I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles

Okay, it's an official craze. Now that the dolphins discovered how to blow bubbles (and did you hear about the whale?) blowing bubbles has become a worldwide phenomenon.

First invented by a Mr. L. Welk (accordion player) it soon thereafter trickled down into a children's game and now the most intelligent of animals (plenty of room for argument there) has taken up the sport.

The dolphin version is more like a ring than a bubble, but similar rules apply: chase after it, eventually break it up (pop it), and laugh a lot.

I'm not kidding. There's video to prove it.

Exhibit A: Mister Welk's invention in practice.

Exhibit B: Its ultimate evolution. Underwater. 

(See videos under links.)

Bebop (and Bluey)

Sooner or later I had to tell you about Bebop and Bluey. 

The two very noisy extraordinary parakeets I once lived with (not in their cage, they were in my cage...errr, apartment).

Bebop (the yellow one) arrived in my life through a fateful encounter. She flew into the window of the office where I worked. It wasn't an open window. It was a NYC office building. I think the 6th floor. Actually the ASCAP building across from Lincoln Center, but I didn't work for ASCAP. I worked for CTW (another acronym, this one for Children's Television Workshop). Which was a great job (I know I digress) but my greatest memory was when we'd go out the building's side door to have lunch at the Ginger Man. Almost always ordering their signature Caesar salad -- a mound of romaine lettuce on a dinner plate -- and a glass of white wine. Yes, those were the wine lunch days. Hey, it was TV.

So Bebop (not named yet) flew into the plate glass window, knocked herself out, and landed on the outside concrete sill.

I forget in whose office, but we all ran in to see the little fainted (dead?) bird on the sill. Someone opened the window and picked her up. 

She came to, frozen with fright. 

We found her a cardboard box to hang out in, gave her some water, and I think, lettuce, and there she stayed until Friday rolled around. Now what? Someone had to take her home.

Me, I never had pets on my own. I grew up with a series of dogs (Bob being the knock-out best-- his ear-in-his-mouth hijinks are bound to end up in story here someday). But my little one room apartment on the fifth floor of a Third Avenue tenement had not been blessed with pets (except for the occasional unwanted mouse or water bug).

And I'm a flying fan. My Dad used to take us to the airport just to watch planes take off and land. I took my first pilot's lesson at the controls of a 2-seat Cesna and was (literally) in heaven. I'd been known to ogle house sparrows in Central Park. A red cardinal out the back window, through my security gates, in the winter white snow, could keep my attention for hours.

I said: "I'll take her home."

I took a taxi with the cardboard box and the bird inside. Then left her alone in the apartment to go buy a cage, food, and a book: How To Care for Parakeets.

The first few days were edgy. I got her in the cage, but she sat on one of the bars and didn't move. Didn't eat. Didn't drink from the little water cup. Was she sick? Still stunned from her head smashing into the window? I realized later (when I got to know her personality) that she was just scared. She warmed up to her new environment and was soon eating, drinking, and yes, chirping. 

I called her Bebop since my musical psyche was steeped in Charlie Parker and my literary psyche was steeped in Jack Kerouac. (Salt Peanuts!! Salt Peanuts!!) 

She took to the name rather well. Her chirping became stereophonic, LOUD, and filled that little 8 x 10 of an apartment with surround sound. She was only silent when she was voraciously eating, or when I put a cloth over the cage. That made it night time -- even if it wasn't -- and that apparently meant time to sleep.

The other time she was kinda quiet was when I opened the cage door and encouraged her to fly around the room. She didn't always want to, but when she did she quickly made it to the far wall and smashed into it. She'd land on the floor, probably stunned, and just stand there. Until she took off again smashing into the other wall. Stun, fly, land, repeat.

There used to be a Woolworth's a couple of blocks away. They had several cages filled with parakeets (plus those red-eared turtles sold with plastic dishes with standing plastic palm trees). I used to visit the parakeet department and watch them all twitter. One day I decided Bebop might like a friend. She had taken to pecking at herself in her little mirror. Did she think it was another bird?

So I got a blue one, and called him Bluey.

I brought him home and put him in the cage. He seemed happy enough. Flitting around. Eating the food, drinking the water, glancing over at Bebop, hopefully recognizing his own species. 

But Bebop went into her close-down routine. She perched on a bar and didn't move, eat or drink for days. 

Eventually, and very sloooooowly, she came around. Bebop and Bluey got pretty friendly. They sang their hearts out all day long. When I opened the cage to let them fly, Bluey was an expert flyer. He circled the room and landed on the highest places: shelves, cabinets, open closet doors. Bebop continued to smash into a wall and end up on the floor, her perching feet looking silly flat on the wood.

And then? Well, years later the two sweethearts (yeah, they became sweethearts) went the way of all pets we outlive. And love still. Close encounters with that other world, which is really our own world (if we'd own up to it), remind us of that part of ourselves that once was out there, too. Flying in the wild until we hit that hard closed window called civilized life.  

Feathered Beast

I love this theory: birds are descendants of dinosaurs.

Isn't that the coolest thing you ever heard?

And they have proof, too. Dinosaur fossil remains with feathers. It's like a missing link in the bird world. The transvestite of animals.

But the conundrum that always gets caught in my brain is this: if the dinosaurs vanished from the planet due to some planetary catastrophe, then how could the birds descend from them?

Wooo...brain teaser!

Well, paleontologists do answer that question. I once asked Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York that very question. And the answer was: obviously not all of them became extinct. Norell's fossil discoveries keep mounting the evidence for dinosaur-as-bird theories.

I'm all for it. Anything to give birds more june nest cest quoi is okay in my book. Adds to their mystique as we watch them float on airwaves. Now who else can do that?

These photos of flying birds are by photog/artist Rosalie Winard. She calls them Avian Primitives. And they do evoke that early planetary atmosphere of wildlife free from human meddling. (Okay, we're not just meddlers, but we do meddle.)

The other photo is the missing link Archaeopteryx. It's the fossil thing with feathers. Ahhh....feathers. Don't you wish you had some? I do. A kind of soft coat of arms. Something to flutter. Something to fly on. 

Ever see birds clean their feathers? They slide their beak down the feather shaft from close to their bodies to the tip of the feather. Especially after a splash in a puddle. Or a dirt bath. 

Ingenious: dirt baths. An oxymoron with a whole lot of sense.

The Magic Box

Did you ever stand in an elevator with a dog on a leash? 

Dogs who live in apartment buildings are used to riding in elevators. They don't try to get out. They don't look around at the space they're in. They don't make eye contact with the humans present. They usually face the door. Their heads bowed, their eyes raised to the edge where the door cracks open. Waiting for that moment when they can leave this little room. For when the powers that be (probably humans) will open the door and they can resume normal life. They can go out walking in the world.

"They think it's a magic box," says Lyna, who walks dogs in NYC. "If I pick up two dogs in the same building on different floors, they don't always know which floor is theirs. The hallways look alike. And even the smells are so multi-layered one floor smells like the next. So as soon as the elevator door opens, out they go. They assume they're home."

They just think about leaving. They're not even doing their sniffing-everything-in-sight routine. Not the floor full of soles-on-street smells or the new humans standing around.

"Tootsie puts her nose near the opening and feels the bit of air coming through," says Gerry & Richard, who live with Tootsie, the dog. That's Tootsie in the picture up there.

Well, Tootsie is that kind of dog that goes the extra mile in dogdom. What she does, not every dog does. But she will just hang her head waiting like it's some kind of penance or prayer.

All the elevator dogs wait for release. Maybe they've figured if you stand still and be good you'll be freed from this tiny spot.

Do they know the room moves? How do they "rationalize" that sinking feeling. Or that rising feeling. That unnatural play with gravity. What do they think is going on? Do they behave so docile and penitent because they know they're engaged with some inexplicable supernatural force? That they must cower from. Pretend they're not there. Work at escaping notice. So that this unleashed power will leave them be?

When the elevator lands and solid gravity regains its normal personality, the door opens.

The dogs can breathe free. Go back to the business of being a dog. Head high, nose engaged, curiosity spilling all over the place.

Octopus on Ice

You wanna know how to win a hockey game? Throw an octopus onto the ice. Or a catfish. Or a leopard shark. They have to be dead, too. And in some cases, already cooked. 

Not that I'm advocating winning hockey games this way. I'm just telling you what some people actually do.

And there's all kinds of rules about how you do it. It started in Detroit with the Redwings. Allegedly, Pete and Jerry Cusimano, who owned the Detroit's Eastern Market, threw the first octopus on the ice in 1952. Cusimano sounds like an Italian name (I know, I have one, too), and octopi figure in Italian cuisine. Greek cuisine, too. So maybe that inaugural octopus came right out of their refrigerator at the store.

There is some logic to it. The Redwings were in the playoffs, and they had to win 8 games to win the Stanley Cup. An octopus has 8 legs. So, 8...8...you see where I'm going?

The other animals are hockey fan copycats (no, not real cats). The catfish is thrown on the ice in an attempt to make the Nashville Predators lucky. And the leopard shark might show up at a San Jose Shark's game.

I know. It's sports. People go crazy for their teams. Superstitions are what really win games anyway...right? I've been known to throw a cupcake at the TV screen when the NY Jets are playing. (That's another story.)

But placed within the history of animal sacrifice, does the octopi of the Detroit Redwings really measure up? Is winning a hockey game equal to the prayer for plentiful crops, or a ban on tornadoes, or the end of a drought? Depends on your priorities.

What we haven't seen a lot of -- unless it goes under a different name and guise that only animals know about -- is people sacrificed for animal needs like for protection or grace from the gods. I don't mean animal attacks for yummy human food or self-defense, I mean a ritual with no intention of wanting something to eat. Like the octopi on the ice hockey rink.

Octopi (they say) have individual personalities. One might be reclusive, another friendly, another destructive. They live by themselves in crevices or under rocks, which they call home for a few weeks until they choose another crevice or rock. At night they roam around finding seafood to eat. They might walk on the seafloor with their super-sensitive legs, or dart through the water at 25 mph. And they're smart, too. Check the video under links on this page for an octopus getting through a tiny hole. 

They only live about 3-5 years. And they die soon after they mate. The male first. Then once the eggs are off and out into the sea, the female. So they lead a very focused existence. Hide from Predators. Get food. Mate. Die. No time for --what the octopi might consider silly -- games. No three-clamshell-monty. Or sea pebble badminton. 

We humans probably don't have to worry about reciprocal sacrifice. I guess that's lucky. For us.

A Brace of American Birds

Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post said in his January 16th "Auchenblog" that today's menu at the Inaugural Luncheon was a "brace of American birds." Notably pheasant and duck. 

You know, I never ate pheasant, but duck, yes, and duck is quite tasty (I know: poor Rosanna). 

Should the birds feel honored to be served at such a momentous occasion?

Well, let's look at this another way. When (and if) a Duck ever gets elected to the presidency here's what's likely to be on the menu (not a brace of American people):

a melange of seeds, shoots, and grass

aquatic vegetation three ways.

acorns with grain garnish

insect crudo

aquatic invertebrates misto

If this happened to be a female presidential duck and she was pregnant then she'd eat twice as much as any senator in the room. Including the First Man Duck.

As for pheasants. Somehow it's hard to picture a pheasant as president. 

BASH

That's what they call it. Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard. Or Bird Strike (without picket signs).  It's when an airborne animal hits an airborne man-made thing. Birds-Planes.

But what do they do to avoid this unwelcome meeting? Wikipedia says it so nicely: "The are three approaches to reduce the effect of bird strikes. The vehicle can be designed to be more bird resistant, the birds can be moved out of the way of the vehicle, or the vehicle can be moved out of the way of the birds." Now why didn't I think of that!

1. Engines will shut down if hit with a 4 pound bird.

2. Cockpit windows are strong enough to withstand a 4 pound bird.

3. BUT multiple birds (read: flock) can disable the engines (read: US Airways Flight 1549 yesterday)

Now to getting the birds out of the way of the vehicle: pull up trees and marshland, grasslands of attractive bird habitats near airports, install dogs to patrol airport borders for migrant bird intrusions (just keep the dogs away from the planes), use big sounds and explosions to scare them away (scarecrows don't work, you can thank the Wizard for that).

How about getting that vehicle out of the way? Well, they discourage taking off when a flock of birds are hanging around. And it sounds like they're extra careful during migratory season in planning flight routes. That's when EVERYONE needs the skies at the same time. Who would've thunk that the sky-- the GREAT BIG MOST-OF-THE-TIME BLUE sky would run out of room? I'll bet when you were a kid and asked, "Daddy, why is the sky blue?" (Has any kid ever really asked that question?) You would have been floored if he said: "You know, one day, that sky will be so crowded you won't even know what color it is." (Was that the answer?) (If you want to know why the sky is blue see link over to the left there under: Links)

Same goes for the big black sky in outer space. We've got so many radio waves and satellite paths and blabbing people and clicking fax machines and movies and football games flying around the magnetic field of air waves that even the radio telescopes on the lookout for attacking asteroids can't see a thing because of all our fooling-around static. I mean what's more important: Telephone gossip or finding new planets? (Hmmm...that's a toss-up.)

I wonder how many outer space animals we're intruding upon with all that blather?

Anyway, as for the plane-bird combination, it seems like the airplane business is on top of it as they can be. (Especially the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549) I hope they feel the same way at the next waterfowl town meeting.