Feb. 14, 1855 - These ghosts of trees are very handsome and fairy-like, but would be handsomer still with the sun on them,&emdash;the thickened, clubbed tansy and the goldenrods, etc., and the golden willows of the railroad causeway, with spiring tops shaped like one of the frost leaves, and the white telegraph-wire, and the hoary sides of pine woods. . -- Henry D. Thoreau

Journal of a Sabbatical

February 14, 1999

as the omelet boy bursts into flames

February 14

Watchemocket Cove
248 ring billed gulls
78 Canada geese
1 American crow
58 mute swans
3 greater scaup(?)
1 immature great black backed gull
36 mallards
2 domestic geese
14 herring gulls
14 black ducks
13 canvasbacks
10 starlings
1 red-breasted merganser
4 buffleheads
100 unidentified ducks in flock - landed together

Note to the media: the impeachment trial is over, he was acquitted, can we please talk about something else now? Kosovo? Sierra Leone? Social Security?

Note to the omelet boys at 729 Hope: the dress code is for a reason.

Note to Thoreau's ghost: I know what you mean about the light on the trees.

Who would think a simple Valentine's Day breakfast at an omelet bar could be so exciting?

We picked 729 Hope because it's close by. That way if Nancy got beeped she could walk home while I finished my breakfast. It's a nice place for Sunday brunch, with an omelet bar and their own 8-grain bread and other good stuff. The lines at the omelet bar can be long sometimes, but it's usually worth the wait.

I ordered a cheese omelet with tomatoes and olives. The young omelet cook put the vegetables in first, then the eggs. For some reason, he's wearing a long-sleeved sport shirt unbuttoned and untucked over his polo shirt. The other cooks are in the requisite polo shirts with their aprons on.

His shirttails are flying all over the place as he whirls between the gas burner and the counter. He reaches over to put the cheese in my omelet and his shirt bursts into flames. Flaming strips of shirt material detach themselves and land on the counter behind him.

As the omelet boy bursts into flames, one of the other omelet girls asks me what kind of toast I want. Other omelet boys are trying to put out flaming boy. I'm yelling "behind you" as they are oblivious to the flaming shirt fragments burning like wicks on the counter. Yet I reply "8-grain" calmly to the toast request.

The omelet boy disappears into the back room. The girl takes over cooking my omelet and asks me 7 more times what kind of toast I want. Amazingly, the omelet is not burned and I get the 8-grain toast I asked for. Actually eating the omelet was a bit of an anticlimax.

We spent the rest of the afternoon watching ducks at the cove and browsing at Brown Bookstore and College Hill Bookstore. There were so many gulls at the cove (I think I undercounted at 248) that if there were any rarities there I'd never find them. As we were leaving two birders arrived and began studying the mass of gulls with their binoculars. I told Nancy I was sure they'd find something exotic like a lesser black-backed or something. But I was far too tired and too cold to keep looking. The gulls were starting to look like ducks to me. And the ducks were starting to look like exotic species I've never seen before in my life and are probably unknown to science.

The bookstore expedition was more successful. I added to my pile of Thoreau a collection of his natural history writings. Who could resist Thoreau on the natural history of Massachusetts?