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Journal of a Sabbatical |
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June 9, 2000 |
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kek-kek-kek-kek |
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Today's Bird Sightings: Mammals: Today's Reading: Summer: From
the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau edited by H.G.O.
Blake, Today's Starting Pitcher: 2000
Book List
Copyright © 2000, Janet I. Egan |
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It's not every day I wake up to the question "Are you coming to Tibet with us?" I'd tentatively agreed to go to China with Zsolt and István but nobody had mentioned Tibet. Now I'm pretending to be awake while Zsolt explains that for the permits for Tibet he has to give the Chinese a list of everybody who is coming and needs copies of their passports... Umm, this is going to require some discussion. Stay tuned for further installments of life with Hungarian botanists. Speaking of botanists, I searched amazon.com for The Plant Hunters this morning to see if there were any reviews of it. (They're weren't.) I got a big laugh out of the recommendations for related merchandise. The book recommendations made sense, but check out the zshops recommendations: Auctions and zShops sellers and our other stores recommend:
I can just picture myself tromping through the forest with a Shaker plant stand and my LP collection, while wearing my hunting suspenders with jumbo clips in camouflage color. Bet that'll work out real well in Tibet. I run into Tom at the laundromat and arrange to meet for coffee when he's done with the laundry and I've had a chance to walk over to the bookstore for a China/Tibet guidebook. Tom thinks I should go without the slightest hesitation. It's too good an opportunity to pass up. The heavens open up again while I'm having coffee with Tom and we get wet on the way back to our vehicles, which are over near the laundromat. It's the deluge again. Eeek! By the time I've done all my errands the rain has stopped. It's still light enough to go look for that clapper rail I couldn't find yesterday, so I make a last minute decision to drive to Plum Island. No wonder there are so many miles on my car! I run into a few more thunderstorms but by the time I get there the storms are over and it's gotten cold. Low lying fog blankets the marsh. As I drive down the refuge road I see tree tops but no trunks, houses on a hill hovering over pure white, flat water reflecting the fog and the disconnected houses and tree tops. Every once in a while a mast appearing above the soft whiteness implying the presence of a boat unseen. It even looks like waves of fog are breaking on the shore of the marsh. Eerily beautiful. I have to stop for some chipmunks chasing each other in circles in the middle of the road munching on something brought down by the storm. They sense my car as a danger, but instead of running into the bushes they run in tighter and tighter circles. Finally one of them realizes it might be better to run for cover and the other follows. At the same spot where I heard it before, I hear kek-kek-kek-kek right in front of me. There's a clapper rail right in front of me and I can't find it. Tiny biting flies are swarming around my head despite my having doused myself in bug repellent. I wave them off and keep searching for the clapper rail that is right under my nose. The flies are driving me crazy and so is the clapper rail. Finally it stops calling and I give up to seek refuge from the flies. Sometime it's gonna show itself, I just know it. |
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