Delongs Save The Moon

On this evening of the eclipse, Delong talks to his kids about saving the moon. They have some thoughts of their own.

10:17:57 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

On Grackles

They screech and squawk from the treetops all day. They are driving the native songbirds away. Flying in from the country, they roost overhead and fill morning pedestrians with feelings of dread.

I confess, I am not a fan of grackles. They are to the animal kingdom what kudzu is to plants. Ok. Not quite. But you get the idea.

Anyway, I'm sitting here at my desk periodically admiring the garden outside: the salvia, the verbena, the lantana, the hummingbird bush. I'm sitting here and a butterfly flutters by. It is orange-yellow and sweeps by on a southerly breeze.

Then: squawk and bang.

A grackle swoops down from its roost in the Ash tree above and grabs the butterfly out of the air. The orange-yellow wings fall to the ground and the squawking beak picks them apart and flies off.

So much for the butterfly garden.

Wait. Was it a butterfly after all? Maybe it was just a tortilla chip lying in the street. And wait. It might have been a mockingbird. And maybe the wind isn't out of the south but rather the west. And isn't this just mother nature at work?

Oh, never mind.

10:49:04 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

He Skipped His Calculus Final

From The Universal Church of Cosmic Uncertainty... He was outside watching a lunar eclipse when it was time to go inside and take the test:

[UCCU]: I'm going to sit here and watch this eclipse. You're going to go take your calculus final. I guarantee you that in 10 years I'm going to remember this, and you're not. Good luck. [...]

I sat there for the length of the test, and watched the moon disappear and reappear completely. I remember the change in color of the sky. I remember the tree line off in the distance, beyond the slope of the parking lot, 4 rows deep. The couple-few bugs in the air. The feel of the roughly-hewn rocks cemented into the wall on which I sat, and the texture of the cement of the wall against which I leaned. The crispness of the air, whispering through the trees lightly.

8:57:41 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []