A Friday post

This morning, while driving for the 895 billionth time down Highway 15-501 into Pittsboro, I was struck by one of those extremely optimistic moods, like, you know, when you think to yourself, "Sure, I may have quit my job to, instead, make no money doing nothing, but what the hell!" I don't know if everyone finds themselves feeling this way from time to time, or if I'm just particularly annoying and self-centered and, you know, peppy, but not in a good way. If it's like that, I apologize. Especially because I'm about to continue with this line of thought. Take the general routine of life, lately, for instance - specifically, our routine, me and my darling husband. Since Cecilia's been away at rock-star camp, I've been arriving home to find tiny Mina ultra excited at my return. We go for leisurely walks around the neighborhood, something I could never do with both dogs tugging me relentlessly in two directions. Sometimes colorful birds, like bright red cardinals and yellow goldfinches fly swiftly from fragrant beds of wildflowers when we approach. I am not kidding you. This happens.

Despite a busy social calendar for the summer - weddings to go to and the constant desire to flock to the water, don a bathing suit and lay out - as well as patios and porches and bars with outside seating - J and I have accommodated a peaceful schedule regarding our sleeping and waking. Before bed we read or watch a movie on the television he so artfully set up in our bedroom (where I thought we could never have a tv due to the long, mirrored closet, and the fact that my bed is only a few inches smaller than the entire square-footage of our house). I've just started Infinite Jest, which I will need an encyclopedia and some mind enhancing drugs to finish, and he's reached the last book of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Sometimes when I'm done with reading for the night (this happens after about one half of a page with the current novel) J will read to me from his book. He reads ridiculous passages to me, about half badger/half daschund creatures that roam in multiple worlds...babies that can turn into spiders...people getting impregnated by demons. And I say, "That Stephen King, he's really something," by which I mean: "This nonsense just reinforces the fact that I'm never, ever reading anything by that man again after The Stand provided me with such delightful and warped nightmares for a week."

After we get up for the morning and get ready for work, we decide on breakfast and coffee. If there isn't any in the house, we go to a local favorite spot and pick some up and I drive J to work.

That brings me to Highway 15-501, for the 455,383 quadrillionth time, and my commute to the newspaper office, where, on a day like today, it's fairly quiet, we've got the weekend ahead and the other details - the persistent details of a busy life, the bills and preparing for the future and the cat, who meows so loudly when he is hungry that I am kind of tempted to take his ID tag off, drive to the animal shelter and drop him quietly outside their front door, and who always wants to be outside, even though his hip is weak, and God knows he could get hit by a car and get killed if we don't keep an eye on him - those details seem so far away and so humorous that worrying about any of it is irrelevant.

On birds and their various bird parts

Our night Monday started innocently enough with us, a happy foursome out to celebrate the upcoming holiday, deciding that there wasn't enough tequila in the margaritas we'd just ordered. Carissa, Chappy J and I were sitting around the table in a local Mexican place with just-poured drinks from the pitcher and upon taking those first long awaited sips we muttered, "Hmmmm. Not so strong. Do these even have tequila in them?" It's a problem, I suppose, rooted in the fact than when we, ourselves, make margaritas we put so much alcohol in that at first we proclaim, "Oh my GOD! I cannot drink this!" Three or so later we've proved that, oh yes, we can, indeed, "drink this."

But the margaritas Monday night, we decided, needed a kick. After all, it was almost America's birthday, so we very kindly asked our waitress, "Um, could we get some more tequila in these?" which sent her back to the kitchen for a while before she returned with a half-full pitcher of more margaritas that she added to ours and explained, "These, these have more tequila." Excellent, we said.

It turns out, I'm pretty certain, that both sets of margaritas had plenty of tequila, because it was enough to send us into a discussion regarding how birds procreate. We figured J would know, what with his affection for birds and their habits and all, but he informed us that he just likes to identify birds. He's not into how they make love or anything like that.

"Do they have sex like people?" we wondered. Do male birds...do they have a penis? Do they maybe have...a benis?

The night progressed and the subject matter was dropped for a while, but not forgotten. J and I made it home at about 2 a.m. while the others held a spirited after-hours affair at Chappy's new place. He's going to be starting business school at UNC shortly and found some classmates while out. We watched in awe as they greeted each other like old friends, a whole bevy of them, smartly dressed with cocktails in their hands. I have a feeling business school is going to be a lot of fun. Fun for me to observe, as well.

I got a call from those two Tuesday morning, after their party which had lasted until the early hours of the morning. But despite being groggy their curiosity was steadfast and they'd researched our quandary on the internet. "Birds," they told me, "do not have a benis. Nor do they have a birdgina." Instead, the male and female bird rub against one another in a delicate maneuver called "the cloacal kiss," because it is during this glorious, sexual dance that the sperm are passed from the male to the female through her cloaca, which leads to the ovaries.

You can read more about the sex life of birds here and see a diagram of their reproductive organs here.

I like how the article includes a warning that says it's "intended for mature audiences" as though you are about to score with some major porn. Bird porn, anyway.