Monday morning you sure look fine

Cheer up

Monday morning you sure look fine – Fleetwood Mac-Monday Morning

and a duck billed platypus?

What is the divine thought and intervention that comes up with those two extremes? A question best left for a day other than Monday. Or maybe we could ask a Cardinal?

This post is about Cardinals which Wikepedia helpfully suggests (bird) so I don’t get confused with the baseball or football team or the senior ecclesiastical official in the Catholic faith.

We see them around the Rising ranch. Even though we stopped feeding any birds after the “bear incident” (a story for another time) we still see the pairs flitting here and there.

I often wish I could flit. Flitting seems like it would be fun. I guess it would get old, and be the same as walking if you did it all the time. Still.

Cardinals are always in pairs. Bright red daddy, brown mommy:

They mate for life and dad takes care of the little ones once they leave the nest. For a while.

From where I work at the the kitchen table I have a good view of some bushes that the Cardinalis cardinalis (Northern Cardinal Scientific Name) frequents. I see a pair there quite often and I can be fairly certain that it’s the same pair or maybe offspring of that pair. They have a life-span of 15 years and return to the same place every year.

My Mother loved cardinals. And like anybody who lets family and friends know that they like something, her life was filled with cardinal baubles, curios, doodads, knickknacks, gimcracks, kickshaws, novelty’s, ornaments, tchotchkes, trinkets and also geegaws.

NEVER let anyone know you like something.

Come on. A Saw blade? Really?

Writing is lonely work. I get to spend a pretty significant part of my life sitting here, looking out the window for inspiration. I have spent a lot of time here, waiting for something to show up on this screen. A lot of dreck shows up. The delete key is worn white. So much of what I do never sees the light of day. That is a GOOD thing, trust me.

In my darkest hours Mom and Dad seem to show up.

Not flitting. Both watchful.

I miss them more than I could ever express.

But I feel them when I look out the window.