Journal of a Sabbatical

May 8, 2000

wasps in the door

Today's Bird Sightings:
at the cat shelter
4 purple finches
many tree swallows

Today's Reading: Uttermost Part of the Earth by E. Lucas Bridges

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Brian Rose

OK, so the wasps aren't actually in the door. They're on the door jamb between the screen door and the door. They're building a nest. Rapidly. It gets bigger from hour to hour, this gray papery thing. Two wasps are building this architectural miracle right between my back doors despite my constant comings and goings. This is not a good place for a wasp's nest, either for them or for me.

The weird weather continues. It's too damn hot. I am not liking this. And then we got thunderstorms.

I'd planned out my afternoon so that I could have some time to look for birds before the Purrfect Companions meeting at the cat shelter. Just as I was getting close to Salisbury, the heavens opened up. It was raining so hard I could barely see the road. The traffic on 495 slowed to a crawl because nobody else could see the road either. Finally I got off on 110 and the rain slowed down a little so it was possible to see the road. There was no way I was going birding though.

So instead of birding, I had a bowl of vegetable stew at The Tannery Cafe and browsed at Jabberwocky. Big mistake. In my continuing attempt to redeem myself with the walking buddies, I lost my senses and sprung for the latest Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown mystery, which just came out this week, in hard cover. I simply must be the first one in my walking group to read it and be the one to pass it around to everybody else. So much for my moratorium on book buying until I finish reading some of these weighty tomes taking up space in my bedroom.

If I'd gone birding, I'd probably have been late for the meeting. However, I tore myself away from Jabberwocky with enough time to give Chloe 15 minutes of extra attention before the meeting. She loved it! The PM shift volunteers were amazed to watch me petting her for so long without getting raked.

Also in time to see four purple finches arrange themselves on the fence in a perfect square and sing their little heads off when the rain stopped. Each one had a fence post all to himself. Suddenly hordes of tree swallows swooped all around them. It was a sudden small bird extravaganza right behind the cat shelter.

Chloe even came into the conference room a couple of times to watch us folding newsletters and discussing our agenda topics. I know, I know, doing two things at once will never lead to enlightenment, but it did get the newsletters folded and stuffed into envelopes with labels and stamps. I stopped at the post office to mail them on the way home but the heavens opened up again and the ink started to run so I jumped back in the car and mailed them later at a different PO where there was some shelter between my car and the mailbox so they didn't get soaked.

By the time I did all of this and realized I had not yet bought wasp poison, the hardware stores were closed. The wasps in the door will live as long as I procrastinate - or until they sting me or Wilbur.