, Bryan Park, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, garter snake, love, moon, ospreys, People, Pileated Woodpecker, raptors, Rivers, simplify, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), Snakes, Starbucks | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

“The world is full of injustice”

Posted on March 24, 2019 by Jay McLaughlin

24 March, 2019           “The world is full of injustice”

My friend Mark and I were weighing his salad at Kroger in Carytown this week when Secret Agent Man began playing on the store audio network. Mark is a walking musical encyclopedia and he triumphantly blurted “Johnny Rivers!” . We’ve been friends for fifteen years; he does that a lot. I’ll continue the story at the end of this post.

The light’s been lovely most of the week and Spring is waking up all over central Virginia. The sky’s been blue and it’s warming up. But to keep me from getting my hopes up too much regarding Spring, I looked at a post from April of last year – not even twelve months ago – that has a picture of freshly fallen snow on my car on April 8. Feel free to look at the blog post yourself, from Sunday, April 8, 2018 at Flying over the hoods of cars. But whatever it did last April or will do this April, I saw this lovely Brown-headed nuthatch on the dogwood tree in our front yard Tuesday:

Brown-headed nuthatch on my front dogwood. That bird could not possibly be any cuter.

And the camellia on the northwest corner of our house is blooming so vibrantly you could almost call it garish:

Camellia in our yard. Just amazing. Looks like it’s made from flamingo feathers

I noted my first osprey sighting of 2019 in last week’s only marginally coherent blog post, Incoherent. Barring something completely unexpected, there will be ospreys on that nest until at least August. I wish I knew the timeline for an osprey nest. They returned last week and I presume made the nest ready for eggs. I also presume the pair have mated. I think that’s roughly step two, and step three is laying eggs. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is my favorite birding resource and they have a detailed page for every bird. Or at least every bird in North America. On the osprey page under “eggs” it says “Egg-Laying Generally soon (1–3 d, sometimes longer) after nest takes shape and nest-lining added.” So presumably there are eggs on that nest. It goes on to say that the average incubation period is 37 days, or slightly over five weeks. I first saw them on 3/13. That means there might reasonably be eggs hatching by the week beginning 4/15. I was surprised to learn it takes them 50 – 55 days (seven or eight weeks) to fledge after hatching. So they’d be flying off that nest – we’ll see – between about June 5 and June 12. But if they hatch on 4/15 (as I’m guessing), I think it’ll be at least a week before I can see their heads above the edge of the nest from the ground. Might be closer to 5/1. I’ll watch – this is fun already.

I’m still not swear-on-a-stack-of-bibles certain which is the male and which is the female. I’ll continue to work at figuring it out. It doesn’t seem like it should be that hard.

Anyway, on Wednesday (3/20), one of the pair (I’m guessing the male) caught a simply enormous fish and carried it up to the top. Look at the size of this fish compared to the size of the bird. Think about what it took for him to catch that fish underwater and fly all the way up there while he carried it. He’s a powerhouse:

Osprey with a fish across from West End Assembly of God

Presumably this is his mate on the nest to the left:

Osprey on right with giant fresh fish. Osprey on left on nest, probably with eggs.

That camellia at the top of this post is a bright, cheerful, fun loving (appearing) flower, but they don’t have much scent. I’ve seen outdoor gardenias bloom before – there will be some on the side of Cary street near Fresca soon – but ours for the time being are indoors. This smell is first in line in the “flowers that smell outstanding” category; there are not enough superlatives to do justice to gardenias:

Evelyn’s Gardenias put the “G” in “OMG”:

I hadn’t been seeing much in the way of deer at Pony Pasture recently, but there was one lying quietly in the woods today when we were on our return walk. This deer was lying down watching us for a long time when we first got there. The dogs were unconcerned. She (possibly a he with no antlers, but I think it’s a she) was also unconcerned. But eventually she stood up. I took pictures for more than ten minutes and she never left. She watched, watched, watched, but didn’t waste valuable energy (calories) moving away from a threat the didn’t exist:

It was a good day to relax in the woods.

I took the last picture of her at 1:03 then walked back to the car and loaded up – that takes a decent amount of time. But it was precisely 31 minutes later, at 1:34, when I took my first picture (today) of a male Red-tail on a tower near my house. His crop (stomach) was full; he was just going to enjoy the sun and view for a while. He probably has to bring food back to his mate – assuming she’s on the nest with eggs. Though I have no idea where their nest is. He’s a handsome guy though. I got greedy and zoomed in from too long a distance; this picture is a little grainy:

Male Red-tail near my house earlier today

It was ~55º and sunny with a soft breeze; Mackey and Turner and Yuki would have it that way every day if they could. Pony Pasture’s northern boundary is the river and its eastern boundary is the creek that separates it from the Willow Oaks Country Club golf course. So there’s a muddy, shaded little beach right there at the northeast corner. It’s roughly the half way mark on our walk and we like to take a little break there when it’s not too flooded. In this picture, if Mackey looked to his left across the creek, he’d be able to see the cart path up the hill, and behind it the green for the four hundred yard par four fourth hole. But I’m a dog person not a golf person, so here are the boys this morning:

Yuki on the left, Turner middle, Mackey right, muddy James River behind

Before I send you off with my fun experience with Mark this week, I’ll close the pictures with one I took of a flower display Ev created in our mostly south facing kitchen windowsill. If you’re talking about a plant that can compete with a gardenia in the smell category, hyacinths are certainly in that conversation. Evelyn cut all these from our yard. The hyacinths are purple. The others are samples of the wide variety of daffodils Evelyn has blooming all over our yard:

Evelyn and photosynthesis keep our kitchen bright and our home fragrant

Enjoy this blog post! Enjoy this story! Enjoy your week! Come back next week!

All best,

Jay

Oops! Almost left out this Brown Thrasher from Wednesday!:

Brown thrasher on the feeder – not their normal haunts

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The world is full of injustice

A tall, slender young woman in a Kroger uniform with two distinctly different colors of hair (top ½ black, bottom ½ bright magenta, not unlike our camellia) was spraying the cash registers and wiping them with a terry cloth rag that may have been white when the store opened six hours earlier. She’d just heard Mark blurt out “Johnny Rivers!” She looked up at the speakers on the ceiling then looked at me and said “my whole life, I never knew who sang that song until just now. I learned something new today!” I just smiled and said Mark knows pretty much every song. And if he doesn’t know, he wants me to use an app on my phone to find out.

So anyway we sit down and Mark eats his salad and drinks either an A&W root beer or an orange Crush™. We’ve eaten lunch together every week for fifteen years; that’s all he ever gets. Sometimes Hawaiian Punch in the summer. After Mark finishes eating and drinking and cleaning up, we go back to the front register to get a Reese’s Peanut butter cup. Fifty-two Wednesdays a year. He watches this “vintage 80’s Reese’s Peanut butter cup commercial” every week. Every week he is delighted – it never fails – and shouts “Mmm! Delicious!” in unison with the stylishly dressed (for the 1980’s) couple on the commercial. They’re each listening to Walkmans™ which is why they didn’t hear each other coming. Mark picks up his one candy bar, and I ask him which register he wants to go to. His selection process is opaque to me; I can never predict. This week he chose one where a favorite cashier of his works. Other people must like her too; the line was long and getting longer.

Anyway, we stepped to the rear of the line, Mark with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in hand. A man around my age with a cart overflowing with groceries was directly in front of us. He saw Mark’s candy bar and said “Just one candy bar? Is that all you guys are getting? Why don’t you go ahead of me.”

I see acts of kindness of this variety without fail; it’s rare that a day goes by without one, and a week never does. My positive view of human nature is shaped more strongly by my day to day interactions with other actual human beings than it is by what I hear on the radio or read in the newspaper. I also enjoy the indescribably broad range of interpersonal experiences I come across almost every day. They’d make great fiction, except they really happen, and some of them – like Wednesday’s, IMO – are so unlikely, even a good fiction writer couldn’t make them up.

Anyway, the guy’s outgoing and kind, and I tell him about our experience a few moments earlier, listening to Secret Agent Man and the girl learning for the first time who sang it. And the guy looks me in the eye – we’ve known each other for like thirty seconds, standing there in line at Kroger – and says “Do you know Johnny Rivers is not even in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?” He lets that sink in for a minute, then looks despondently at the floor and says “The world is full of injustice.”

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Posted in Birds, daffodils, Dogs, dogwood, Flowers, Fun, Gardenias, hyacinths, James River, love, ospreys, People, Pony Pasture, raptors, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), whitetail deer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Incoherent

Posted on March 17, 2019 by Jay McLaughlin

17 March, 2019   Incoherent

There is no theme to this post, only marginal pictures. But the sun’s been bright for a while and it seems like I’ve seen just a little blue in the background so far in 2019. It was nice to see the first (the first for me) ospreys of 2019. Wednesday there was a pair on a nest on Parham Road. The first osprey I ever photographed was at Pony Pasture (of course) on October 5, 2014. But I didn’t know how to anticipate them. I got my first one on Parham Road in the Summer of 2015. It began then (for me) to be an example of suddenly becoming aware of a certain bird. Then you realize you were just passing them by before and never knew they existed. Suddenly you begin to see them constantly, because you know where to look. I got them on this nest for the first time in the Spring of 2016. So this is the fourth year in a row (as far as I know) that they’ve returned here. Here is (I’m guessing) the male. See the fish he has? And look at that talon. No other raptors have talons like that. Ospreys are the only raptor that only eats fish. It’s a “piscivore.” Some mammals are piscivores too, and so of course are some ducks, but ospreys are the only raptors. Those talons have been selected by evolution to grab a slippery fish under water and not let it go. Check this  guy out:

Look at those talons. That fish is not going anywhere.

I suspect this is his mate:

His partner, I believe. She’s blinking – that membrane is how they protect their eyes underwater.

Here’s the two of them:

Both at once. Not sure how long until there’s babies – I’ll learn about that.

I saw six turtles lined up in a row on a log at Pony Pasture Tuesday: 

These two were at the rear of the line. Looking chummy:

I got a nice Red-shouldered hawk in a new (for me) place Friday. This was on Hungary Road a short distance south of Staples Mill:

Red-shouldered hawk Friday. They seem similar to Red-tails until you begin to “get to know them better.”

Red-tailed hawks are out essentially every day now; I should have a better image than this. But oh well:

Around the corner from home. This one has a full crop, the bird equivalent to a full belly. You can see it bulging.

I have taken a ton of pictures of the moon this week. The sky’s been real clear and I always enjoy it. I got a nice picture Friday at 10:00 PM then again twenty-four hours later plus I got it earlier today in daylight. When I got it Friday it was 68% full (and growing) and 9.4 days old. Twenty four hours later it had grown 10% to 78%. I’m learning all this stuff for the first time. It’s fascinating. Today at 5:00 PM it was 86% full. It’ll be completely full Wednesday. Here’s Friday:

Waxing moon Friday evening:

Plus Evie has our indoor gardenias fragrantly flourishing. The outside temperature is predicted to go below freezing still early Tuesday and again Wednesday morning so no  outdoor gardenias for a little while. But these are excellent:

There are gardenias, and there is every other flower:

Have a great week!

All best,

Jay

PS I started to write a story about this old guy – he’s been gone for ten years – but it had a domino effect and opened up too many stories to contain in a small space. So I’ll reorganize and write about him later. His name was Mister Floyd and he was a great, great teacher. I was real scared when I first met him. He taught me a lot about being calm: 

Mister Floyd, November, 2008:

 

Posted in Birds, Flowers, Fun, Gardenias, James River, moon, ospreys, People, Pony Pasture, raptors, red-shouldered hawks, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), Turtles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A crybaby liberal has a macho weekend

Posted on March 10, 2019 by Jay McLaughlin

10 March, 2019                A crybaby liberal has a macho weekend   

I’m kidding, of course – I’m not a crybaby liberal. Just whiny. And the weekend hasn’t been macho. Just more guy time than I normally spend. I sent some pictures to Evelyn and she texted back “macho weekend.”  

When I post pictures of snakes on here, I warn in advance for people who dislike pictures of snakes. No snake pictures on this one, but there will be at least one picture of a person (me) shooting a gun. So this is your warning – if you don’t like to look at guns, there will be pictures you dislike here.

So anyway – first picture. That’s me in the cockpit. The plane is a McDonnell Douglas T-45 Goshawk. The person teaching me about that aircraft is my friend Pat’s son Daniel, who got me started flying in July of 2017:

Daniel got me started flying propeller planes. It’s unlikely I’ll ever fly a jet. But this was so cool:

There will be a picture of me holding a gun pretty soon. So you’ve been warned.

Daniel and his sister Calli were born about a month after my niece Aileen. I’d been swimming with Pat (though much slower) for a few months when we did a two mile lake swim in Reston, VA. That was the first time I met Daniel and Calli. I think they were three years old. Daniel at that time was considerably taller than my knee, but not nearly as tall as my waist. Now he’s a couple of inches taller than I am and he is flying jets and he is really great at it. Crazy. I thought I was a grown up when I first met him. In like 1991.

This is all at Daniel’s current station, Meridian Naval Air Station in Meridian, MS. Meridian also has a lot of great outdoor activities available, including several lakes for fishing. Pat and I went fishing while Daniel did stuff with his wife and his son and his mother and his dog. Here’s a picture from fishing. We were fishing on Lake Martha. I took this from the boat:

Lake Martha, Meridian MS, this morning. I took this picture from the boat. It didn’t suck.

I took the picture of the lake. Pat took the picture of Daniel and me. Daniel took this picture of me shooting skeet today at Binachi Shooting Sports. In his essay A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, the late, great David Foster Wallace wrote about his experience  shooting skeet. He is in a small group of my favorite all time authors. So I’ll quote him word for word about skeet; he and I had similar experiences: “Actually it was more like I shot at skeet.” But I cannot recall when I’ve had this much fun doing something that did not involve hiking with dogs:

Daniel (or Pat) took this picture of me shooting at skeet today

I don’t know what you think about guns, but that was pure, 100%, never-wanted-it-to-end fun. And it is a lot safer than driving. Even if you’re a committed anti-gun person, I recommend you try shooting a round of skeet some time. I still cannot stop smiling.

Most of my clays broke when they hit the ground. But it’s a cool t-shirt.

Front of the t-shirt:

I also spent time in Richmond this week. After seeing a Great Horned Owl at Bryan Park a week or so ago, I went back to see if I could find it again. I was unsuccessful, but a gorgeous Red-shouldered hawk posed accommodatingly on a branch before I left. I called this image “Consolation Prize,” but I’m happy with it no matter what:

Red-shouldered hawk at Bryan Park this week

I am still a guest and being rude by blogging (although they’re probably grateful to not have to entertain me for a while). Plus I’m getting ready to have yet another awesome home cooked meal so let me sign off. I’ll be back next week! I hope you will too!

All best,

Jay

PS We’re staying on base at the Ensign Jesse L Brown Memorial Navy Gateway Inns & Suites. I got curious about Ensign Brown so I googled him. I read up and became even more curious. So I looked on Amazon and found this book. Which I am approximately a quarter of the way through and hate to even put it down; it’s fascinating and excellent. Check it out at Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship and Sacrifice by Adam Makos:

Devotion book cover

 

Posted in Rivers | 6 Comments

How can I put this delicately? Or “Prader-Willi continues”  

Posted on March 3, 2019 by Jay McLaughlin

3 March, 2019            How can I put this delicately? Or “Prader-Willi continues”  

I primarily post relaxing images on my blog and generally write about relaxing things. That’s why I avoid politics, religion and advertising. But my rehabilitation career is late in its third decade and not every moment has been relaxing. I’ll return to that at the bottom of this post.

Imperfect image of a Great Horned Owl, but I was so grateful to even see one

Miserable image but this is the first time in my life I’ve ever pointed my camera at a Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus). Many thanks to Michael Marra for  pointing it out. Michael is a true pro photographer; check out some images on his web site. I was fortunate to be walking the dogs earlier this afternoon when he was photographing (pro photographing) this bird. His pictures are way better. And he’s a nice person too.

Meanwhile. On Thursday, February 21 Evelyn and I walked to the Shore Dog Cafe for lunch. We were walking home north on Forest Avenue when we heard and saw a commotion in the trees. At first we thought it was a Red-shouldered Hawk catching a squirrel. We looked more closely and saw a pair of hawks mating! Of course I never go anywhere without my camera. Except when we’re walking out to lunch. Oh well. So I’ve been watching that spot and Tuesday one of the hawks was perched on a wire. I pulled over and snapped this picture and left:

Red-shouldered Hawk keeping an eye on me

I like birds 365 days a year but peak birding season in Virginia begins early March and runs through at least May. They’re all beginning to show up. Friday at the Y I saw a tree full of birds that in years past I would have written off as starlings. This was the first image I took:

At first glance I thought these were starlings. Then I zoomed in – see below:

But then I zoomed in and it was a flock of Cedar Waxwings! I had never seen so many at one time! I wish the light had been more favorable, but what a treat; they are so photogenic. And this was in the YMCA parking lot!:

A little zoom reveals a lot of lovely detail:

Peak birding season and peak flower season occur roughly in tandem. Evelyn’s growing  daffodils throughout our yard, but I photographed this small nodding daffodil in a small bed beside our driveway Thursday:

An early specimen of Evelyn’s seemingly infinite crop of daffodils

Evelyn got me started loving gardenias but I am an inept gardener. I’m awesome with dandelions and I can grow an award-winning clump of onion grass. But I did stop and buy a gardenia at the florist Wednesday morning. This sight and smell will get us through the coming weeks as Spring gains traction and becomes unmistakable and unstoppable:

I always feel like I should be able to smell it through the monitor. Gardenias are incomparable.

The river flooded earlier this week and crested Monday near midnight at 16.2’. We hiked at Pony Pasture (via Landria Drive) Tuesday around twelve hours later. It had gone down to 15.7’, so it dropped about six inches. We had to make a long detour to get around this bridge:

My shoes are waterproof, but I chose not to put them to this test

Then we went up to Charlie’s Bridge; time for another detour:

Charlie’s Bridge, still partially immersed Tuesday

We took a good hike yesterday, though the river was still high and the trails were still muddy and the main parking lot was closed. As I type these words Sunday afternoon the river’s gone down to 10.0’. It was a good day for Bryan Park – and I got to photograph my first Great Horned Owl! Our Dad used to whistle at them at night and they’d whistle back.

Anyway. Here’s my story from an earlier era in my rehab career. Enjoy, have a great week, come back next Sunday, all best,

Jay

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How can I put this delicately? Or “Prader-Willi continues”

On the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association website it says that the third phase of Prader-Willi Syndrome “is the development of an insatiable appetite/drive to eat, accompanied by intense or relentless food-seeking. This is the classic phase most people typically associate with PWS”. It also says that people with PWS have “hyperphagia (an uncontrollable drive to eat), combined with weight gain on fewer calories”. The same website says people with PWS often have “cognitive disabilities, behavioral problems”. This person couldn’t speak. And in my business we say “behavior is communication.” I’ll just call the guy Henry.

Consider for a moment that eleven word stretch that says “an uncontrollable drive to eat, combined with weight gain on fewer calories.” If you were designing a way to make a person’s life miserable, that would be the perfect way to do it. And it’s genetic. I have an old friend who is a psychologist. If he heard about Henry’s frustrations he’d say Henry “comes by it honestly.” My own drive to eat is ostensibly controllable and my weight gain is on the normal amount of calories and it’s still a challenge!

The part about “put this delicately” is the way this food-obsessed person with no verbal means of communication communicated his frustration. It began with the food he put in his mouth and chewed obsessively so he could use it as a weapon. But only when he was angry or frustrated. It changed my career path when it came out the other end and he continued to use it as a weapon.

If you’re at a lecture or reading a book about PWS, it can be dull or forgettable. If you’re a parent, not so much, and if a person is using their partially or completely digested food as a weapon, it is not dull. And it will not be forgettable for the rest of your life, or at least I haven’t forgotten it.

Sometimes he’d put food in his mouth and begin chewing it. And chewing it and chewing it and noisily squishing it around in his mouth, filling up his mouth and obviously not swallowing. When I was being trained, the aides would move back warily and say “swallow your food Henry! Swallow it!” Projectile vomiting was a favorite weapon of his.

Henry lived in a group home and when he came to school on a bus he was sometimes “escalated” – his behaviors were spiraling out of control. I’ve worked with a lot of non verbal people with behavior problems. At that point, I hadn’t. Since “behavior is communication,” I watched all of his behaviors so he would communicate when he was having a difficult morning. The first thing we’d do is go in the bathroom and I’d ask him to wash his hands. Then he’d start pressing the dispenser bar on the paper towel dispenser. If he was having a normal day – most days were normal – he’d press it two or three times and we’d finish up and go work on our activities. But if he’d had a bad dream the night before, or not liked his breakfast, or had a disagreement with one of his housemates, or not liked the music in the car on the way over – it could have been anything – he’d become escalated. He’d press the bar on the paper towel dispenser ten or more times. I’d have to tell him to stop. Picture that pile of brown paper towels reaching from the dispenser to the floor, piling up. But when that’s going on, he’s in a trance. It was practically like a seizure. I’m not sure he could even hear me. It’s some vestige of PTSD that causes me to tense up a tiny bit if I’m in a public bathroom now, twenty years later, and hear someone pressing the bar on the paper towel dispenser a lot. We’re all so funny, what impresses itself on our brains.

Henry was super escalated that day and I sent him into the bathroom stall to  sit down and go to the bathroom. He did – and a moment later, opened the door and came out with his hands full of it. He attacked me with it. Rather than recreate from memory, here’s my almost-twenty-three-year-old journal entry, excerpted here with names changed:

=======

5/16/96 Thu 13:40 7607

“Slinging feces” is what the staff call it when Henry starts taking a crap and throwing it on the walls, etc. I think that there are two factors that lead to this behavior: 1) Henry has to be “escalated,” another work euphemism for “pissed off,” or whatever. I like that term. Henry gets escalated kind of often, so it takes a light touch to avoid that. The second factor is 2) Henry has to be alone. And it ain’t, as I am fond of saying, rocket science, to avoid that happening. You just follow him wherever he goes. I told the boss today that as long as I was there (at work) and Henry was too, no shit was coming out of that bathroom – period. They’ve since switched his old one-on-one to another case, and I have Henry all the time. For better or for worse.

 

5/17/96 Fri 13:50 7607

I probably won’t have nightmares about it, because I’m not a nightmare type person, but at the same time I’ll probably never forget the sight of Henry walking out of that right-hand stall today, zombie-like, a soft and putrid brown mound of his own feces overflowing out of each end of his hand. I’ve since learned that I need to give him choices, so I should have said to flush that back down one of those three toilets, but I just told him to flush it back down the toilet, so he threw it at me. My reflexes aren’t particularly fast, but his are even slower, so that initial launch landed in a blob on the edge of the sink. I was still clean up until that point, but when he attacked me, it was all over. Scratch one new shirt from Eddie Bauer. I didn’t need those top buttons anyway. I’m glad I was able to keep him from biting me. I was glad when Joel happened to appear at the door.

We’ve got another guy there, Keith, and he’s attacked a lot of people, mostly males, and before he attacks, he asks them to puff up their cheeks

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The “Joel” I referred to at the end – this was purely a random chance – was the Director of the Behavior Intervention Program at VCU. And he had to use the exact bathroom I was in at the exact time I was dealing with the messiest behavior I’d ever been around. So I got to learn in real time to how to deal with a severe behavior problem, from an international expert on behavioral intervention. How cool is that? How could that timing have been any more awesome?

After an incident like that, your scale of what is off-putting and causes you alarm and consternation is deeply and permanently recalibrated. After you’ve been attacked with feces, other stuff that people say or do becomes less of a big deal. It prepares you for a career with people who have some behavioral challenges, because you’ve probably gotten the worst behind you right at the beginning.

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Posted in Birds, Bryan Park, cedar waxwing, daffodils, disability, Dogs, Endurance, Flowers, Fun, Gardenias, James River, love, People, Pony Pasture, raptors, red-shouldered hawks, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, simplify, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments