To Quell A Mockingbird

So I did a little research.  And it turns out that I could actually kill that annoying mockingbird that has been hanging out in the tree outside my bedroom window.  According to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, the mockingbird is not a migratory bird and, therefore, not protected by law. 

You’re shocked?  So was my son when he overheard my husband and I planning an aggressive retaliation for the weeks of sleepless nights caused by the persistent abrasive repetitions of one annoying mockingbird.

With bloodshot eyes, hunched over our coffee cups one Saturday morning, my husband offered to look for his old bb gun in the attic.

“I may as well pull out my old bow and arrow,” I scoffed.  “You can’t hit a bird in a tree in the dark with a bb gun.  You’re liable to blow out the neighbor’s windows with a misfire.”

“I can’t believe you two are talking about killing a defenseless mockingbird,” my son chimed in.  “You know he’s only singing at night to attract a mate. I find it soothing; it puts me to sleep.”

I, too, once found the mockingbird a soothing sound in the middle of the night.  When my children were young and they would awaken me in the wee hours of the night with a stomach virus or a fever, I found the mockingbird’s songs a comfort.  The variations and repetitions of different birdcalls kept me alert all night while monitoring a child’s high fevers.  I found comfort in thinking that some other form of life was awake at that godforsaken hour of the night.

But now I am at that age when there are so few pleasures left in life, and a good night’s sleep is ranked high on that short list.  It is my due.  I’ve earned it.  And I’ll be damned if some annoying bird is going to squawk all night long outside my bedroom window.  I don’t care if he can’t find a mate.  Why can’t he go onto someone else’s rooftop on the other side of town?  My friend plants bushes in her garden to attract birds.  Maybe I could find a way to send him off to her neighborhood. 

In the meantime, I try everything to discourage his nocturnal noise.  I clap my hands and hiss out the window, imitating a cat.  He sings louder. The next night, I fling popcorn kernels out the window toward the tree and that stops him for a moment.  But just as my head touches the pillow he starts up again.

Another night, I’m walking back to bed from a visit to the bathroom and I see my husband crawling back into the bedroom through the window. He had been out on the roof, blindly swatting the air with his belt. This is what insanity looks like after many sleepless nights.

Night after torturous night the chirping, cawing, cackling, crowing, screeching, shrieking noise continues until, one night, I snap!

I put on my clogs and a bathrobe and stomp out into the blackened night. I start to unwind the water hose, slow and methodical at first, forming a strategy in my mind, but once I know what I’m going to do, I lose patience fast and pull the entire hose off the rack.  Big mistake.  The hose is all tangled now, but I pull it and drag it across the lawn anyway, stumbling over a wheelbarrow and a pile of pulled weeds and dirt.  In mocking laughter, the bird caws like a crow.

I’m huffing and puffing now, trying to reroute the hose around the dirt pile and the hose gets twisted into several knots.  I’m so angry, my teeth are clenched and I’m breathing steam through my nostrils.  And, still, the mockingbird sings.

I finally get close enough that I can see, if the water pressure is strong enough – I’ll have to go back and straighten out some kinks in the line – I just might blast him out of the tree.  I still can’t see exactly where he is, but from the sound of his squawking, I have a good idea.

I stumble back to straighten out the kinks, while the mockingbird breaks into a run of loud trills.  I turn the faucet on, rush back into position, using the playhouse roof to steady my shaking hand, pull back the lever and fire a strong steady blast of water into the tree.

Except for the sound of my own heavy breathing and the residual drips of water falling off the leaves, there is finally silence.

My nightgown is soaked from the dripping hose, there is mud all over my crocks and I can feel the burn from a scrape on my leg when I fell over the wheelbarrow, but I don’t care.  The adrenaline is pumping and I haven’t been this excited since I was a kid playing hide-and-seek on a dark summer’s night.  So this is what they mean by the thrill of the hunt!

I breathe deeply, slow and steady, and wait.  I’m not changing this wet nightgown and crawling back to bed just to hear the mockingbird start up again.  I don’t care if I have to sleep in the playhouse all night with this water hose clenched in my hand.

 I wait about 10 minutes, long enough for my eyes to get used to the dark.  I am a nocturnal creature now, listening for any movement in the trees, along the grass.  I hope to God there are no raccoons or possum hovering nearby.  Just to be sure, I squeeze the nozzle and spray a circle around me.  One more long spray into the tree, just to let him know I’m still here, and then I slowly retreat back to the house.

For the first time in weeks, I sleep in peace.

The next day, my husband rigs up a brilliant contraption so I won’t have to trudge around the lawn in the dark.  He pulls the hose up the side of the house and across the roof, anchoring it with a rope around a roof vent.

I have a new nighttime ritual. After I shower and floss, I check the position of the hose outside my bedroom window and then I retire to bed.

With a sparkle and a glint in my eyes, I glance lovingly across at my husband, and whisper, “I’ll take the mockingbird watch tonight.” And then I turn out the light and wait.

Who says there aren’t any thrills left at our age? 

If you would like to learn how to attract birds to your garden (please! take my mockingbird) see  "Attracting Birds To My Garden" posted May 17, 2012 at:  www.barbarathehealthynut.blogspot.com  

My iPhone, My Love

Flashback to 2009:  My husband and I are packing for a week’s vacation in a cabin on a lake in the Adirondacks. We pack a video camera and a digital camera, old wrinkled maps of Long Island and New York State, books, magazines, board games, movies, music CDs, and a thick book that has pictures identifying all the flora and fauna of the Adirondack Mountain region.

Before we leave I ask my husband to set up the VCR to tape my favorite show, since we don’t get reception on the television in the cabin, but he is busy stuffing the trunk with his fishing poles and hiking boots, so he says to me, quite irritably, “OK! Just wait a minute!”

As we are driving on the Northern State Parkway I ask him, “Did you remember to set up the VCR?” 

“Oh! No… sorry,” he answers sheepishly. 

After fifty miles of silence between us, he asks, “Are you still mad?” I could ignore him for the next six hours by pulling out a book, but I get nauseous when I read in the car. I can’t exactly sing along to the all-news AM radio station he listens to. So I sulk, giving him the silent treatment, as I am still fuming and afraid that any conversation we have will turn into an argument.

“Pull over at the next rest stop,” I tell him, finally breaking my silence. “I have to pee.”

“Me, too!”  He sounds so happy that I have finally spoken to him. 

When we get back from our bathroom break he points to the radio and says, “Why don’t you put something on that you would like to listen to.”

“Forget the radio; the only thing playing this far north is static,” I tell him.  “Hand me my Janis Joplin CD and move over. I’m driving now.”  He will pay dearly for forgetting to set up the VCR to tape my show.

~~~

Flash Forward to 2011: My husband and I are packing for a week’s vacation in a large house on a lake in the Adirondacks. The children and grandchildren will be joining us this time.  My husband packs a digital camera with several backup battery packs and the clunky outdated video camera that never works. There are the same wrinkled outdated maps of Long Island and New York State, different books, newer magazines, the same board games, a few old movies, the same music CDs, and the same thick book that has pictures identifying all the flora and fauna of the Adirondack Mountain region. 

I pack my iPhone and a charger.

As we are driving on the Northern State Parkway, he tunes in to his all-news AM radio station to check the traffic every ten minutes, and instead of zoning out, like I usually do, I pull out my iPhone and tune into Waze, an app that acts as a GPS and also alerts you to traffic jams, accidents, delays from roadwork and alternate routes to take. I inform him of an alert that someone posted about a traffic jam on the Merritt Parkway. “I’ll plot an alternate route with my iPhone!” I say, eager to try my new toy.

“That thing doesn’t know anything,” he scoffs.  “I just heard the traffic report and they didn’t say anything about any traffic jam on the Merritt Parkway. I’m not changing my route.” Later, with the engine idling in neutral on the Merritt Parkway, he asks me if “that thing” can get rid of the traffic in front of us.

“Let’s just make the best of the situation,” I tell him cheerily, and I pull out my iPhone. I open the Verizon app and remotely set the DVR box to tape Masterpiece Theater while we are away on vacation. He continues listening to the traffic report and starts shouting back at the radio that they missed this one. Next, I get on the Internet and log into my Amityville Library account, download a free book, put my headphones on and listen to a calm voice reading to me, as I close my eyes and relax. Later, I open the New York Times on my iPhone to read a bit of news, while listening to music in the background.

We make a pit stop for lunch and I snap a few photos with my iPhone, then switch to the video mode and span the mountain range ahead.  I notice an unusual flower bordering the picnic area and remark aloud, “I wonder what that is?”

“I’ll get the book out of the car,” my husband says, and jogs off.  While he is pulling things out of the trunk, looking for the book, I take a picture of the plant, download it to my Leafsnap app for identification, and within seconds I have the name, description, growing season and more information than I need to know about this plant. 

While he is repacking the car, I send a text message to our son:  Where R U?  They were supposed to meet us at this rest stop for lunch. He responds immediately:  Late start. Should B @ cabin by evening.  My husband is restless, scanning the parking lot.  “Where are the kids?” he wonders aloud.  “Weren’t they supposed to meet us here for lunch?”

“They got a late start; they’re meeting us later at the cabin,” I tell him, waving my iPhone to explain how I got the information.

As we climb into higher elevations, the car radio dies out and so does my phone’s reception, so I switch over to the iPod on my iPhone.  My mind is wandering, and I come up with an interesting idea for a short story, so I open the Voice Memos app and speak into the phone to record it. It’s a story about a woman who becomes so attached to her iPhone that she actually falls in love with it.

I’m thinking about my own relationship with his amazing device and how much my life has changed for the better since I purchased it a year ago. As we drive down the rocky dirt path toward the lake, I open my window and take a deep full breath of lush green pine scented air. I turn the phone off and slide my palm and fingers over its smooth cool surface, aware of how good it feels in my hand – such a sexy piece of equipment! I exhale slowly, and unwittingly confess, “I love you so much! How did I ever live without you?”

My husband puts his hand on my knee, and gives it a squeeze. “I love you too!” he says, a big smile lighting up his face.  He stops the engine and looks deeply into my eyes, inching his hand up my thigh. “I’m glad the kids aren’t here yet…aren’t you?”