No Ham or Who, Just Ho and Hum....

[captainsblog]

Hey hey hey, just an ordinary week this time....

We were busy enough. Eleanor continued working on getting the greenhouse back into shape; Mama Robin has been supervising, and has definitely hatched her first eggs up there:)  And she's not the only one in the tending business. When Emily phoned home for Mother's Day last weekend, she told us about her new calling at the campus where she works: they have multiple nests of purple martins, a species requiring human interaction for their food and cleanliness, and the 83-year-old caretaker was asked to remove himself from his place of supervision up a ladder. (That request came from his wife.)  So Em and several others are learning the job, and soon enough, she'll be up there herself, providing nourishment and even cleaning flies off the bebbies:)  A perfect present for Mom's special day- nothing flowery or glittery, just knowing you raised a good kid:)



Much of the following week here was rainy.  Make that "most of the following week."  I don't think we've gone a day without at least some, and the back yard is turning into what another long-running comic strip refers to as Camp Swampy. At least SOMEBODY is enjoying it out there:

The grass, meanwhile, threatens to reach Little Shop of Horrors potential.  I barely got a third of it mowed last weekend without getting stuck back there, and there wasn't a single full rain-free day to drain the swamp in all of this past week.  Yesterday, I thought about taking a crack at it, but Eleanor preferred that I defoliate our property line- of numerous saplings and other things growing under the ancient picket fence which our neighbors were about to remove.  I got a bunch of them out before finally winning a wrestling match with one of the deeper-seated ones, and when I finally did my 20th goblet squat and pulled the root ball out, I just kept going backwards.  Nothing broken, nothing bruised, but I was muddy as all get-out.  By day's end, Tony and Laura had finished Da Job:



Pepper immediately invited herself into their yard, and almost as quickly found a spot in the remaining fence behind their house to book into three adjacent yards. We caught her, and are just keeping an eye on her travels now when she goes back there; and a much newer and nicer Pepper Proof Fence is on its way:)

This morning, the rain held off for our park trip, and even through a workout, but it started coming down just as I left, so I amscrayed home and started working the remainder of the back lawn.  Maybe halfway through, it started serious pelting (and thunderstorms were forecast), so I gave up, soaked up, cleaned up- just in time for the sun to come back out:P  Finished (mostly) back there, changed (mostly) again, and I'm done with yardwork for at least the day.

----

Work was fairly ordinary- two days away, three in court, plenty of balls to juggle.  Monday was a late Rochester appearance; Thursday over an hour in Buffalo City Court where, for at least five minutes, at least 20 people in a courtroom from the judge on down were doing Absolutely Nothing.  Not sure if that's better or worse than Friday, when I didn't even get into the courtroom before seeing my case had been adjourned (which is what I wanted but there was no way of requesting or predicting without just #$%* going there).  That left the rest of Friday going back to Rochester for nobody or nothing in particular, other than to try out the new electrical outlet that I asked for at my office there so I can charge Alanis when I'm there:



I also had time to visit Record Archive, my favorite place for music and just weird things.  This day's purchase, neither: I've become friends with Jeff Spevak, the long time arts columnist for the Rochester D&C until he wasn't anymore, a year or so ago.  He's supplemented his severance through online writing, by making a wonderful holiday appearance as the Record Archive Santa, and by doing a reading there the previous week from his new book titled 22 Minutes. I was in Whoville that night, but he left autographed copies, one of which is now mines:



Given his background, I thought it would be a music-related work- 22 minutes is about the old-style size of an album side- but this turns out to be a memoir of a World War II veteran's experience with the USS Vincennes.  He summarizes it in this piece.  I'll be moving onto it as soon as I finish the George Saunders novel I finally got to start this week (Jeff also interviewed HIM back in his newspaper days).

----

My final reminisce of the previous week of excitement came as I contemplated the stinkin t-shirt I bought to remember it by. I was contemplating in the wee smalls, as one does, and seeing the shirt laying around, I got to thinking, Hmmmm, a gold logo on a black background. Where have I seen that before?

Then it dawned on me: of course! ALEXANDER HAMILTON IS BATMAN!

It all fits. Being cruelly separated from his parents. Going on to become a wealthy playboy, well known among the ladies. Dedicating his life to fighting a villainous tyrant. Been seen out in public in tights and boots. And an unfortunate fascination for weapons (next time, bring a bigger utility belt to the duel).

The Catwoman is irrelevant.

Comments

ALEXANDER HAMILTON IS BATMAN

[warriorsavant]

Brilliant. Although Hamilton was a penniless half-breed, not the scion of a wealthy and WASPy family. Still, brilliant.

What kind of animal (or in this case bird) has to have human nursemaids to survive in the wild? Sounds like a counter-evolutionary trait to me, or were they specifically bred, like show dogs?