One Memory Leads to Another Memory

Plotnik was out on the lower deck this morning staring at Mom Bird-Nik and La Koo Bird-Nik doing more walking lessons (nuzzling, mostly) along the top of the fence. It was nice to see them because Plot had figured once they've left the nest they're gone for the year. But nope, they're still hanging around.

Ducknik walked over and both she and Plot were seized by memories -- little birds will do that to you.

Plot remembered living on the farm when The Great PunkyDunky was born, and then those golden afternoons in Glendale (Stiletto County), after they'd moved West and Plot and PD would take long walks every afternoon hunting for avocado trees with excess fruit they could take home.

Ducknik remembered taking PD to the park practically every day, and how each time an Amtrak or freight train would chug by on the train tracks across San Fernando Road, Baby PD would shout "Caboose!"

Do these memories mean anything to anybody except us? No. But they are the most precious things we have.

Yesterday, old friend and neighbor Dana was out watering her garden next door. She told Plot and Duck the story of her partner Leslie's father, who has Alzheimer's-induced dementia and can't remember anything but the most basic commands. However, he's in great shape at age 90 and leads water exercise groups. How does he do that? He says '1-2-3-4' over and over and over again. Each time it's brand new to him but the group follows along.

Losing memories would be the absolute cruelest cut of all.

Plotnik thought about living in Gecko Parque where The Great BZWZ would push her toy stroller into which the huge family cat RL Pussycat had climbed to take a nap. He was so huge his stomach would bulge out of the bottom of the stroller while she pushed. Then one night RL got attacked by a raccoon while drinking water out of his bowl outside, and was slashed viciously across the stomach. It turned out his fat was the only thing that saved his life because nothing vital was injured, except the boy never was able to eat outside again without checking things out very carefully first. Still relatively obese, RL Pussycat lived well into his old age in Saint Plotniko.

The birds reminded Ducknik about a feral cat who lived on the farm in Pennsylshmania. She was called Blanche, because Ducknik knew this woman named Blanche who was carrying on with...anyway. There was a bird's nest on a back porch of the farmhouse, in a similar spot to our Bird Family's nest, and one day Ducknik forgot to take down a card table that was set up on the porch. That night Blanche was able to jump up on the card table and launch herself at the bird's nest, destroying it and all its occupants.

Plotnik left a ladder close to the Birdnik Family nest yesterday, so Ducknik moved it.

Plot and Duck raised generations of chickens, and everyone loved going to the henhouse for fresh, warm eggs every morning. Everyone except the hens, that is. They would peck anyone's hand who ventured into the straw to remove an egg, especially the hand of a two-year old.

The first time The Great PD amassed the courage to grab an egg from under a chicken, being held in his Dad's arms so he could reach into the nest, the hen pecked his hand and the egg flew up in the air, landing on the straw floor and cracking. Pop and boy and chicken stared at that broken egg. (The rooster licked his chops because as soon as the humans would leave he could lick up that egg.)

After that, for a few weeks PD preferred to let his Dad reach in to get the egg and hand it to him, so he could proudly march down the lane to the kitchen to give it to his Mom for breakfast.

Then one winter a beautiful but deadly snowy weasel got into the henhouse through a tiny hole in the mesh that was supposed to keep predators out, and in one night killed every single chicken except for a few roosters. The carnage was amazing -- hens in their nests with heads lying sidewise, throats cut by the slash of one claw. Only dead hens and broken eggs remained, along with an eerie, uncomfortable silence. Plot had never heard that silence before.

The roosters flew to the safety of the walnut trees and stayed up there for days.

When a neighbor trapped the weasel a week or so later, Plot was astounded to see that a predator who could do so much damage was so very small -- far smaller than a house cat -- but also gorgeous with its brilliantly white winter coat which made it practically invisible in the snow.

White weasel fur was the height of fashion in England a century ago. Women wore gloves and hats made from it.

One: You can't protect your children. All you can do is teach them to walk along the top of the fence and then let them figure the rest out for themselfves.

Two: The problem with memories is they can take the blogger over. Y'know?