Thank-you for your comments, you lot. I got back, late on Monday, from a golden, memorable, wonderful trip to the Yorkshire wedding of an old friend. But I returned to a number of situations that have kept me from PCB for a few days. With luck, I’ll have some time tomorrow to respond properly to comments and maybe get a wee post in too.

It kinda makes you think about blogger-mortality, though. And the gaping electronic jaws of blog-death. And also the cold hard realities of the online life. Oh, and it makes you think ‘what’s it all about, Alfie?’ too. And that old ‘if a tree falls in the woods with nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?’ chestnut. It makes you think all these things and less.

A blogger might die and none of their blog-pals would know. There wouldn’t even be a holding test-pattern to look at. Just an eerie Last Post with bits of half-eaten toast lying around; a ‘hurriedly departed’-type scene for archaeological forensic e-teams of the future to poke through. Who’s to say I’m not now blogging from beyond the veil in a spooky, floaty, see-through way? I mean the internet medium probably already falls under the rubric of “Ethereal”. Noo-nee-noo-nee, noo-nee-noo-nee, ululate etc. None of us, in Blogland may, in fact, exist at all. It could be the existentially electronic equivalent of the phenomenon of turning round quickly enought to find that there is nothing and noone there. It might be an experiment by ETs. (Shiver).

But of course it’s not. I’ve just been to Yorkshire.

Anyway, what I mean to say is, new post’s a-comin’ and thanks for hanging with me these last silent and blipless days.

Update – April 28th – A Wee Hour.

For anyone cursing my lazy-blogger ways, I have posted replies to your comments in the comment-box of my last post. I hate to be a blog-churl when you have all taken the time to visit and comment but now I have returned the favour in my usual lengthy blahblah way and so have left myself no time for an actual post. I’m spent and sleepy and a cozy bed awaits. So with the taste of Yorkshire pudding still on my tongue and the sound of Yorkshire voices still in my ears, I’ll bid you an “Ay oop chuck, there’s nowt lak folk” and be off with me to dream of giant NATO golf-balls on the moor and the true tale of “How We Dognapped A Yorkshire Terrier And What’s More Got Away With It (Or We Fought The Law And (Badoom) We Won!)”

Quick post today. I was tagged by (http://mom-101.blogspot.com/) Mom 101 to do this 6 things meme. I urge you to visit her site if you haven’t already. She’s funny and smart and darned good readin’.

Right then. 6 Surprising Things You May Not Know About Me:

1. My grandpa was a spy.

2. My husband has seen my bladder in vivo, truly an intimate moment between husband and wife, especially as I have never even see it, myself. I was having a C-section at the time.

3.This year, my husband will be exactly twice my age and the same age as Paul McCartney. We met when I was 21 and came to America on a work-exchange visa. That is the child-bride part of problem-child-bride. I was visiting with the express purpose of plighting my troth to an older man and he, as luck would have it, was in the market for an Outer Hebridonian, undiagnosed yet, bipolar Cell Biology student.

We were an unusual couple who entered a suicide pact with each other when I was 25. However only 50% of us went through with it because, after I’d dispatched my new older husband, I realized I had an omnibus edition of Eastenders that I’d forgotten to watch, and then, you know, the moment had passed and everything. I spent a short time in jail following the murder, butused my time wisely to improve my crochet skills. I had secretly fashioned a crochet-hook from a nail-file some well-wisher on The Outside had mistakenly dropped in a cake, she’d baked for me.

While in jail I also earned a PhD. in Theoretical Housewiffery. (My particular area of expertise is in polishing (theoretical and applied), and my thesis on how to coax a gleam from even the tiredest of kitchen sink fittings is considered the standard in its field. I’m a regular speaker at the Southern Californian House-Pride Convention. My own sparkling faucets are an especial point of pride (blush).

Anyway, life went on, but I missed my husband so I had him disinterred and stuffed and we bring him out for birthdays and celebrations. On cold nights, when I’m lonely, I take him in from the garden, where he doubles as an effective scarecrow, and cuddle with him by the fire, remembering the good old days. If company comes over and we’re short on chairs he also doubles as a very comfortable soft-furnishing and any visiting children will play trampolining on him with my girls thus giving their parents a chance to snort cocaine off the cat’s back with me.

Does that last, put y’all off me now? It shouldn’t. I like children, animals and every film I’ve ever seen starring Julie Andrews. What’s not to like? I’m a well-mixed SoCal housewife-with-a-heart and a touch of nutmeg to season. Whisk me up with some egg whites, bake in a pre-heated oven and I’ll rise to the occasion like some delightful souffle. Serve immediately though, with mixed greens, or I might collapse and be less Saturday-night souffle than Wednesday-night ommelette. What in hell do I mean by any of that? I haven’t got a clue. Your guess is as good as mine.

So then, my husband is twice my age. Odd? Perhaps, but just the way it happened. I think that now I have revealed a bit too much that might be surprising about Pcb. You may be shocked and not want to come back any more. Was it the murder bit? Or the cocaine on the cat thing? It was, wasn’t it? It was the cat thing. I knew you’d think that was wierd. I dunno, people can be so judgemental! The rest of my Surprising Things will consequently be thoroughly mundane because I can’t take the pointing and staring in Blogland any more. It’s too much, really it is.

4. I would rather set my own hair on fire than listen to an evening of jazz scatting.

5. I would rather listen to an evening of jazz scatting than eat marzipan in any of its sickening forms.

6. I would rather eat marzipan than do another meme. No, I don’t mean that. Marzipan is the most God-awful confection since the Romans stopped eating candied otter’s noses (who can spot the Python reference in the last sentence? Hint: it rhymes with brandy- spotter’s roses and there is a virtual pink drink a la fmc (http://fatmammycat.blogspot.com/), for the first to nose it out. Next week there’ll be a tougher question on the reproductive rights of South Dakota’s female otters, since the passage of a recent law:

(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/us/16dakota.html?ex=1145419200&en=3f6660ea3165001c&ei=5087%0A).

I know my links are rubbish and messy, Vegas Joe, but don’t worry, everything will be better soon ‘cos Gordon (http://www.gordonmclean.co.uk/) is going to go in to perform blogical surgery and blog-lift me to beauty.

*

I’m going to Yorkshire this weekend! To celebrate the nuptials of an old friend and, with luck, for a short time, to remember what it was like to not be responsible for looking after anyone else but me. I love being wed and having bred and there are no dearer people to me than my wee girls, but I hardly ever get to see my British friends and I’m really looking forward to this weekend. Should be a good one. Hooray! I leave on Wednesday night so this will probably be my last post ’til next week.

Toodle-pip, folks.

PS. I don’t really want to tag anyone with a meme but, if anyone wants to take the baton, please, go right ahead. It was kinda fun to do in the end, and makes for a nice easy post.

I was without inspiration for a post today and had thought not to bother, but then I visited Footsie’s fabulous site (http://fishwhackerswindle.blogspot.com/) and rediscovered that inspiration is often only a click away in this fabulous, electronic New Age.

He is a doctor, although he won’t reveal what or whom he doctors, or even if he deals with his patients, pre-death. His post is an excellent inside-look at the characteristics of the distinct doctor-types and how they relate to one another.

Rather than leave an enormous comment over at Foot Eater’s, I thought I’d turn it into a post, but I owe the prompt entirely to him. Thank-you Mr. Eater. He arranged his descriptions of the doctors in the same way I have, except his are well-informed, pithy opinions and mine are merely flubbery impressions and reminiscences. Here they are then:

Note: If the post appears more commenty than posty, it’s because it was born of a comment and still bears a comment-birth-mark. I’m too tired to change it much and, indeed, may never do so.

Surgeons: Bah! Load of overpaid plumbers, if you ask me.

Physicians: I like the old-fashioned country ones with glasses, tweed suits and balding heads, particularly if those also happen to be men. Bald-headed, tweedy, myopic lady-doctors should be sent to heal the Welsh, and the Welsh alone. I also like the unshaven, grim-jawed ones. Especially if they have manly strides. It’s important that these sorts of doctor be male too, if they are to star in any gripping medical drama this housewife would care to watch.

And also, they shouldn’t be Flemmish (I can’t stand the hacking coughs of the Flemmish. Is it any wonder superbugs are on the rise? The rise in superbugs and the Belgian medical boom are directly proportional one to the other, trust me, (I’m not a doctor). These filthy Belgians don’t even cover their mouths or wash their hands after expectorating. Or shave their armpits. Or floss regularly. Beasts! Oy Belgium! Stick to chocolates!

Female doctors are, of course, every bit as capable but have colder hands than male doctors and as a child, if I’m honest, I preferred male doctors because I used to worry about germs collecting betwixt the precious stones on the female doctors’ engagement-rings.

Paediatricians: We never had them in Lewis when I was wee and we still don’t as far as I know. We had The Doctor and that was it. Our GP was Dr. Neil. We didn’t even get a goldfish to look at in his waiting-room, far less developmental toys and Legos. Our mothers were all terrified we’d put small toys in our ears, back then in the 70s. That was the major parenting worry, not whether your child would be able to identify Mozart in “The Great Composers Flashcard Series For The Under 5s” or not. If some child had put a Dr Neil Lego-brick in his or her ears, there would have been hell on in The Outer Hebrides. Dr. Neil would have had to hand in his stethoscope and move to Ullapool in shame.

By the 80s in the Hebrides, the big fear was things up noses (perhaps it was something to to do with Adrian Mole). Mind you in an interesting interlude in primary school, circa early 80s, Lewis, we had a whole bunch of urban, suburban, not-urban-in-any-way myths involving the ‘bad-boys’ at school and their horribly fascinating bad-boy accidents.

One boy in my class apparantly chewed his lip off after the dentist numbed it despite the rest of us never ever noticing, and another one had a football-sized lump of accumulated chewing-gum removed from his stomach. It’s true! I heard it from Wee Iain whose second cousin’s cousin-on-the-other-side was in hospital having her tonsils out when he/they were brought in bleeding/vomiting.

Now, as I raise my own children, it’s windpipes. I’ve had more than one early-morning purge of chokable objects in the house following eye-popping nightmares of ineffectual Heimlich Maneuvers.

Objects in orifices seems to be a very dating thing when it comes up in conversation. Just as being called Mildred or Vera marks you out as a child of early last century, whatever orifice in which your mother was scared you’d put a miniature soldier or bead, will tell the world (or maybe just the Hebrides, I dunno) in which decade you spent your single digits.

(As a wee digression, you can also learn to get quite good at locating and dating a person’s childhood by asking them where their parents told them the children were starving when they wouldn’t eat their tomatoes. I sent pocket-money and pleaded to send my tomatoes to Africa. Dave was told to eat up because they were starving in India. One of my friends is from Orange County and he maintains that at same time Dave was feeling guilty about empty-bellied little Indian children and his uneaten peas, he should really have been more worried about the empty-bellied little Chinese children. Of course, a better way to determine their time and date of childhood is to ask them, but that’s not as fun. When my elderly auntie-in-law was a child they were still, apparantly, starving in Europe.)

Anaesthetists: Aren’t they just semi-professional golfers with big needles? I can’t recall too many of them, which probably means they were all doing their jobs well, but when I had the girls (twins) I had to have a C-Section and therefore an epidural. The anesthesiologists as they are called here, ( In America “haemoglobin” has too many letters but “anaesthetist” doesn’t have enough, apparantly. It’s one of their Ways) gave me my epidural and the doctor was hovering over my tummy with her scalpel twinkling malevolantly, all a-ready to go in, when I realised that I could still wiggle my toes. I alerted the medical personnel present and, as luck would have it, almost everybody there was a medical person.

“OK”, said the anasthesio… God, I feel like a nap and a cuppa half-way through that word…

“OK”, said the numbing doctor. He gave me more anaesthetic (which is the opposite of “aesthetic” and can’t get a date because of that, despite his fine personality and the ability to soothe away all pains). But still my toes wiggled.

“I’ve given you enough to numb 2 women!” he exclaimed, but gave me some more anyway ‘cos my toes were very clearly still wiggling at my command. I’m 5′8″ and 115lbs so I can only assume it was all going to the babies. They must have been having a real giggle in there. They were certainly pretty dopey when they came out.

Psychiatrists: Least said.

Radiologists: I’d broken 4 bones in separate accidents in the first 21 years of my life: a leg, an arm, a finger and a toe, and the radiologists were always pretty nice when they were adjusting my broken limbs into painful positions for the X-rays. It seems like an unforgiveable thing to do, to manipulate another human being’s cracked skeleton and torn nerves, but I’ve never met one that didn’t do it with a cheerful smile and a merry whistle.

Obstetricians/Gyneacologists: – even though intellectualy I know it should make no difference, I still prefer a lady gyneacologist:

At university, I was in the same Halls of Residence as One Of The Creepiest Guys I have Ever Known. He wanted to be a gyneacologist. My friend and I were having a tea-break in his room once, during a collective all-night study panic in the library, where we’d met him. It was to be our first and last visit.

The first things we noticed were all the pictures of tigers on his wall and then, how psychotically neat everything was. He’d lined up all his 1ps on the desk in a row beside equally neat rows of 2ps and 5ps. Nothing too unusual there, you say -just a neat bloke with a tiger thing – why so hard on him Sam? Because:

He made me go and stand in what he’d figured out to be the draughtiest part of his room which, he told us, was not where he’d expected it would be before he’d started his calculations. When I moved away from from the spot, (which was indeed a chilly one) he grinned horribly and told us he wanted to be a gyneacologist, hehehe. Then he asked if we wanted to see his knife collection. (!) We moved to leave and he got visibly irked by that. Then he told us how intelligent he was and how very, very neat. We could see one of those traits was true enough but knew the other wasn’t completely true because he’d had his Kreb’s cycle all wrong the library when we were testing each other earlier, and had loudly decried my version as a heresy! An imposter! A false Kreb’s cycle. Only he, he knew the TRUE Cycle of Kreb’s, textbooks be damned!

Where he might have had smarts enough to be a doctor, he had neither the emotional nor personal skills and, irrationally enough, put me off the whole idea of male gyneacologists. I don’t know what happened to him, but I pray to God he’s in the Bar L (notorious Barlinnie prison in Scotland) and safely away from the general public.

General Practitioners: The foot-soldiers on the front-lines the doctoring profession; ironically, also the most well-remunerated and well-rested of medicine’s soldiers, hammering away at all Little Colin’s sniffles and Mrs. MacAuley’s ,varicose veins, to create a brighter, healthier tomorrow for all of us. Really though, I think they’re worth they’re weight in Gold Bond ointment. Who on earth wants to sit and listen to people describe symptoms as specifically vaguely as we’re all wont to do?

Patient: “It feels like I’ve eaten a cat-fish with hot sauce and a side of rancid coleslaw”

Doctor: “Well have you?”

Patient: “Why yes, I have! Last night, with some vodka and an individual-size brie . Dr. you’re a bloomin’ marvel! Thanks ever so! I’m going to tell all my friends to come and see you).

Plus, if there’s a deadly disease on the go, GPs are far more likely to catch it before the rest of us.

Pathologists: Happily, I’ve never needed one, but I refer you back to Mr. Eater. for the truth about these “whey-faced denizens of the crypt”. (http://fishwhackerswindle.blogspot.com/)

Happy Easter!

The Preamble:

Today’s post was prompted by my reading this article, this morning, about the cunning way killer-whales have learnt to lure seagulls to their deaths. (http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060202_whale_traps.html) Apparantly, one innovative Orca in Ontario (Canadian Marineland) has take to spitting fish up to the surface of the sea to attract seagulls to come and feast on them. Then the waiting orca will lunge at the seagull and gobble it up. His brother watched him doing this a few times and started to set his own seagull traps. Then their mum joined in.

The point of the article was to illustrate science’s new understanding that immitation and learning are part of many species’ behaviour repertoire, as opposed to the previously widely-held belief that they operate on instinct alone. That’s interesting in itself, but I was mostly just delighted to hear that the seagulls, those filthy, pooey rats of the sky, were getting some of their own bad karma back, finally.

In Lewis, which is the Scottish island I come from, it’s all about the seagulls. People cower as their shadows cross them, afeared of the 50% chance they have of getting evacuated on, and oh, look! They just did:

“Jolly good aim, Bombardier Whitestreak, hehehe , right down the back of her biannac!”

“It was a pleasure, sir. Here comes another one and she’s got an ice-cream cone, I’ll aim for that.”

Seagulls peck out the eyes of new-born lambs, will pinch the chips right out of your poke and eat drunken-people’s vomit for Sunday breakfast. Seagulls are vicious. We have lived under their collective despotism for too long now. As far as I’m concerned, becoming whale lunch is too good for ‘em, rhubarb, rhubarb, etc. … fade to uncharitable muttering. Hooray for the Orcas!

The Story

The Story Preamble – Look, I’m getting to it, honest.

We have a good view of the valley behind our house from out of the upstairs windows. Sometimes, my girls and I sometimes watch this one red-tailed hawk and a crow from there. The hawk appears to be doing nothing more than enjoying a stretching of the wings when the crow starts to dive-bomb it, apparantly trying to knock it out of the air. These air-assaults are frequent and can often last for 20 minutes, or more.

The Real Story

One day, we received a note by pigeon that we were to appear as witnesses in a case coming before the Avian Sky Traffic Court. Surprised, but not a little interested, I told the pigeon our presence was assured.

The following week, I dressed the girls in their Sunday best, donned a pair of rather fine kid gloves and a black feather boa, and we made our way to the Court, which was located in a disused barn down by Lake Casitas. 15 minutes later we returned to the house to deposit the feather boa, which, upon reflection, I thought might be insensitive, given the occasion so, by the time we arrived, the court was in full swing and the case of The Birds versus Colonel Horace Smythe-Smithers (Red-tailed bachelor hawk of this parish of Ojai) had already been called. An officious little court-sparrow flapped us to our assigned aisle and we took our seats.

In the dock, a large, russet and rather middle-aged looking hawk had just finished taking the oath. I say middle-aged because he wore a monocle, and a beige cardigan. It was clear he was single too because his collar feathers were a bit rumpled, and he had egg down his front (a clue; more of which later).

An imposing turkey vulture,(http://www.northislandwildliferecoverycenter.org/Turkey%20Vulture%202.JPG), whose name the court circular revealed to be Judge Wattles, peered from behind a pair of round, wire spectacles and intoned,

“In your own words, please tell the court what happened on the morning of March 25th 200000000006″ (birds use a different dating system called The Contravian Calender).

“Well there I was, just nobly trying to have a bit of a majestic fly, Your Honour, soaring regally on the thermals and such, and doing a bit of on-the-spot PR work for the species as there was a pale woman and her two small girls watching with some binoculars. I see them in the court today, your honour”. He indicated us.

(Note: red-tailed hawks around here will pretend to have received pronunciation, but after a few up at ‘The Aerie and Budgie’ (licensed public nest) apparantly, they fall right back into an Essex accent).

He continued, “When out of the blue this dashed crow started dive-bombing me. Let me tell you, it’s jolly difficult to scan the ground with an impressive piercing gaze when you’ve got the likes of Harry Crowsfeet (jerks wing towards crow) attacking you for no reason other than idle hooliganism.”

“Oi! That’s bang outta ordah, m’lud” cried Harry.

“It’s speciesist tha’ is, or my old mum,- Gawd rest ‘er soul – was a Siamese sparrah. Us crows can’t ‘elp our crows-feet and do the best as we can with retinol creams and Oil of Olay. Besides, the Council on Bird Relations says we oughta embrace ‘em as signs of our natural good ‘umour an’ that. That poker-arsed ole fing in the dock never ‘ad a larf in ‘is life. ‘E’s got his mangy ole flight fevvers up his bum ‘e does!”

“Well really, I must protest!” protested Colonel Smythe-Smithers,

“If we’re going to get personal, may I point out that humans consider the crows to be one of the lower classes of bird entirely, on account of their being scavengers, and Mr. Crowsfeet here is clearly the type who possesses precisely that kind of sleazy low-cunning his species are infamous for. His sort drag us all down. The bird can’t even talk properly. Bring back National Service I say! Get them polishing their own beaks and eating simple seeds, milletery-style. That’ll put the backbone back into this once great valley. They do it over in Santa Barbara”.

A couple of well-groomed owls and a dapper road-runner at the back of the court, har-harumphed their agreement to this outburst.

“That’s enough! Order in court! If you two gentlebirds can not conduct yourselves civily I shall hold you both in contempt. And, if you’d read todays issue of “The Daily Peregrinations”, you would know, Colonel Smythe-Smithers, that a crow has just won the world chess championship. And scavenging” (long peer over his spectacles) “is an important ecological niche-lifestyle. Why, I’m a scavenger myself, or had you forgotten? Anything else you’d like to add? No? I rather thought not.

Turning to Harry, Judge Wattles continued. “But you will allow, will you not, that Mr. Harold Crowsfeet is indeed your legal name?”

“Oh, yes, m’lud, it is, but I’m not ‘aving the snooty ‘awk casting h-aspersions as to my sterling character. We all know wot ‘e meant by bringing up crows-feet. Next it’ll be the colour of my fevvers and wever or not I says ‘couch’ or ’sofa’. It’s a bloomin’ class war, an’ I’m not afraid to say it. And besides I was provoked” said Harry.

As the volume of the spectators rose I could hear some pigeons in the court saying “Coo, he’s right you know!”,

And “What did he mean ‘provoked?’

And ‘Oo doos that blimmin’ hawk think he is his? Everyone knows, he’s right off a council nesting project in Minnow End. His parents weren’t Smythe and Smithers at all! They was Myrtle Smiff and Reggie Smiff. Cousins, apparantly. ‘Course you can tell: ‘e’s got no chin to speak of and have you counted his talons? ”

Being one of the only species present with any kind of an identifiable chin-area at all, I thought this last was going a feather too far. But they were talking in pidgin English, so I wasn’t sure I caught everything correctly.

The cooing and head-bobbing at the back became more enthusiastic as the assembled birdage started to identify who they were rooting for in the case. Feathers were clearly being ruffled.

“Silence!” roared Judge Wattles, his own shiny red ones wobbling magnificently.

“The court will come to ohrdahr!”

It did. Nobody wanted to see those wattles wobble more than they had to.

“Now, what do you have to say about Mr. Crowsfeet’s charge that you did, on the 25th day of March, in the year 200000000006, and in direct contravention of the very clear rules set out in “When Is It OK to Eat Another Species?”, enter his rookery and pinch an egg which you took to your own nest and then proceeded to boil and did consume with toast soldiers?”.

There was a collective gasp, as the court heard the words “boil” and “toast soldiers”.

“Scurrilous boiler!” Yelled an aged crow, from the back.

“I don’t deny it!” declared Colonel Smythe-Smithers flushing furiously under his plumage.

“These crows are a boil that needs to be lanced, and I didn’t have a lance so I just went ahead with the boiling. They’re a scourge on our culture and society. Everyone knows it but I’m the only one with the guts to say it. I love guts, and I catch ‘em myself, fresh. I don’t have to eat somebirdy else’s leavings off the road! With respect to Your Honour.

But it’s about more than just scavenging. It’s about breeding and what these lower classes of birds are doing to Ojai. Nobody reads the ‘Ojai Valley News’ or the ‘Peregrine’ any more. Nonononono! More and more birds are reading “Squawk!” and looking at tarty chicks lewdly parting their breast-fevvers, I mean feathers, on page 3 of the ‘National Cheep’. More like ‘National Cheap’, I say! And what’s it doing to the fledgings, eh? Who’s looking out for the yoof … I mean, youth? I’m glad I et (sic) the bloody egg, so I am. It’s one less of’em, innit?”

As the Colonel grew more agitated, the latent accent of his chick-hood started to reveal itself. The court, formerly raucous and energized, was hushed now, staring at the quivering, blood-shot-eyed hawk. One of the owls who had supported him earlier, shifted uncomfortably and the road-runner shook his head gently, eyes on the floor.

“I don’t think we need hear any further witnesses” said Judge Wattles, breaking the silence.

“I think I have all the facts I need to make my judgement. The court shall proceed directly to sentencing, but first I want to say a few words to the court at large.”

Then, the old judge, squinting as he removed his glasses, stood, leaning on a large burnished oak-twig topped with a brass knob in the likeness of a turkey-vulture, resplendently scavenging at a rabbit. The sun, glancing through a crack in the slanted barn roof, caught the brass buzzard’s bald pate, and danced on the rabbit’s spilled brass innards, momentarily blinding me. Dazzled and hot in the stuffy courtroom, everything seemed suddenly ultra-real to me. Dust sparkled in the sun-beams, probing their way into the court, and the unmistakable smell of pigeon guano filled my nostrils. I felt privy to an important moment in Ojai valley bird-lore.

Judge Wattles began (and I’ve itallicised it ‘cos it’s historical, like, and destined to becoame one of the Great Wattle Speeches),

“We birds are an ancient and great wing of evolution. We descended from the dinosaurs and at one time or another have inhabited every rocky cliff-shelf, every imaginable kind of tropical tree, every hedgerow and the eaves of every non-spiked public building. We regularly sit atop the statues men raise to their ‘great’ ones and often poo on them too, just to show we can.

We birds have no need to be eating toast, or reading tabloids. We need not submit to human ideas about our relative worth, one to the other. I once knew a Golden Yodelling Finch (finchus ullulus) of the South Sea islands. Last of her species, she was. Beautiful but dumb as a chip. She met her end gruesomely, flying into a human lady’s mirror after admiring the beautiful bird she saw in there. It’s birds like her that human’s invented their detested phrase “bird-brained” for. Let’s not give them any more ammunition, my friends. Let’s stop trying to imitate their ideas and ways. Lets join wings and unite in one harmonious bird-song that will ring across the earth and lets finally, truly, become birds of a feather and flock together!”

A great roar rose from all the birds in the barn. Squawkings, and cheepings and chirpings and chaffings – more cacophonous than harmonious to be honest, but still, a splendant moment. Jolted from my wondering reverie by an off-key chicken beside me who couldn’t hold a note for toffee, I realized that the girls and I were witnessing a private bird moment and there was no place for we humans there, any more. Rising to go, we began to sidle out of the barn, trying to slip away unnoticed.

“You! Pale woman!” We turned to face Judge Wattles and silence fell once more.

“Today, in this court-room, you have seen the damage your kind have done to ours. We wished you no harm, but you DDTed us. We want to live happily, side-by-side with you, yet you breed us in huge sheds and eat some kinds of us. Your Alfred Hitchcock produced an outrageous piece of propoganda against us, and you quit feeding us your sandwich crumbs in Trafalgar Square. Go! Go now and tell the world, via your internet thingy, what you have seen. Carry this message with you. Don’t poo on us, mankind, and we won’t poo on you!”

“OK, will do.” I said.

“Mummy, I need a poo”, said Child-Of-Mine #1

“I need a piddle” added Child-Of-Mine #2 (#s indicate exit order from the womb – there are no ‘favourites’ here)

The words “Don’t poo on us, mankind, and we won’t poo on you!” still ringing in my ears, I blanched and froze, hoping none of the feather-muffled ears had picked up my children’s reedy pipings. But of course they had.

“Tush and nonsense, pale lady, what are they holding it in for?” asked the judge. “Let them poo freely, over there in the dust. It’s the bird way. I myself have had several poos right here this morning, at my bench. Mrs. Wattles has been giving me extra fibre with my breakfast. There’s no shame in pooing, amongst the feathered folk”.

“B…b…but you said not to poo” I stammered, unsure of how birds performed executions.

“I was talking figuratively, my dear. Goodness, don’t they teach you anything at these ’schools’ of yours?”

There was some unpleasant snickering from the chickens, who were also taking advantage of the moment to give us some quite nippy pecks.

“Just have your children drop their drawers and ‘go’. There’ll be a seagull along to clear it up, in a minute.”

*

Later, at home, I looked at the pecked and tattered copy of “When Is It OK To Eat Another Species” that Childofmine # 2 had nicked from a hen in the courthouse. I learned that, a bird may only eat another bird under the following circumstances, and I quote:

1) Other nourishment is not available

2) No eggs must ever be eaten, ever, under any circumstances. Ever!

3) The above two conditions are mooted if either David Attenborough or a wildlife television crew are watching you. Then you must confuse them with baffling behaviours. If they can’t understand us, they can’t destroy us, because of their peculiar (but we’re not complaining, mind) idea of wanting to preserve us. They think we’re neat.

First off today, forgive me for my ungainly links in this post. While I can href and make links all tidily on other people’s Blogger and haloscan comment-boxes, Wordpress looks at my hrefs, snorts with disdain and turns the rest of my posts blue (have a short scroll down and see what the bloody thing has done to my earlier posts), just because it can. It’s the most vicious and malevolent blogging tool in the whole wide world and I admit freely I am not its equal. It has this horrible way of curling its upper lip and sneering down its complicated Cascading Sheet-style nose. Wordpress is a git and I hate it. Bah! (Beats tiny fists in impotent rage). I am the David to its Goliath and I will find a way to bring it to its knees and worship me. Mwahahahahaha!

This is an odds and sods post with a serious bit to lead, which I don’t usually do on PCB, preferring to leave my political ranting to raging around the house, flapping a newspaper (and occasionally, Wocky, my laptop), demanding “Have you seen this?” of the houseplants, and railing at the telly with my tiny fists of pent-up Wordpress rage. Anyway, bear with me for the political rant – I don’t know where it came from today. Or feel arm-flailingly free to skip it and read the more amusing news at the bottom.

First, The News, especially for the Brits who may get only a fragmentory picture of the state of the States. I am an Independant, neither Republican or Democrat and I realize my view will only give a fragmentory view too, so I’ll present the facts (caution: as I see them) whilst trying to limit my ejaculatory outrage and emotive language to a minimum. Or I might not. The whole thing is a mess and it makes me angry.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-leak7apr07,1,3769252.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

If (see above link) authorizing the leak of classified information, which compromised an FBI agent, and then claiming to be outraged and vowing to root out the leaker, isn’t grounds for presidential impeachment, then I will lose what little respect I have left for the spineless, poll-dancing and poll-licking, political-game-playing Democrats until the current lot are voted out and a new bunch moves in; people with more on their minds than perfecting double-speak, dissembling and failure to stand for anything except individual political damage control and a seeming lack of coherent concern about the God-awful mess this administration has got us into. All this so as not to alienate the group of voters they’re never going to pilfer from the GOP anyway. If they couldn’t win the election last time, what with Abu Graib, ‘My Pet Goat’ and the 7 minute presidential freeze and all, ALL the rest of the stuff that begged for us to kick Bush out, then they, and we as a country deserve what we get. “A people gets the government it deserves etc”.

All that happened before: the Gulf coast debacle; the “Is torture OK?” stuff from Gitmo and Alberto Gonzales; the Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff (and there were Democrats involved in that too) scandal; the reinvigourated and wholly predictable flare up of tensions between Shiites and Sunnis; the continued failure to capture bin Laden more than 4 years after 9/11; the Valerie Plame case; the Scooter Libby indictment; the obscene Terry Shiavo spectacle; “the jury is still out on global warming” idiocy; the myopic environmental policies; the reascendancy of the Taliban and the drug trade in Afghanistan; the botched Medicare overhaul;, the UAE/port security deal; the Cindy Sheehan spectacle; the failure to act in Darfur as millions are killed; the questionable legality of detaining people indefinitely without representation and the wire-tapping of American citizens (I’m not negating the possible validity of these things under certain circumstances, and am not learned enough to hold forth confidently on them, but the laws on the books must at least be followed a little bit, surely, at the very least – maybe waved around in the same room as the president once in a while); the inability to do anything about N. Korea or Iran, even if we wanted to because we’re stretched too thin in Iraq and Afghanistan and the world knows it. All of it.

Where are the Christy Todd Whitman, Republicans and the Max Cleland Democrats and where is Ralph Nader-type common decency? We need your integrity and reason, guys, come on. Even John McCain seems more interested in electioneering right now than anything else. I love America but I hate where we’re heading. I love Britain and was more shocked at the Downing Street memo (http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memos.html) and the recent revelations of the Iraq war being a “done deal” months before we started, with an invasion date “pencilled in” for March 10th (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/international/europe/27memo.html?ex=1301115600&en=be186887fe0c83a2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), than even the drawn out revelations that the CIA hasn’t got a clue, after all.

The Republicans are self-imploding and the segment that isn’t displaying flagrant lawlessness, from the House to the Executive, is having a convention called “The War on Christians” and presenting their persecution so far as to describe themselves as “the Jews of the 21st century”. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/28/AR2006032801632.html)

Despite, Terry Schiavo, despite The Ten Commandments in schools brouhaha, the teaching of intelligent design, despite controlling the House, Senate, the Judiciary and the Executive, the Religious Wrong (they’re not right) still would have us believe they lack power in the country, although 80% of Americans describe themselves as Christian. Who can spell “paranoia“? Nobody, because our school-system is lagging behind almost that of every other developed country (although American universities are still pretty good).

And the worst of it is there is no Democratic position to take (they are the party of opposition in a two-party system, and therefore the only vaible alternative one could take) because they haven’t got any, other than to bloviate and retreat, bloviate and retreat, watching their own backs and taking care of their own political trajectories. Where is the patriotism? It is American to question and demand answers and offer alternatives. We’re still stuck in this ‘dissent = lack of patriotism’, rut in America, with an insidious and largely successful attempt by war-mongers (Dick Cheney is the worst bloke for this) to characterize criticism of administration policy as fostering the enemy, despite dissent being what democracy is intended to allow. How can we think of spreading democracy in the Middle-East when we stymie it ourselves and get the ABCs of it so fundamentally wrong?

And … breathe …

Feel free to chime in and disagree if you want. After all, it’s the democratic way in a free society, and Blogland is one of the bastions of free, unfettered speech. I don’t find it disagreeable to be disagreed with, usually, and have learnt a lot from shutting-up and listening. So if you want to learn me some stuff, go right ahead, but I take some passionately moderate positions on certain things. It’s not only the loonies on the fringes that can think a thing passionately.

*

In other news: “New ring around Uranus is blue, scientists find.” There is a wee ‘moon’ called Mab in the ring around Uranus too, in case you wondered what that lump you’d found was. You need a pretty strong magnifying device to find it though, they say.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060406/sc_nm/space_uranus_dc_1

Look, I know its puerile and vulgar, and perhaps shocking to find on the blog of Problem-Child-Bride, (astronomy’s just disgusting, they’re all sickos, don’t you agree?) but I thought it would appeal to my husband and brother and a few of my male blurkers, especially Tom. I thought I might need to lighten the mood for anyone who can be bothered to read down this far, too.

*

In still other news (there’s a lot of that news stuff about, ain’t there?): I kid you not, this was an actual headline and its byline from our local paper, the Ojai Valley News, for Wednesday April 5th, (http://www.ojaivalleynews.com/index.php)

“Trout Ascends Fish Ladder. Casitas reports first trout past $8 million facility; news marred by another trout found dead in dried-up pool downstream”.

This was a project to encourage populations of steelhead trout which has failed magnificantly for several years now, despite pouring $8 million into it and, this year, deciding to break the damn and flood the wee valley its located in, anyway, thus destroying it and rendering the whole project a colossal waste of time and money. Genius! Apparantly they couldn’t tell if the plucky trout was even a steelhead or not:

“On the morning of Thursday March 30, the video camera positioned in the Casitas Municipal Water District’s Robles Fish Passage Facility snapped a grainy image of an approximately 14.5-inch-long fish. While the turbidity of the water prevented CMWD fisheries biologist Mike Gibson from positively identifying the fish as an endangered Southern Californian steelhead, Gibson asserted in a CMWD statement that the fish was certainly a trout”.

It’s like Nessie hunting, only publicly funded. I’m all in favour of bold efforts to protect Californian wildlife but the steelhead trout is only endangered in the Ojai Valley and is abundant North of here. $8 million dollars and several years in, for one dubious trout! Priceless, as they say in the American Express ads. Or maybe it was Mastercard.

*

Personal news: last night I dreamt our cat fell in the shredder. I felt unspeakable relief when I awoke to find her sleeping in her chair,but, on my way to deal with my wee girl’s ‘accident’, at 3am I damned nearly broke my neck on the good-for-nothing, layabout as she deliberately tried to trip me up. I began to think…

Hello, my name is Betty and I have asked Problem Child Bride for the use of her blog to recount my recent experiences: my rise, my fall, and how I ended up in the Pleasant Glades Hospital for Insane Ojai People (Terminal Responsibility wing, which is south-facing and has a very pleasant porch – we like to say we have the best nurses here too (shout out to Nurse Jenny! Yay!); we’re very lucky in TR wing).

Where to start? With the British police.

British police have set up an FBI-style Serious Organised Crime Agency, or SOCA but, what has not been widely reported, is the fact that they based the idea for this new agency on one of my own brain-children, the Ludicrously Ordinary Crime Agency And League (or LOCAL) and its political wing, the Committee for the Naming and Shaming of The Uncivically-Minded. Our by-line was “There Ought To Be A Law!” I was the founding member and architect of our organisation.

Much negative spin has been attached to my vision, especially lately, and outrageous accusations have been made about how I wanted to radicalize a segment of the town’s retired population with a militaristic junta-type mandate. This is rubbish: I never once insisted on camouflage although several of our merry band were quite keen.

Anyway, I am a community-minded gel and I liked the LOCALity of our acronym (hohoho!). George , the treasurer, certainly made us smile when he pointed that one out. I can’t claim the credit, although I wish I could be as quick as George, who was a bit of a wag, I’ll have to admit, as well as a no-good, back-stabbing parvenu.

LOCAL patrolled Ojai regularly, and our nightly and daily perambulations uncovered much uncivic activity, of which the following is a sampling:

Poor Parking. For lazy parkers We would leave a sternly-worded message on the car’s windshield advising them that “Proper People Park Proper!”. Then we’d draw a chalk outline around the car and measure its angle of deviance from the parking lines. It was a bit fiddly ‘cos Mr. McTavish’s pocket protractor was very small (Mrs. McTavish, who was often along on our raids, complained about that quite bitterly, I recall, as did, interestingly, their neighbour Mrs. Wanton-Hershey, also remarking that “wee McT” liked to deviate from the norm, regularly – I didn’t know what she meant and didn’t know Norm either).

Abandoning of supermarket trolleys, mid-aisle: This was a lone-wolf operation, dealt with as encountered, but generally involved the apprehension of the offending cart and the restacking of its contents back on the shelves, so the perpetrator (LOCAL code word ‘filthy perps’) would learn a hard lesson in abandonment as they had to re-shop all the things we’d put back.

The only flaw in this piece of civic-minded guerilla warfare, was that, occasionally, as members of LOCAL emptied someone’s carelessly left cart, it would mean having to abandon our own carts and we would return to find our own cart had been LOCALed. Arguments amongst members often got heated about this and, the first time management had to be called was, in retrospect, the beginning of The Trouble and the slipping of my own hands on the reins of power. George, that black-hearted opportunist was always there though, to capitalise, murmering things like “poor organisation” and “no longer up to the job“. Git.

The psychiatrist has often tried to link this particular supermarket-trolley action of ours to my own chil-abandonment issues, but I will have none of it. I’m just not the sort to try to inflict my personal neuroses on the public at large.

But the busiest unit was, undoubtedly, the Wedneday morning The Rise and Shine Breakfast Bunch, as we liked to call ourselves. We met weekly, for a 7am breakfast-meeting at he Sunny-Side Up restaurant to discuss strategy and enjoy like-minded company.

The Breakfast Bunch were a team of crack-commando apostrophe-removers or adders and patrolled the town’s bad punctuation hot-spots frequently, with a large brush and tins of poster paint. We laughed about how we were ‘possessed’ by correct usage of the possesive and plural. Mea culpa – in my last Christmas round-robin I did urge everybody to “run-not-walk to for a fabulous twofer deal on hilarious elf apron’s at Barneys Noveltie Shoppe“. Didja spot them? George (that Judas) kindly pointed them out to me (although, at the time, I really didn’t think he had to do it in front of everyone in the Tuesday Pannakeuken House meeting).

I first noticed the heavy toll LOCAL was taking when the doctor informed me my cholesterol had climbed to unsafe levels, due to all the eggs and bacon breakfast and pancake-house meetings, and later, the stress of leadership and George’s coup were to give me an ulcer, a nervous tic, and the tendency to bark whenever George (God, how I hate him) was about. Arf arf woof! Where is he? Is he here now? Nurse!

Now that you have an idea of my background philosophy and circumstances – where I was coming from, if you will – I will retire to sob for a while over the good old days and, later, I will detail for you My Downfall and how I came to be a voluntary (now) resident of Pleasant Glades Home for Insane Ojai People.