SMART BIRD
Someone left a KFC chip bucket at the bus-stop, with a drink can jammed into it. Just sitting on the bench. I'm sitting there, watching a blackbird trying very hard to get something out of one of the holes near the bottom. It was wary, hopping forward and pecking, but getting nothing. Trying both sides, still no luck. Pecked a little too hard and the bucket rocked, frightening the bird. It flapped a few feet away, then watched as the bucket settled down. Walked up to it again, cautiously, tried another peck, nothing. A harder peck, and it wobbled again. Cocked his head for a moment, looking at it, then suddenly flapped up, landed on top for a moment, then off again. Just enough to topple it, clear off the bench.
In a flash the can popped out, the bird swooped, and before the bucket had even come to rest, the bird was flying off, one large chip firmly in its beak.
I love birds. But sometimes they just seem too damned smart. Swear they'll take over one of these days.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
TRADITION !
One of the all-time great musicals starts off with a song all about Tradition. Probably don’t really need to tell you which one, but just in case, it’s Fiddler on the Roof. Fiddler itself has nothing to do with what I’m writing about, but that opening song does.
I realised over this last “Festive Season” how important traditions can be. Now I’m not even talking about the kind of traditions they’re singing about in that song, not the ones religion or community develops, but the personal ones, the ones we establish for ourselves.
Some of them are common at this time of year – like putting the Christmas cards on the mantel-piece. Some I’m sure are shared. Like Carols by Candlelight. For me it’s simply not Christmas Eve without it. Used to be I’d settle down surrounded by wrapping paper and cards and presents, and spend the night carefully wrapping everything. It was the first really calming thing at Christmas, knowing it was too late to do anything else, no more shopping, no more worrying about what to buy for who. Just taking my time to make sure everything looked as good as I could possibly make it, and I used to go to town with the wrapping.
Seems my family don’t do presents much any more. Well, the Family Christmas is the week before anyway, now that the folks aren’t around any more, and the various kids are so torn between separated parents that the week before is the only time we can all get together. And we do kris Kringle now, no more everybody buying for everybody. It works well, really well. I guess that’s a new tradition come to think of it. And a sensible and successful one it is too.
So I don’t sit in front of the telly wrapping presents. But I still watch Carols bt Candlelight. It’s like old friends in a way, the people who turn up that you don’t see for the rest of the year. Even more than the performers it’s the songs. Pretty much the same ones each year, but that’s part of what makes it Christmas. That continuity. There must be parents bringing their kids along who were taken by their parents 20 years ago. It’s part of Melbourne, and it’s part of my Christmas.
Christmas Day is still full sit-down dinner. Not with the Family, but with the extended family, the one I’ve chosen. Funny, but we seem to talk about Christmases-past more there than we do with my family. Another new tradition, well no, not really new, just an old one that’s evolved into something a bit different, but every bit as special.
I don’t really do New Years Eve any more. Don’t like the drunken crowds – don’t much like sober ones even. I stay home. But again, TV – watch the fireworks, open the window to see the ones going up from the park out the back, tell the dog it’s all OK. Then my private New Years moment, the first song for the year. It’s always the same one. Has been for about 25 years I guess. ABBA – Happy New Year. Not very original, but just right.
Somewhere around New Years we seem to get the Last Night of the Proms on the telly too. Now that one really gets me. Every bloody time. Starts around about when they do the Hornpipe, you know, the one they start slow, then get faster and faster and impossibly faster. The audience are bobbing or clapping or stamping and tooting along. Love it. And Rule Brittania, and Land of Hope and Glory. I sing along with the best of them (it’s OK, the dog is an uncomplaining audience, he even seems to like it). It gets to me, because its wonderful, but also because it’s a constant Its reassuring that some things do actually stay the same, year after year. And at the start of another year, with all that we may hope will come, all that we hope will be different, I for one need to know that some things will not change.
One of the all-time great musicals starts off with a song all about Tradition. Probably don’t really need to tell you which one, but just in case, it’s Fiddler on the Roof. Fiddler itself has nothing to do with what I’m writing about, but that opening song does.
I realised over this last “Festive Season” how important traditions can be. Now I’m not even talking about the kind of traditions they’re singing about in that song, not the ones religion or community develops, but the personal ones, the ones we establish for ourselves.
Some of them are common at this time of year – like putting the Christmas cards on the mantel-piece. Some I’m sure are shared. Like Carols by Candlelight. For me it’s simply not Christmas Eve without it. Used to be I’d settle down surrounded by wrapping paper and cards and presents, and spend the night carefully wrapping everything. It was the first really calming thing at Christmas, knowing it was too late to do anything else, no more shopping, no more worrying about what to buy for who. Just taking my time to make sure everything looked as good as I could possibly make it, and I used to go to town with the wrapping.
Seems my family don’t do presents much any more. Well, the Family Christmas is the week before anyway, now that the folks aren’t around any more, and the various kids are so torn between separated parents that the week before is the only time we can all get together. And we do kris Kringle now, no more everybody buying for everybody. It works well, really well. I guess that’s a new tradition come to think of it. And a sensible and successful one it is too.
So I don’t sit in front of the telly wrapping presents. But I still watch Carols bt Candlelight. It’s like old friends in a way, the people who turn up that you don’t see for the rest of the year. Even more than the performers it’s the songs. Pretty much the same ones each year, but that’s part of what makes it Christmas. That continuity. There must be parents bringing their kids along who were taken by their parents 20 years ago. It’s part of Melbourne, and it’s part of my Christmas.
Christmas Day is still full sit-down dinner. Not with the Family, but with the extended family, the one I’ve chosen. Funny, but we seem to talk about Christmases-past more there than we do with my family. Another new tradition, well no, not really new, just an old one that’s evolved into something a bit different, but every bit as special.
I don’t really do New Years Eve any more. Don’t like the drunken crowds – don’t much like sober ones even. I stay home. But again, TV – watch the fireworks, open the window to see the ones going up from the park out the back, tell the dog it’s all OK. Then my private New Years moment, the first song for the year. It’s always the same one. Has been for about 25 years I guess. ABBA – Happy New Year. Not very original, but just right.
Somewhere around New Years we seem to get the Last Night of the Proms on the telly too. Now that one really gets me. Every bloody time. Starts around about when they do the Hornpipe, you know, the one they start slow, then get faster and faster and impossibly faster. The audience are bobbing or clapping or stamping and tooting along. Love it. And Rule Brittania, and Land of Hope and Glory. I sing along with the best of them (it’s OK, the dog is an uncomplaining audience, he even seems to like it). It gets to me, because its wonderful, but also because it’s a constant Its reassuring that some things do actually stay the same, year after year. And at the start of another year, with all that we may hope will come, all that we hope will be different, I for one need to know that some things will not change.
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