New Neighbor?

Nope... Just a Squatter

I have been gone from the boat for a week or so now and I am suddenly worried about this little squatter sitting on her nest.  It is hard to tell from my bad photography but her nest is actually on the bimini framework on the house boat next to me.  My concern is what happens when the owners come down and decide to take the boat out? (I’ve never seen them and I don’t think they have been down for many months, but summer season is here)  Will her nest and boat disappear while she is out cavorting with nectar filled flowers? Will the little Hummer Squatter follow her eggs/babies?  Will she hang around waiting for the boat to come back with her nest?  Will the owners even see the nest or perhaps, brush it off as dirt (it is tiny) while cleaning their houseboat? A tragedy in the making, I fear.  And why should a small drama such as this one take up so much of my limited worry time?  After all, I could worry about the Roberts court or society’s partisan chasm or the dangerous world my great grandchildren are inheriting. I guess the answer is pretty much delineated by the fact that most of us don’t want to deal with the big issues (and yes I still think an individual can influence big events even if in a small way) and worrying about small things relieves us of any responsibility to change our world for the better.  Or maybe, it’s just me and my well developed sense of denial and procrastination that positions me in this particular cubicle? Our little Ms. Hummer may be a squatter but in reality, are we not all squatters in the greater sense?  We temporarily inhabit this space in time but it IS temporary.  As the mores of society shift beneath our own feet, is this any different that Ms. Hummer’s nest disappearing while she is out collecting nectar? Certainly a great many of us feel alienated (and left behind) on both sides of the red/blue, liberal/conservative divide. I am an optimist however and firmly believe our kids and grandkids are smarter than us and will devise a cure for our current world’s ills. In the meantime, I really hope Ms. Hummer gets her kids out of the nest before it disappears. It is the least I can do… which is all too often my first choice.  I must try harder… .        

Official State Dance of Western Kentucky

I thought I would treat those select few for whom this blog is of some small entertainment value to a tour de force in choreography.  The above sequence from Dancing with the Almost Stars is my version of the Official State Dance of Western Kentucky.  I think they refer to it colloquially as “The Spidey Jerk.”  I don’t think the name refers to me personally but then I am a proponent of positive thinking.  The place is over run with incredibly fast moving small spiders. The little suckers propagate webs between any two vertical surfaces and they do it in an amazingly short time span.  I watched one speedster drop down from the roof to my aft rail, a distance of about 8 feet, in about 3 seconds flat and then make the climb back up spinning a second line in about 5 seconds.  Do the math… lots of webs in mere minutes.  The folks down here, however, are in full confrontation mode having elected to use the nuclear option to combat the proliferation of said webs.  Pictured below is yours truly with just such a devastating Weapon of Mass (web) Destruction. The really good news?  It only took me about a week to find it.  Eat your heart out Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of that Unholy Cabal.

Weapon(s) of Mass (web) Destruction