What has a pair of wings and crows

What has a pair of wings and crows?

Four Vignettes

Ladybirds!

A host of ten, including one of the new-to-the-UK Black Harlequin, encountered on the morning City-Walk with Max.  The Black Harlequin is rumoured to be spreading a sexually transmitted disease amongst the native British Ladybirds.  The Harlequin was surrounded by the others.

One tabloid here feels the need to tell its readers that this new ladybird is not a threat to the human population.  Friends in my old Florida home will tell you that almost any ladybird is a threat to me.  Never has one landed on me that did not bite.  But then, everything in Florida will eat you.  Reference the air traveller who tried to eat another a year or two back.

Hey, that is MY name!

Somewhere past the ladybirds in the city centre, Max and I turned onto C R A Z Y.

Max wanted to go to Mid-Summer Common, the big, unruly patch of wild where all of his dog friends play in the morning.  Instead of taking the main path onto the open space, Max took the fenced side-path.  

―  "Max, where are we going?" I asked.

Just then, a young man was passing.  "Yes. What was that?" he stopped to ask.

―  "I was just talking to my dog." I replied.  People without pets are often surprised that people with pets talk to them.  "Isn't that right, Max." I continued.

―  "But, Max is my name." He insisted.  This has happened before; so, I thought nothing of it, while failing to take note of his 'but'.  "You can't call him that!"

―  "Call him what?" I asked, puzzled, "Max?"

―  "That is MY name."

―  "Happy to meet you, Max!" I offered, "This is Max too."

―  "Max is not a dog." He was quite insistent now, even agitated.

―  "I didn't mean to ..." I began to apologise, when the young man turned in a huff, and, walked away.

"Fences make good neighbours," I thought, "and, I must be on wrong side of the fence."

God on the Common.

As the young man stepped into the distance, Max crouched for a poo beside the fence.  This was the part of the Common known as Butt Green; a poo here seemed logical.  I pulled a bag from my coat pocket and bent down to pick up the poo.

Suddenly, a set of feet appeared before me on the other side of the fence.

―  "What are you doing?" Demanded a stern voice from above.

I looked up to see the face of God, or, God as frequently depicted in Renaissance paintings, only here protected from the light rain by a nylon hoodie.

―  "I'm picking up the dog's shit." I said. People in Cambridge can be militant about dog shit. Sometimes, I've found, making a little kabuki theatre of it helps.

―  "No you're not!" the voice of God contended.

I lifted myself, suspecting that if I were not to be hit by a bolt of lightning, I might well be hit by one of the two bags that God was holding.

―  "I am indeed." I was irritated.  "Here. Look."  I lifted a bag full of shit into view.  I should have known better than to respond, but life has taught me not to quietly step back into 'my place'.

―  "I know that you're not; ...  and, you know it too!" God on the Common insisted.

―  "Alright, then."  I must have seemed to agree; and, stepped away to deposit the shit-bag in a bin a few feet back.  God followed, albeit on the other side of the fence.

―  "You've been sent to infiltrate my mind.  You should know that I know it; and, I will defend myself."  The shit-bag landed at the bottom of the bin with a dull thud, imitating the sound of distant thunder.

―  "What?"  I was taken aback.  Before me stood a man, reasonably well clothed, if belied by nylon, berating me for an act of aggression neither seen nor intended.

―  "Where are you from?" he demanded.  A question no immigrant in a country seemingly, if slightly mad with anti-immigrant fervour wants to hear.  

―  "You're not even English." he observed.  I've always suspected that the English weren't quite at ease in their union with the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish, but it was unsettling to hear xenophobia use a word other than 'British'.  I was cowed into an uneasy state of quiet.

―  "You're Dutch", he spit, "aren't you.  You don't belong here, ...  trying to infiltrate yourself into the mind of a Psychic.  You should know better."  

I couldn't stop thinking about the irony of being pegged as Dutch.  The Netherlands is one of two countries that has tried to deny me access, suspecting me of entering under false identification.  The other was, a bit more ironically, my birth-country, the USA.

―  "I should have known better", I agreed sincerely.

―  "You're just too blind to see it!" God chided.

He turned away, on the path into the open space of the Common. As he proceeded into the distance, toward Jesus Green, he occasionally stopped. Where he stood, he rounded back on his heels, to see me still dumb-founded on the wrong side of the fence.

"Where he leads, I follow." 

... I say to the street preacher who asks where I will go when I die.   It's a multiple choice question. (A) Heaven. (B) To the dogs. 

There's no doubt about my meaning.  I'm at the end of Max's lead, being dragged back into the heart of the city centre, ... where the Ladybirds await our return.

---

7 January 2017

Reports of the Black Harlequin ladybird began around 17 November 2016.
Lead is British English for an American Leash.

Dog's Day

5:30 a.m. and Max is serenading me with the dog's version of the Beetles' Penny Lane.    — Chippy Lane, he sings, is in my brain and on my mind.  Neither of us is very good with lyrics.   — It's there all the time. The beat is plodding and insistent.    — I can't get it out, oh daddy, he complains, daddy please, can't we go out down to chippy Chippy Lane.  You would think that he was about to die.    — There's a kebab laying there. It's got my name down down ah-a-on Chippy Lane.

At 5:30 a.m. Sunday in the city centre, there are only drunks and taxi-cab drivers demanding prepayment.  On the street corner in front of the Army & Navy store, there's an old man dressed for a Minsk winter, the ears of his ushanka pulled above his head.    — Zah Kay Jah Beh stole my soul, he shouts, and threw eat down upon zah ground.  He crawls into the otherwise lifeless street, where he begins to sweep up the remains of a shattered glass with his bear hands. 

Until I remind myself that it is now 5:45, I think, "This is a bit theatrical" — the old man even sounds like Ian McKellen. — "But, it is effective advertisement for the Army & Navy store."    — Luke at me! he demands.   "It's hard not to," I tell Max who's only intent is to beat the retired greyhound and the street-sweeps to Chippy Lane, three blocks on.    — Looook!" the old man continues to demand as I, myself, am swept along by the four-legged feeding machine's dogged determination.    — See how I am shattered!

At the far end of Chippy Lane, in the Market Square, there's a thin lad — he's probably still there — whining to the middle-aged men setting up their market stalls.    — I lost my French fries, he cries in a flat middle-American accent, and McDonald's is closed.    — Then, instructs one of the men, a Scot, get yee bahk thee-r, lad!  He points, tah Rose Crescent, Chippy Lane's daylight name.    -- Chips are to be had on the floo-r.     — Ah, Chippy Lane! "There's a promise." I tell Max.

Chippy Lane this morning, is a veritable feast. The cornucopia shaped lane is over flowing the remains of split and unwanted unfinished kebabs, burgers, Chicken McNuggets, doner wraps, and yes, chips. Stray dogs might be excused the thought that they'd died and gone to heaven. And, a dog at the end of a lead is only certain of it.      — Max is in the moment. He hunkers down if I urge him along. There's a lot to take in.

   

   

Fantastic Mr. Fox, and, a Saturday excursion

Fantastic Mr. Fox

and a Saturday excursion

Fox hunting became illegal here in the UK in 2005.  Fantastic Mr. Fox is so out-of-the-closet now that he made his film début four years on.  Relatives have even moved into the heart of the capital. 

_________________________

So, I am minding my business early Saturday afternoon.  Max and I are on Jesus Green, the park that hugs the River Cam.  It's a space made for lazy days notwithstanding the grass tennis-courts, the skate-park and band-shell.  It's a perfect day.  The sky is blue.  The sun, bright.  And, the grass beneath our feet is so verdant, it looks as if it might have been painted.

Max is old now.  He leaves his ball and flying squirrel toy at home.  These were made to make him run; but, running now leaves him winded.  Instead, he prefers simple and several rolls on the green.  Legs flying, as though he's trying to dance on the clouds.  It's behaviour that he began in a bid to prolong his walks.  Today, he's using it to entertain.  Tourists have their cameras pointed at him.

We're at the mid-point of a city-walkie.  Cambridge sits like a ball against the sinews of the River.  A city-walkie follows the curve of the ball, passing through every green space available to us. 

It begins at the far edge of Midsummer Common.  This is the wild where a small herd of beef cattle manage the land, where old-fashioned one-ring circuses pitch tents, one after another, all summer long.  It's where old Guy Fawkes will burn in effigy come the Fall.  Max likes the scent of the beasts.  There's neither a bull nor a circus colt to which he doesn't believe he is related.

The mid-point, backing Jesus College, is Jesus Green.  Beyond us, city-walkies continue between the river's lower and upper locks.  At points, we will literally walk on water to enter the city.  Max loves this part of the walk as in the city lay the remains of the party scene: spilled chips & vomit.  From there, it's over the only public foot-bridge on this side of the city, up the college backs and into Coe Fen.  The Backs bear the last signs of segregation in Cambridge.  "No dogs." they read.  Pity, as here lay the bridges that cross the river, should we need to cut a city-walkie short.  The Fen is a semi-arid wetland where the attraction for Max is another half-flink of cattle.  Coe is the old English word for cow. 

Back in the middle, Jesus Green begins just beyond the cattle guards beneath the Victoria Avenue bridge.  This marks the spot where the last of great College boat-houses rests along the opposite shore.  It's the last safe spot for Max to drink from the River.  Embankments further along grow steep.  A misplaced paw would see him tumble down, armadillo like, into the water.  He has done this once, already.

I am old, too.  The cold snap means that my knee freezes, locks-up as if I'm wearing metal-plate armour that's been left in the rain.  "Pour l'amour d'armure!"  I curse it.  Even bending down to unleash Max brings a complaint from the knee.  It pops with the sound of burst balloon. 

There's a bench not far from where Max teases the air with his up-turned legs.  "He won't bolt", I tell myself, taking a seat.  It's no time before Max is off on his own, nosing the base of trees near the city-side fence.  His graffiti 'I was here', penned in the invisible ink of pee, is marked as an invitation.  It's no surprise, then, that we were soon after surrounded: Otters — Bears — Bear cubs — and, Foxes.

Don't take this literally.  It's a rather largish crowd of gay men, half of them shirtless.  It is typical of the British spirit that, as long as the sun is shining, England might as well be Ibiza or Miami.  Despite the autumnal chill, it's weather made to go shirtless, with shorts and bare feet.  Blankets are thrown down.  Feasts are laid.  The bears and bear cubs have dropped themselves onto the pitch.  Pouring Champaign.  Devouring canapés.  The otters have gone off to play with the foxes.

I'm not much for bears and their cubs.  It's the weight, not the hair.  The otters are cute in a bony sort of way.  None of these men are foxy.  But, the foxes do have an unmistakeable animal attraction.  They're dressed in Fantastic Mr. Fox costumes, complete with paws and tails.  "The Fursuiters are out for fun!" I hear one of them yell.  Then, all of them run.  It's pandemonium.  Max takes notice.  I don't realize how flawlessly he fits in, until an otter howls, "Fox hunt!" and drops to his knees, pulling nerf™ guns from his picnic basket.  Suddenly, all of the otters have nerf™ guns.  And, nerf™ bullets are flying.

I'll leave you there.  Max and I moved on.  I was afraid that he was becoming a bit too animated.  I would have loved to have seen how this ended, ... when the bears and bear cubs finished ransacking their picnic baskets.  You might like to imagine that they'd fall back, belly up onto their blankets, sated.  I, instead, imagined them still hungry, turning on the foxes and devouring the otters.  "Hmm. Tastes like Chicken!" I can hear one of them saying. 

The rest of our city walkie was anti-climatic.

_________________________

Afterwords.  Irreverent and gay.

Should you not be familiar the imaginarium of gay slang, I introduce you to some of its woodland creatures.

A bear is a large, somewhat rotund hairy man.  Sometimes, when travelling on their own, a bear is easily mistaken for a middle-aged heterosexual man who has simply let himself go; ... which, incidentally is usually the reason he travels on his own.  His cub is a younger version of himself.

Otters are thin, hairy men of any age, though nature often takes its course, turning otters into bears as years wear on.  "Don't make fun of our father's good looks", my mother used to say.  "You'll grow into his skin one day."  She may have been right, but I'll still make fun of his come-over.

Foxes have no place in gay culture.  There are wolves, feral and inclined toward animalistic sexual naturalism.  They come out only after dark, and, are sometimes thought to be myth.  But, there are definitely no foxes.  Hence, the costumes.

Chicken, by the way, belong to the group of people usually defined by British heterosexual slang as Birds, albeit rendered simply 'nubile'.  You-are-what-you-eat has become cliché.  A sacrament less transubstantiation than supplication.  The desire to be transformed never gets old.  Some even pray for it.

For the Love of Bull

Have I mentioned that my dog, Max, is overjoyed?  Here in Cambridge, the return of warm weather brings cattle to Midsummer Common?

On our walks there, he pulls me toward the cattle, or, more precisely, the bulls – they’re all, 20 something of them, bulls.  My other dog, Maya, ever fearful of them, pulls me away.  From any distance, our walks across the Common must seem rather comical.

I have to admit that, personally, I have a healthy respect for cattle.  When I was young, my father used to farm me out to a friend who owned a dairy herd in southern Indiana.  There, I was a prized summer hand.  The cattle loved me.

Dairy cattle you may know have to come in at the crack of dawn for a regular milking.  This particular herd was ruled by a matron.  Bossy, she was called for obvious reason, refused to budge toward the milking stables until she felt appropriate respect.  Bossy would move for no one, on no amount of prodding and for no temptation.  But, she would move at the sight of me.  Some people move heaven and earth.  Others part water or walk on it.  Some levitate.  I once had an odd power over a peculiar cow.  Hell-bent, Bossy would come running for me.  She’d usually pin me up against a fence or barn wall and gently – you might say, lovingly - head-butt me.  It was always a pretty frightening experience.  I lived in fear that I’d end up in a shot-gun wedding to a cow.  Once the farmer’s wife realized what was happening that was the end of it.  Mornings there after usually began with yells of “Run, kid. Run.” with Bossy in hot pursuit; the both of us running toward the milkers.

The other day, Max pulled me right through the middle of the herd.  One curious bull took an interest in him.  Before we’d made our way through the herd, Max and the bull were nose to nose.  Max decided that sitting was in order at that very point – probably fearful that a wagging tale might be too encouraging of the bull.  Then, Max did what Max always does when he comes nose to nose with another creature.  He stuck out his tongue and licked.  The bull seemed to be only slightly surprised.  The expression, if bulls can be said to have expressions, seemed to be one of mild amusement followed by curiosity.  For the rest of our walk across the Common, that bull followed us, pursued in turn by his entire herd.  Max seemed both fearful and proud of his adoption into the herd.  I was having flashbacks to Bossy.  Maya, fortunately for all of us, was with David that day, and, lagged behind everyone … including David, who seemed to be dragging her across the Common.

Our most recent foray across the Common portends - augers, even, if this repetition can be said to trend – the coming summer’s fun.  On this walk, Max spied the cattle through the long grass, from the far end of the expanse.  They were lounging beneath the walnut tree that, come Fall, will gather humans straining to pick its fruits before they fall.  It was a mad dash – I should emphasize, mad: crazy, insane - as Max dragged Maya and me across the flats in the direction of cattle with nothing better to do than to watch grass grow.  And, what did my honorary brother of the bulls do, having come to the cattle?  Why, he threw himself down beside one of the bulls, and, refused to be budged for the longest time.  He was in his element.

On the walk home, we had the conversation that every boy and his dog have sooner or later.  You know where your din-din [canned food] comes from, don’t you?  I asked.  He didn’t seem to care.  I’ve long suspected that grains and vegetables replaced meat in those cans.

(originally posted to person [now defunct] blog in 2010)

Now Back to our Regularly Scheduled ProgrammeLIFE IN CAMBRIDGE

An odd collection of September days.  Awaiting fall like a leaf on a planetree.

On this 29th day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   

Another freakishly hot day here in the UK; and, with the autumnal sun low to the horizon, it feels as though a miracle’s about to happen …     this can’t be good.

    

People are already leaving their clothes behind.  Granted, they’re sunning themselves on Parker’s Piece, where it’s like Miami Beach in the Winter  —  the Dutch descended, as a nation, upon the sands.   And, some folks are already rising toward heaven.  Yes.  Of course, they're only playing football (uh, soccer), doing headers, whilst others are straining to catch Frisbees.  As signs go, I take what I am given.

      

I haven’t seen any wolves lay down with lambs.  But, my dog pulled me into the shade of a plane-tree on the banks of the River Cam.  There he laid himself down, panting, beside the bulls that normally feed on the fen grasses.  No, and nor have I seen four horsemen.  But, the schools have just ended the day’s sessions; and, their munchkins are travelling in packs on bicycles in the spirit of emissaries of Mongolian Khans.   — No one is safe!

   

And, this being the United Kingdom, I can attest: everyone is speaking in tongues, the tongues both of these isles and those of their commonwealth together with those of the continent over which many Britons despair.

   

No, this cannot be good.

   

There is not a cloud in the sky.  And, come nightfall, Jupiter will again herald the hour when the NBC and CBS World News programs are broadcast.  They'll be carried live, like water from a well.  ... Broadcast well beyond bed-time, suggesting that the working day is done.

     

I bet that tomorrow will be hotter, still.  Hotter than bright.  Hotter than hell!

   

      

On this 28th day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   
[while out walking the dogs, Max and Maya]

   

It’s a scream bloody murder night in my neighbourhood.

HELP ME! can be heard as I round the corner from City Road, which is less urban than the name might suggest, onto Fitzroy, a shopping street.  The call is loud.  It is persistent.  Oddly, it is male.

Fitzroy, by the way, is archaic English meaning son of a king; its translation, this evening, is somewhat closer to son of a queen.  Neither is exactly what I’m hearing as I approach the young man.  He’s speaking a bit of English mixed with Russian.  He is accompanied by three friends: one male, one female, and the other is a bottle of vodka.  In Russian, he’s asserting that his male companion, who has him in a headlock, is a Nazi.

We travel in proximity until we reach New Square, where Max has a rendezvous with the lawn.  The Russians continue on, loudly.  One of the young men will punch the lights out of a road sign, literally.  It is an internally lit road sign.  Regardless, the sign takes it well and fights back like a Weeble.

(I think Weebles, here in the United Kingdom, are known as “roly-poly men”, or, since the days of Noddy on kiddie TV, “wobblymen”.  But, that’s beside the point.  In Russian, they’re known as “tilting dolls” or “candidates not-named-Putin" in a Russian presidential contest.)

A bit later.  From the direction of the city centre.  Screams of RAPE! from a young woman and HELP ME! from a young man can be heard coming upon us as we head home.  I remind myself that Yob (that’s Boy spelled backward, an English invention, meaning poor wayward lad) … that Yob only sounds like a Russian word.  These are American voices.  They’re probably travelling with a silent friend, Jack Daniels; but, I can’t see them yet.  They’ll overtake us soon enough; Maya is taking forever to find just the right tree to fertilize.  It’s amazing how loud people, regardless their nationality, can be here after dark.  Anyway, the speed with which they are approaching suggests that the only rape presently occurring is that of a peaceful night.

The voices, Russian and American, are odd book-ends for what is heard on the return approach to Fitzroy.  English accents, this time.  No, you sodding arsehole! a male voice screams.  The English have a lovely way of intoning the word No, of elongating it to demonstrate insistence, as if in this case “sodding” didn’t lend enough support to the word "arsehold".  It’s followed by Get your own tree.  The sound of it is, well, incongruous without recalling childish conundra (erm [um], conundrums) such as Does a tree fall in the forest, if … and Does the Pope shit in the woods, if …  As I round the corner onto Fitzroy, I spy them. 

Three young Englishmen, plus one, the sodding one.  Each of them, lined up like Elgin Marbles.  Each of them, minus the sodding one, standing stolidly beside one of the line of trees fronting the Waitrose grocery store.  The sodding one seems aimless, like a just-fired pinball, banging about.

Inside the store, a sixth friend is buying a fifth friend for the evening; it looks like Lamb’s Navy Rum — amongst rums, a rather rough tasting liquor but very English.  It’s a pity that the sixth friend emerges from the store with a puzzled look on his face.  He doesn’t get the classical reference.   Athena Parthenos! shouts one of the tree men.  We are about to play a game of “See no evil.  Hear no evil.  Speak no evil.” with these cheeky monkeys.  Athena was the goddess of the forest! shouts another.  It's obvious; they've escaped from a classics degree for the evening.  And, the final of the three tree men, staring into the eyes of the emerging friend with his fifth of Lamb’s, screams Parthenos! … She was the VIRGIN, to which the fourth man — pin-ball man, the sodding one — adds sheepishly Parthenos.  That’s Greek.

Ah, college men.  I wonder if they know the old British naval saying.  Would it be too crass to remark upon it here?  I’m oddly tempted to scream it out, You need a cork at night to get any sleep!  Disappointingly however, I believe that the trees are London Planetrees.  Americans call them Sycamores.  No cork there.  And, none for The Night of Loud Voices either.

 

On this 25th day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   
Max is developing a new habit.  On walks he pulls toward the Veterinary Surgery (that's "the vet’s office" in American English).  Max seems to have developed a fondness for the vet since his last check-up when sweet nothings were whispered, in German, into his ears.

It’s a curious development, as Maya has been known to run home from the vet’s office.  (It’s only three blocks away; and, she hates needles.)

Walks in the direction of the office are becoming painful.  Both Max and Maya are amazingly strong.  I often have one dog pulling me toward the vet, the other pulling me away.

[Meanwhile]

I’m trying to suppress cravings for German and Polish pastry, dairy-rich morsels that threaten early death by coronary.  (The English have never, apparently, mastered the dark arts of death by deserts.  English pudding, for example, is just under-baked cake.)

I’m wondering how a pastry run to Munich or Warsaw will look on my application for permanent residency in the United Kingdom.  The application requires one to state where one has travelled outside the UK, for how long and to what end.

    

On this 3rd day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

A well dressed, immaculately groomed older woman called to me from the coffee shop across from the Indian ladies news outlet this morning.  It took me a while, speaking with her, to realize that she was speaking well formed gibberish.

The coffee shop owner told me that she used to drop in irregularly.  She’s now become a regular.  Forced retirement pushed her over the edge.  He said that he doesn’t mind.  She drinks the coffee and draws in customers.

The shop is something of a mixed bag.  In the morning, it’s a French pastry and coffee shop.  It makes its own croissants and pastries each morning.  The shop normally draws a crowd of older men in casual-ware with nothing better to do.  They drive up in their expensive sports cars and park them on the pedestrian mall.  Come evening, it’s a traditional family style Chinese restaurant, drawing the mainly Chinese students of the English language school next to the Indian ladies news outlet.  Mid-day, it is a little French-colonial era Hanoi.

       

On this 1st day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   
The Indian ladies at the news store have decided that I should learn Gujarati.  That’s one of the squiggle languages.  Fortunately, they’re not making me write.  Speaking it is quite enough.

I’ve had to take a rather bizarre approach just to wrap my head around it.  Just so: I made the Urdu-speaking Pakistani delivery men laugh — nervously, but laugh — when I gave the Indian women a very polite greeting, Jeshi Chreshna — literally, May God be with you.  I felt rather like a trained monkey, what with the bounding voice with which I spoke the words.  Their laughter actually followed my response to their question, How you know that?      Jesus Christ, I said courtly, It kinda sounds like 'Jesus Christ'.  I've a motion-picture in my head, playing a video of the Hare Krishna devotees back in Gainesville, Florida.  Everyone is happy, swaying to the beat of cymbals and drums.

Knowing that they were Urdu speakers, and likely Muslim, I then greeted them with Allah Ismarladik (which to me, in my quirky world of language-learning sounds like "Is-Marla-a-Duck?") — that’s Turkish actually, for God be with you usually meaning "Goodbye" rather than "Hello" — what can you do in a pinch?!, … anyway, since Turkish is close (geographically if not linguistically) to Arabic, I figured that Urdu would be close as well.  It was.   Or, at least the delivery men pretended that it was.

Fortunately — perhaps wisely — they didn’t ask, How you know that?  I might have told them something my mother loved saying, Lord (Allah) … Lord, love a duck!  That probably would have been a big no-no.  But, I’m learning.

Anyway, may God be with you too!