Bye, Bye Birdie

Greetings, my fellow port swillers and good news!

Regular friends of the decanter will recall ol’ Robbo’s post of t’other day about the pair of bluebirds that seemed to have taken up residence in the birdhouse attached to the porch support that is soon to be done away with and his fretting over what to do about it?

Well, this past weekend, I noticed that said bluebirds did not seem to be hanging around anymore.  Perhaps they reckoned the neighborhood a wee bit too crowded, as I had surmised.  

Instead, I spotted a Carolina wren messing about in the birdhouse and its immediate environs.  (As an aside, I positively adore wrens for their perky, chipper demeanor and liquid song.)

Late on Sunday, as I fired up the Weber in preparation for grilling some burgers, I wandered up to the birdhouse – which plainly had a nest in it – and gently tapped on the side with a long stick.

Nothing happened.

I tapped again, somewhat more vigorously.

Still, nothing happened.

I gave the house a fairly substantial whack with the flat of the weapon. 

It maintained its obstinate passivity.

Finally, I unhooked the house from teh pillar and peered in.

The nest, based on the dry, crackly state of its component twigs, obviously was not fresh, but was of one or more years’ vintage.  Furthermore, there was nothing in it.  Not a hint of recent occupation.

I heaved a sigh of relief over having dodged an ugly conflict and quickly moved the birdhouse to a quiet corner of the fence.  

There is much to be said for problems that take care of themselves.

 

In Which Robbo Sees Stars

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

T’other evening, on a relatively rare date, Mrs. R and I paid a visit to the local planetarium in order to take in a show on black holes.   I would guess that I was considerably younger  than the youngest gel the last time I sat down under the dome.

You may snicker behind the decanter and mutter to each other under cover of the cracking of walnuts, “Sink me, do these people know how to party or what?”  I will say in defense that a) Mrs. R is, as regular readers may recall, the science teacher at St. Marie of the Blessed Educational Method and was eager to do a little recon on behalf of Teh Children®,  b) Ol’ Robbo is an absolute sucker for big screen depictions of the Grandeur of the Cosmos, full of which this short film, narrated in his gravelly Aslan voice by Liam Neeson, was nicely chocked,  c) we went for Chinese afterwards, and d) none of yer damned biznay.

Suffice to say, a good time was had by all.

Anyhoo, the reason I mention this is that the film, although really rayther vague and surfacey, touched on a point around which ol’ Robbo has always had trouble wrapping his braims.   You see, in discussing the four known dimensions of the Universe, the presentation touched on Einstein’s noodlings about the possibility of the fourth dimension – that of time – being subjected to corruption, variation and warping.

Despite what his college transcripts in genetics and organic chem might suggest to the contrary, ol’ Robbo has always prided himself on possessing a certain logical, analytical, scientific side.  Heck, in high school physics, there were few in my class better able to calculate, given a frictionless environment of course, exactly what force would be necessary to put a cannon ball fired at a given elevation right down the smokestack of an oncoming train traveling at a given speed.

But while I can grasp, at least at some level, the bending of the physical universe in three dimensions – via gravity – and even the bending of these three dimensions relative to Time, I simply cannot fathom the bending of Time itself.   In other words, I can grasp a physical phenomenon proceeding faster or slower, depending upon the conditions, easily enough.  What I can’t grasp is the changing of the chronological marker against which said phenomenon is measured.

Or, as Neo might have put it, “Whoa.”

Incidentally, the audience for this show was chock-a-block with small children, as might be expected.  One of them, aged perhaps four or five, was to my immediate right one row back.   Her commentary on teh film, produced non-stop and in a very piercing voice, consisted of the alternating phrases, “Is that the black hole?” and “Daddy, I’m really scared….”  I was very tempted to wheel round on her father – who was discussing Palie vestry politicks with his neighbor throughout – and hiss, “Hey, man!  I spent five whole dollars on this ticket and I want my money’s worth! So shut her, man….”

Of course, I didn’t.  But I had quite a good chuckle thinking about it.  Still didn’t like the kid very much, tho’.

 

 

In Which Robbo Will Probably Kill You In The Morning

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Ol’ Robbo does not mean to go poaching in the preserve of one of the more estimable friends of the decanter, but I can’t help noting that today is the anniversary of the birth, in 1682, of the Dread Pirate Roberts.  Sayeth Wiki:

Bartholomew Roberts was born in 1682 in Casnewydd-Bach, or Little Newcastle, between Fishguard and Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, Wales. His name was originally John Roberts, and his father was most likely George Roberts.  It’s not clear why Roberts changed his name from John to Bartholomew, but pirates often adopted aliases, and he may have chosen that name after the well-known buccaneer Bartholomew Sharp.  He is thought to have gone to sea when he was 13 in 1695 but there is no further record of him until 1718, when he was mate of a Barbados sloop.

In 1719 he was third mate on the slave ship Princess, under Captain Abraham Plumb. In early June that year the Princess was anchored at Anomabu, then spelled Annamaboa, which is situated along the Gold Coast of West Africa (present-day Ghana), when she was captured by pirates. The pirates were in two vessels, the Royal Rover and the Royal James, and were led by captain Howell Davis. Davis, like Roberts, was a Welshman, originally from Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire. Several of the crew of the Princess were forced to join the pirates, including Roberts.

Davis quickly discovered Roberts’ abilities as a navigator and took to consulting him.  He was also able to confide to Roberts information in Welsh, thereby keeping it hidden from the rest of the crew.  Roberts is said to have been reluctant to become a pirate at first, but soon came to see the advantages of this new lifestyle. Captain Charles Johnson reports him as saying:

“In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages, and hard labour. In this, plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst is only a sour look or two at choking? No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto.”

He was killed by grapeshot in a battle in 1722 and buried at sea before his body could be captured.  Or so they say.

At this point I naturally was going to put in the clip of Wesley explaining to Buttercup how he had become TDPR, but YewToob doesn’t seem to carry that scene.  Oh, well.  In poking about, however, I did come across this bit, which should provide some mild Friday afternoon amusement:

Robbo Is Currently Listening To….

The headlines today?  Good God Almighty!

The bread-and-circuses crowd had better quit trying to figure out whether Ben Gazzi is that ghey linebacker or the latest Kardashian bf and wake the hell up!

 

On Bringing Up Father

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Numerous recent conversations with the gels, all of whom are now very much either teens or pre-teens, produces in ol’ Robbo a sense of paradox.

On the one hand, the gels go to great length, each in their own fashion, to suggest that Dad is some kind of combination of dinosaur, nerd, snob, misfit and Looo-sah.  The phrase, “Your problem is that you live in the 18th Century” has more than once wafted into Robbo’s shell-like.

Well, what can I say? Guilty as charged.

Curiously, though, although these charges are served up in the je accuse style,  I can’t help noticing behind the bluster a certain sentiment that may be roughly described as, “Um, thanks.”

At least, that’s my perception and I’m sticking to it….

In Which Robbo Cries Fowl

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Were you to sit yourself down in Robbo’s favorite comfy chair in the library at Port Swiller Manor, you would find to your immediate right, just beyond a small occasional table loaded to overflowing with books and covered in hot beverage rings, a large window.  This window looks out into the back yard of the Manor’s demesne and generally takes in the flower garden, the tree line and the gels’ rope swing.  In the immediate foreground, it offers a view of the patio one floor down and the side of the back deck at eye level.  If you were to slouch down just so to look under the table, you would be able to see both the lower bird feeder hanging from the underside of the porch and a bird house attached to one of its supporting pillars (one of those Williamsburg – or, as we like to say for reasons too complicated to explain here, “Weeeyamsburg” - glazed bottles).

As I say, this is Robbo’s favorite chair, in which he spends as much of his leisure time as possible.  One of the primary reasons why he likes it so much is the view described above, to which he often turns in contemplation of  the sky, the light, the clouds, the various flora and fauna that visit from time to time and other manifestations of the Maker’s handiwork.   (We are also very close to the outer marker for air traffic coming in to  Reagan National from the North, and I confess that teh little boy inside me never gets tired of seeing the coo-el jets powering down overhead.)

I mention the bird bottle.  We put it up when we first moved in thirteen years ago.  (I’ve a hazy recollection that it was a housewarming present from somebody.)  In that time, I have seen multiple broods of chicks raised in it, usually either wrens or sparrows.   However, the other morning as I sat idly gazing down, I suddenly spotted what had heretofore not been much of a regular visitor to the immediate vicinity of the porch and patio, a bluebird.  He was sitting on the deck railing looking indignant, and every now and again would jump off to go after other birds trying to get at the feeder.  (Truth be told, it really is a bit too close to the bottle, but numerous onslaughts by deer, squirrel and raccoon had left its corner the only viable spot to hang it.)  He also started flying up and perching in the ivy around the windowsill no more than two feet from me, fluttering up every now and again to attack his reflection in the glass.

Peering more closely, I suddenly spotted the reason for Mr. BB’s actions;  peeping out from the neck of the bottle was Mrs. BB.

Oh, dear.

This genuinely surprised me.  I’ve often seen bluebirds in the yard.  But it’s always been my understanding that they like to nest right on the edges of open spaces.  (Indeed, there are several birdhouses in the neighborhood – including one of our own in the little area behind the back hydrangea hedge- that they have inhabited over the years.)  But I never thought they would take up residence in what is a comparatively confined space and one so close to the house.

On the one hand, I was delighted.  I love bluebirds, considering them to be amongst the handsomest of the local native species and also admiring their self-contained, aggressive attitude toward the world.

On the other, I was disturbed.  You see, within the next couple of weeks, the support to which the bird bottle is attached will be no more:  This evening, we signed the contract for the construction of the new porch, and the process is rayther going to involve first getting rid of the old, rotty one.

At the moment, I’m not really sure what (if anything) I can do about the bluebirds.  I’m virtually certain that no chicks have been hatched yet (it’s far too early), but I don’t know if any eggs have been laid.

I know that Nature is red in tooth and claw and that things happen to nests of eggs or chicks all the time – branches falling down, lightning strikes, invasion by predators and so forth.  But I also feel the tug from that part of Man’s soul that is above Nature.  (No, it’s not Bambi-like anthropomorphic sentimentality.  More like the responsibility of stewardship.)

Not so much as to halt construction, you understand.  The bird bottle has to come down one way or another.  But enough to do a little research to see whether there is any way to transfer it to another spot within the immediate vicinity without damaging or harming its content.   I think I’m going to call around to some local pest control outfits and see if they have any recommendations.  Who knows? “Humane” transfers have become all the rage these days.  Why, my own Sistah, rayther than summarily tossing the foxes that have been caught having a go at her hen coops straight into Casco Bay in brick-filled sacks, has ponied up the dosh to have them transported and released somewhere inland (where they are no doubt free to plague some other unfortunate shmucks).   Why not the “humane” relocation of widdle birdies?

I think I’m going to do this even if there’s no realistic way to save the nest.   The last thing I want is to try and take the thing down myself with a furious pair of bluebirds going for my head.  Sparrows I could deal with: they seem to be fairly placid.  Wrens are more aggressive, but tend to hover around the perimeter making lots of sound and fury but taking little practical action.  Bluebirds, on the other hand, are more into the pecking and scratching thing, which I, frankly, can do without.

I’ll keep you posted.

On Cats And Mice

Can you believe it? Two whole posts in one day! When was the last time ol’ Robbo pulled that off?

Anyhoo, I happen to be online because I’m over at teh Weather Underground site checking the local radar.  Ma Nature and I are currently engaged in something of  a struggle.  I want to fire up the grill for my steaks and she’s responding by sending a series of isolated but intense storms over the rooftops of Port Swiller Manor.  It’s bucketing at the moment, but I believe that once this one rolls through, I should be able to get back out there and get cooking.

Nothing to do but crank up the third and fourth movements of Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, pour myself another glass of sherry and wait it out……

Soggy Saturday Random

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Well, another Saturday dawns at Port Swiller Manor and finds Robbo staring at the radar and wondering whether he has time to spritz the weeds with Round-Up before the thunderstorms move in.  Probably not.   At least I got the grass cut last evening, so that’s something.

♦   I mentioned the Gels of MASN in the post immediately below.  Now I will tell you something about my own gel of summah.  The eleven year old has inserted herself in a rotation of two or three regulars playing catcher for her softball team this season.  T’other evening I was watching her in action behind the plate when it suddenly occurred to me why she enjoys the position so much:  It’s a spotlight.  The catchers are constantly complimented by coaches and crowds for their handing of what can be quite eccentric pitching at this level.  There’s also great satisfaction in staring down a runner at third who’s thinking of stealing.  However, she especially loves dramatically sweeping off her face-mask when pursuing a pop foul.  What a ham.   (To her credit, she is good at it, too.)

♦    Speaking of ball clubs, ol’ Robbo’s beloved Nats find themselves on a little five-game winning streak and look to be settling back into their true form.  My blood pressure has dropped several points over the past week or so as a result.  Go, NATS!!

♦     I look with horror and revulsion at the information coming to light about what happened in Libya.  (Well, not just that, of course.)  But I am all the more horrified by my feeling that nothing will really come of it.  Why? Because if you ask the opinion of the average low-information voter, you’re likely to get the answer,”Ben Ghazi? Who? Isn’t he that NFL player who just came out? Or is he the one dating a Kardashian?”

Sigh.

♦     Speaking of such things, I don’t usually read much political or social science, but by happenstance two new books have seized the Robbo attention.  The first is Roger Kimball’s The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia.  Jay Nordlinger has been quoting and reviewing the book extensively over at NRO, and much of what he cites goes right to ol’ Robbo’s heart.  The other book, by another NRO writer, is Kevin Williamson’s The End Is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome: How Going Broke Will Leave America Richer, Happier, and More Secure.  I believe that I’ve written here before of my belief that we, as a nation, are hurtling toward catastrophe.  But I also said that, however hard it’s going to be, there isn’t reason just yet to save that last round for yourself.  Williamson’s theme, from the blurbs and interviews I’ve seen, appears to follow this same line.  Anyway, I like his writing style.  (UPDATE: Here is The Czar’s review.  Makes me all the more eager to dive in.)

I’ll let you know what I think.

♦     Some might suggest that ol’ Robbo spend his valuable reading time not with works that reenforce his own world view but with those that challenge it.  To them, I respectfully reply: Get stuffed.  Through some horrid process of social evolution, I seem to have become a bona fide member of the counterculture.  I look out from the redoubt and see the “challenge” swirling around it continually.  No need to unlock the gate and let them in.

♦     Oh, since I am posting so sparsely these days, let me get this out of the way:  Happy Mother’s Day.

♦     Tomorrow is also Ascension Sunday.  Or, as Father Z rants about it, Ascension Thursday Sunday.  Go on over and enjoy if you like this sort of thing (which I do).

♦     Speaking of rants, alert friends of the decanter may have noticed the absence here of complaints about tourons, a subject which in past years has consumed so much of Robbo’s thought.  This is simply due to teh fact that I have been driving into work since last August instead of taking the metro, so just don’t have that much personal contact with them anymore.  However, this change in commuting practice has not done away with the touron menace so much as transformed it into another shape.  Yes, I’m talking about the dreaded tour busses.  As the weather warms, these behemoths are starting to seriously jam up my afternoon drive.  (And when it takes me an hour to go ten city blocks, I have every right to be cranky about it.)  As a rule, I try to be a courteous driver – giving people room to merge in, for instance; stopping to let somebody pull out of a driveway.  Not so with these busses, from which I use every method, legal or otherwise, to dodge, cut off or otherwise distance myself.  Grrrrrrr…….

♦     And may I just remark here (perhaps again) on what a wonderful city car the Jeep Wrangler really is?  Its small size, quick pickup and sweet maneuverability make it ideal for nipping in and out of traffic.

Well, I glance out the window and here’s the rain.  Too bad.   Everything was probably too wet to begin with anyway.

UPDATE:  In re the low-information voter above, I should have noted that their next sentence would have been, “Hey, when do I get all my free shite?”  ”Low-information voter” is one way to describe them, but I think “Bread-and-Circuses voter” is even more apt.

On The Gels Of Summah

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

No, this is not a bit of gratuitous bragging about the exploit of my own gels on the softball diamond.

Instead, because of tonight’s game between Robbo’s beloved Nationals and the Tigers of Detroit being postponed on account of the weathah, I thought I would fill in the time by giving my quick two cents on an issue of importance to a (definitively) very small and (questionably) select minority of friends of the decanter, that of the latest change in MASN’s “side-line” reporters¹ at the games.

(Maxy? NOVA Curmudgeon? Mike F? ChrisN? I think you guys are about it.  The rest of you should feel free to ignore the rest of this post and go surfing somewhere else.)

I must say, first off, that I’ve always  failed to see what these “sideline” reports bring to the broadcasts of the game other than giving the players a little face time with the teevee audience.  No real information or insight ever comes out of them, the dialogue being of the most banal and canned variety of the sort practiced by Nuke LaLoosh at the end of “Bull Durham”.  But then again, I’m not in the biznay, nor do I know anything beyond what I see.  Is this is a League-wide broadcast industry standard?

Second, and perhaps germane to my first question, the “sideline” reporters are all women.  Again, I’m not sure what the purpose is here.  Is this some sort of Statement of Equality by the network?  Or is it a cynical bit o’ gratuitous cheesecake?  Or, given the fact that we’re talking about the confluence of Politicks and Big Media, perhaps some kind of combination of the two?

The world wonders.  Or, really, not so much.

Anyhoo, the original MASN Nats Gal (if I may so call her) was the lovely and talented Debbi Taylor.  Ol’ Robbo didn’t mind Debbi a-tall.  While no knock-out, she was certainly easy enough on the eyes and seemed to be a good-natured sport about things: You wouldn’t mind running into her, say, at the school fundraiser Casino Night and spending half an hour shooting the breeze and gently (although, I hasten to add, innocently) flirting.

Debbi lasted (I believe) two or three seasons, only to vanish without a trace or, so far as I know, a goodbye.  She was summarily replaced last year by Kristina Akra.  Kristina was a completely different kettle of fish, being younger,  brasher and more toned than Debbi.  I suppose it’s arguable that Kristina was hawter (if you’re a 20 year old guy), but frankly, I never really cottoned on to her.  Too hard.  Too shallow.  Too much the product of our current so-called “culture”.  Too much the young gun who has the appearance that she will do whatever she needs to do (if you know what I mean and I think you do) to get to the top.²

At any rate, for whatever reason, Kristina was whisked up to the MLB heavens on a chariot after just one season, now apparently working MLB Network’s studio programming.   Good luck to her, of course, but I’m really not unhappy to see her go.

As fond as he is of baseball in general and the Nats in particular, Robbo pays little or no attention in the offseason to the ins and outs of MASN programming decisions.  So he was somewhat surprised when this season began to discover that MASN had yet another “sideline” reporter, one Julie Alexandria.

So far as surfacy impressions can go, Julie seems to be a marked improvement on Kristina, not having about her that same hardness of appearance or brassiness of voice.  On the other hand, and maybe this is just a sign of Robbo’s age, she seems not to be quite old enough to have that same delightful soccer-mom vibe as Debbi did.  Oh, well.

At any rate,  Julie got her inaugural Gatorade shower t’other night.  The gentlemen around the decanter are invited to judge for themselves.

¹  That’s not my term, it’s theirs.

²  Emphasis here that this is totally an offering of opinion and not a statement of fact.  My libel law practitioner friends are invited to stand down.

Talkin’ ‘Bout My Dehydration

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

My name is Robbo and I’m a moron.

As noted in the post below, yesterday saw the annual razing of the forsythia, a long-standing tradition at Port Swiller Manor.

Unfortunately, as became clear after the fact, yesterday also saw another long-standing tradition at the Manor, that of Robbo succumbing to heat exhaustion.

Now it just so happens that the weather at the moment is very bright and sunny but still a bit on the cool side.  That’s where my moronism comes in because in all these years I’ve never seemed to learn that one can overdo it in such conditions.  Indeed, they’re really rayther a trap.  One instinctively knows to pace oneself and drink lots of fluids when it’s hot and nasty out.  Not so much when it’s this pleasant – then one is far more likely just to keep powering through whatever it is that needs to get done, without taking any precautions.

Hence  the resultant dizziness, headache, shaking, cramp, nausea and mental torpor.  (One year, after a weekend very much like this one, I actually fainted on the Metro going into work on the Monday morning.)

Mrs. R said I ought not to be doing so much work.   I pointed out that we don’t happen to have a Guatemalan yard crew handy, so if I don’t do it, nobody will.  I did promise to be more careful, however.  One of these years, I will remember that promise before the fact.