Bloodsuckers

Every six weeks, the bloodsucker vans visit campus.

For a week, they camp in the street and take blood from innocent passersby.

It's a rather big event, all of the altruistically inclined cheerfully offer their arms to the needles.

My high school held a blood drive every year, too. I waited and waited until I was seventeen and I, too, could 'save up to three lives with a single donation'. For an hour, I waited in line in a freezing auditorium, only to be handed a signed and stamped sheet of paper stating that I was banned for life from donating blood in the United States.

Thanks, Red Cross. Thanks.

Apparently, as I had lived in Europe between the years of 1995 and 1999, I could potentially have mad cow disease.

It doesn't matter that my family was too poor to afford meat during those years, and that the only meat I ate came from my grandparents' farm, which was definitely not affected.

It doesn't matter that the Marrow Donors program tested me and declared me healthy and clean.

Well, Red Cross, too bad for you. I'm keeping my blood cells even if you have a change of mind.

Nonsense!

The Texas Board of Education has just passed an amendment requiring the "weaknesses" of evolution to be taught in public school classrooms and science textbooks.

As a biologist, as a scientist, as a supporter of the separation of church and state, as a rational human being, I am appalled.

I have initiated a protest movement within the University. I do not know where it will lead, but already there is a semblance of a plan that potentially leads to action.

I don't know how it will turn out, I don't know whether it will come to anything, but I have hope.

I need hope.

Otherwise, it's a slippery slope back to the dark ages (Dinosaur bones as a test of faith? Oh come on!)

Coffee-fueled ramblings

Project Partner gave me a bottle of Famous Coffee Franchise's vanilla cold coffee drink to keep me awake through the night as I do what was supposed to be his part in the statistics project. I shouldn't have taken it.

Apparently, I have no caffeine resistance whatsoever, as I have taken but three sips, not even a fourth of the bottle, and I am bouncing off the walls.

My roommate is snoring, as per usual, and I am constantly running after my train of thought, which is whizzing by at a thousand miles per hour.

Someone is taking a shower. At nearly three in the morning. No matter what time of the day or the night, someone always seems to be taking a shower.

The ceiling has begun to leak again. They put a bucket in the hallway to catch the drips. Yet another disadvantage to living on the tenth floor. Since our water pressure is so lousy anyway, maybe they'll let us use the leaks for the showers?

I really should finish editing this paper. And then try to sleep, although I highly doubt I will be able to. Tomorrow will be fun, I can feel it from here.

I do solemnly swear I will never again in my life touch coffee, except in an emergency.

The Irrational Days

My life has always tended to be rational, deliberate.

Until this week.

This week, I bought oranges and tea.

What is irrational about this, you ask? I'll tell you: I don't like oranges. I've never liked oranges, with their slightly bitter taste and white strings and huge pips and sticky skin. I don't like tea either. It's too bitter for me.

And yet, when I found myself inside the grocery store, I really wanted to eat an orange. I really wanted to drink a cup of tea.

So I bought both. Those were the most delicious oranges, the most satisfying cups of tea I have ever eaten or drunk.

But that's not even all:

Despite the apocalyptic flood on Friday morning, the afternoon was beautiful. As I walked home, I felt the need to stay outside. To enjoy the day.

So I didn't go home. I did cartwheels by the Turtle Pond and explained to a little boy that the turtles wouldn't drown in the water.

I asked my friends which of them wanted to have a tea party, or a picnic on the Large Expanse of Grass by the Tower for dinner, or get on a bus with me to explore downtown (namely Clever Beatles Reference Store, which sells earrings by the millions for practically nothing). But all of them were busy for the evening. I was disheartened.

Then, unexpectedly, someone suggested that we could have the picnic after everyone was back from their respective activities. At midnight.

Thus, at 11:45, I found myself packing bread, Nutella, peanut butter (another one of those irrational purchases that I am enjoying for the first time in my life), tea, cookies, hot water, mugs, and a blanket into several bags and heading to the Tower.

An hour and a half later, I am inside Venerable Old Dorm discussing fourth dimensional tetrahedrons and hypercubes with Childish Booksmart Friend and Friend Who Likes Science Fiction.

The next day, or rather, later that day, I put on old clothes and head back to Large Expanse of Grass by the Tower, where hundred of people have gathered. For the next three hours, I throw colored rang and water balloons at strangers. Pink, green, red, yellow, purple, turquoise, a rainbow is bleeding on the grass. At the end, friends are indistinguishable from strangers, and strangers have become friends. I have powder on my face, in my eyes, in my ears, in my hair, on my arms and everywhere.

In the shower, the colors wash off with difficulty. I scrub.

Later that night, Internet-Savvy Friend gathers us up and drives us to her house in Woodsy Area In City, where we eat ridiculous amounts of food, pet her ridiculously tiny puppy, and play a ridiculous video game that involves portals, gravity, homicidal computers, and the promise of cake.

By midnight, I am so incoherent from tiredness that they decide it is time to go home.

And today, I woke up early but did not get dressed until the middle of the afternoon, wrote an entire essay about why I love biology, and made insignificant headway on a Statistics project. All the while chronicling with interest the different colors that came out of my nostrils every time I blew my nose.

Interesting times.

Surprise!

The weather service predicted a sunny day with some clouds.

I looked out of the slit that serves me as window this morning and saw fog.

Ten floors down, I had to take my umbrella out. It was drizzling.

I made it to class fifteen minutes early. The minute--literally, sixty seconds--after I walked into the building, the drizzle turned into a downpour.

Tiny Russian Friend walked into the classroom dripping. Same Name Friend came in ten minutes late--she had run and was as thoroughly drenched as if she had jumped into a pool clothed.

Two hours later, the sun was shining, and by the afternoon everything was dry. You'd never have known that the same morning the world was in danger of being washed away.

That's Texas weather for you!

Start your engines

I have two white roses in a vase, an Ochem test over and done with, lines memorized, a good bit of editing done, emails sent, application (not yet plural) turned in, and recommendation letters sent.

And I'm about to start working on my class schedule for next semester.

I'd say this was a pretty good day.

Short encounter

During the day, the buses are never really full except around the hour, when off-campus students, having overslept, rush to class with their hair tangled and their clothes rumpled.

When I leave campus, I have company. Students go home after a day of classes. They stop in big streets with apartment complexes and little streets with houses, I stop at the grocery store.

When I am done, I cross the street and wait for the next bus back to the University. Usually, the I catch the same bus on the way back: the amount of time necessary for me to shop is close to that necessary to drive to the end of the line and back. The driver usually recognizes me.

Monday was a peaceful, warm afternoon. At a bus stop next to the wide open field of a park, two young women tried to get on the bus.

One of them asked the driver about the route, and he told them that it was the wrong bus. They laughed and got off.

I don't remember what the first one looked like, because I was mesmerized by the second one. She was wearing an instrument case on her back, too small for a cello and too round and wide for a guitar. A lute, maybe.

Her hair was brown, short and curly. And her eyes, her eyes...

You could see her smile in her eyes. You could see laughter, you could see happiness, you could see life in her eyes. She was beautiful.

The bus drove away.

Lost words and an apology

I am mad at myself.

I should carry a notebook and a pen everywhere with me. I should learn to stop and write. I should learn to prioritize, to stop staring off into space and do what needs doing.

During the break, I blogged nonstop. In my head.

I talked about the doubts I'd had as to my sense of self-worth, the white egrets spotting the marshes on the side of the highway, the feeling of floating at the top of a bowl while on a bridge across the bay, the reason why people thought the Earth was flat and you could fall off the edge of the world if you traveled long enough, the screaming high school girls on a crab hunt, the day that I found out that I really was no good at math, the day I realized I actually liked the titles of math books and courses, the color of the cabin walls, the smell of hot waffles, and so much besides.

But I wrote none of it down. I tricked myself into thinking I would do it later, and instead found myself typing out a miserable handful of sentences late into the night while my roommate's television blared inanities.

There are so many things I want to talk about, so many things I want to tell the world. It's not fair to me and it's not fair to you that I am so lazy about writing them down. I owe anyone who reads this blog quality reading material, not last-minute crap whining about something or other.

I'm going to do better. I will. Some way or other, I will find the time to write like I want to, not write to fill a space by the deadline of midnight everyday.

And I'll take this to the rest of my world, too. I've gotten better about deadlines and doing work on time than I was before, but there remains much room for improvement.

There's no time like the present, so I'll get started now.

City by the Sea

It's your average Sea City. Sun and sand and sea and gulls and cottages and waving palms.

I can't say palm trees are my favorite. I'm more of a pine person. It doesn't matter: standing by the sea makes one feel so small that any thought about the kind of trees present is swallowed up in the immensity of the world.

The water was warm enough to swim, but not so much that you didn't spend half of the time running back to the shore mumbling something about blistering barnacles and it being cold.

Instead, I walked along the beach with Mother and made many interesting encounters.


The Portuguese Man o' War is not a jellyfish, or indeed a single animal. It is a combination of four colonies of different animals, one for the digestive system, one for the reproductive system, one to capture prey, and one for the floater.


This beautiful Long-billed Curlew was not afraid of us.


The seagulls settled down to admire the view.

We spent the week together in a small, cramped cabin which nevertheless was bigger than the whole of the apartment in which I grew up. The nights we spend crowded around the tiny table, playing Tarot. For the first time in years, Mother played with us too.

On the way home, Sis, Bro, and I were busy in the backseat comparing the white spaces between our toes and the intensity of sunburns.

It was a holiday well spent, in the manner of holidays at the beach. Some sand worked itself into every crevice of our belongings, there was algae in the towels and seashells in Bro's pockets.

The Poet

"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."

-Sir Philip Sidney

I've found a Poet.

I used to know this Poet, once. A tall boy, strong, willful. Six years later, he has become a beautiful and charming man. Tall, strong, willful. And a Poet.

His Muse is a devoted and fruitful one. A philosophical muse.

I picture him writing, like a feverish Percy Bysshe Shelley, writing down the world on a blank page.

Poetry need not be verse, his prose is poetry.

I've found a Poet.

I'm back

And there is so much to do!

I have professors to email, projects to work on, homework to finish, laundry to do, a fish to take care of, blogs to read, pictures to upload, blogs to write, a sunny afternoon to enjoy, and a breath to take.

I feel refreshed, happy.

From this side of March, the summer feels closer. The sun is out, the temperatures have gone up, and most importantly, the smell that defines a Texas summer, that smell of sticky sweet mesquite and jasmine flowers in bloom, is everywhere.

And because summer is only five weeks of classes and two weeks of finals away, I should get to work.

Hello, City. It's nice to be back.

On the road

Spring Break is here, and we are leaving tomorrow in out tiny car for City By The Sea, where we shall enjoy the seagulls, pelicans, and hopefully good weather that make Spring and traveling so enjoyable.

By maternal decree, technology has been forbidden for the entire week to the entire family, and I have forgotten my laptop's charger in my dorm, so I couldn't break the rule if I wanted to.

Not having had the foresight t0 prepare automated posts, my little cyber-turf will have to fend for itself without my care for this week.

Have a good vacation, Internet! See you in a week!

And in other news... it worked?!?

Prepare to be shocked, astounded, astonished, surprised, startled, dumbfounded, bedazzled, and otherwise flabbergasted:

The experiment actually worked. Well, it wasn't mine, but it worked. I went into lab today expecting to stay long hours to repeat my transformation, which hadn't worked (but then again, so did 95% of the entire class, so I didn't feel too bad about it), and instead found myself standing in front of a boggled Doctor who had just discovered a plate that had worked and moreover happened to be the very gene I was working on.

You see, we work as a team. Four or five people are assigned one gene and all work on it until someone's experiment works, then all move on to the next step using the products of that experiment. That way, you don't waste time or chemicals, you go much faster, people working on the same gene are on the same page, and overall it is easier to manage. Plus, if (in my case) something went horribly, horribly wrong somewhere upstream (but where?), you don't have to worry about it and start all over again like I was afraid I would have to.

So, on the Monday after Spring Break, I will go to the lab and begin the second leg of my journey, repeating the same process on a different gene fragment, all the wiser from my previous mistakes and failure.

I am actually very much looking forward to it!

Also, I am learning how to use a program called ApE, an acronym which looks much fancier than its given name (A plasmid Editor) but is otherwise very spiffy and makes me feel like a real scientist


This is good news, good news indeed.

Plus, Seminar yesterday was about biochips (scroll through the presentation, it's fascinating), which, in addition to being some of the coolest science I have ever been exposed to, combines biology, chemistry, physics, math, and computing. I will never look at muffins, dominoes, or Cheerios every again (ever wondered why Cheerios made flower shapes in a bowl of milk? Well, they use this principle FOR SCIENCE. How awesome is that?)

Some like it hot

I inadvertently pulled a Marilyn Monroe this morning.

I wasn't looking where I was going, walked over an air vent, and treated the entire street to a magnificent view of my underwear.

I must admit, this was on my list of things to do at some point in my life. But I'd rather have done it on purpose, not by accident...

Everywhere you look

I've been a fan of tangobaby's wonderful photography for some time now. It's obvious that she loves her City.

I don't have her talent or her camera, but I love my City too.

I was walking home from dinner, and stumbled upon this:


The reason I've wanted to own a camera for a long time was so that I would never miss opportunities when they arose. I vividly remember my brother's shadow projecting on an old stone wall at sunset, framed by a curtain of lilac flowers. I always regretted not having been able to capture that moment on anything else but in my mind.


So, today, when I passed the greenhouses and saw the mimosa in bloom, I didn't hesitate.


All of the flowers inside were different.


The mimosa smelled heavenly. It looked surreal, like a tree out of a storybook. Fluffy flowers rained down onto the sidewalk. Mimosas are Mother's favorite flowers.


My home away from home, the Lab:


The Tower is 307 feet tall, sequoias are 370 feet tall. I don't really understand the customary system, but those are the numbers I learned; I know the Tower is tall, so sequoias must be really, really tall.


Dinosaurs busy building a new home for the department of Biological Sciences, under the watchful eye of the Telescope.


Turtles minding their business at the Turtle Pond.


A spaceship?


Beauty is everywhere, if only you look for it.

Those things happen

Dear Boy,

You had a family dinner tonight and could not go out with me.

It would be fine if this weren't the only week we can spend together since October and until June.

It would be fine if you hadn't told me you'd see me every day this week.

It would be fine if I hadn't cleared up my schedule and given up the chance to go see Demetri Martin or Spamalot* tonight so that I could spend time with you.

As always, you informed me of your unavailability with that eternal good humor that is your trademark so I would not feel too bad, and I likewise pretended to not mind much. Even though I know we both did.

I do wonder how much we don't tell each other. It's so much easier to be intimate and truthful with words, when you have time to think them over and really mean them. It's not just us, it's the world in general. It just takes time, I suppose.

But don't worry, I'm not mad. Slightly miffed, yes, but not mad.

Not at you, at the circumstances.

Those things do happen. I know that, were I in your position, I would be powerless too. After all, your family has dibs on you, and mothers are a force of nature to be reckoned with.

As I'm not entirely sure of her feelings toward me, and in any case would not go against her plans for family time, I don't want to cross your mother. Your father might have been easier to persuade, at least until the unfortunate glove box incident happened (although I'm sure he's more amused than anything, really). But, in any case, it's too late now and this evening's shot.

However, tomorrow night is mine even if I have to fight my way to your house, personally affront your mother, hold your cats hostage or kidnap you in the dead of the night.

With love,

The Archuchess

*Not that I don't have the entire script (and Norwegian subtitles) of Monty Python and the Holy Grail memorized or anything, I'd just give a lot to see the Pythons in person. And tickets were only $10, too...

Tough luck

The Genetics prof got so carried away talking about plants that she forgot about the time. (Who wouldn't? Plants are fascinating! I actually learned something I didn't know before! Did you know plants had two kinds of circulatory systems? Not xylem and phloem, which are two different kinds of cells, but symplast and apoplast, which are intracellular and extracellular? Absolutely fascinating.)

Anyway, the point is, she forgot about the time yet managed to cram a quiz in the last thirty seconds of class, as everyone was eagerly putting up their notes and looking at the door.

Bummer.

Spring cleaning

I cleaned my half of the room. (Technically more, since the sink is in my half but is communal.)

It looks... less cluttered. And clean. (Huh. Whaddya know! That "broom" thing does work!)

And would you look at that? I'm even doing my Ochem homework several days before it's due!

I am such a responsible person.

Is it over yet?

I am so glad the weekend is finally over.

I woke up an hour late this morning because I forgot about Daylight Savings Time, and The Boy's flight was rescheduled and his flight will not be in until midnight (instead of noon).

Yes, I am actually glad Monday is coming.

And I don't even get paid for it.

I painted faces for seven hours straight today.

Seven hours.

Okay, open house is supposed to be great fun. Except that I didn't get to see any of it other than my table, my chair, and the five elementary schools, seven middle schools, and three high school enrichment programs that followed each other under my paintbrush.

Ugh. I never want to see a kid or a paintbrush again.

Think positive! Think Science! Think PCR!

This could be the beginning of a series of posts whining about how bad my research is going, but instead I will talk about how awesome Science is.

(Pretty awesome, in my opinion.)

A classic. Yes, I do feel like bursting into song sometimes when my PCR works. Which is not all too often (see last semester) (The Doctor made a joke today when someone asked about a very complicated protocol: "That's about as fun as making DNA out of dirt!" and then smiled at me very sweetly, at which point I stuck my tongue out and told him he hadn't disposed of the chemicals from that project yet and that the tubes were still in the fume hood, along with the aforementioned dirt, to which he replied that he will dispose of them when he has free time. And then he added that he didn't have any free time.) (We used a bunch of very dangerous chemicals, so we have to dispose of them through this complicated procedure that involves forms that have to be filled out in triplicate.) (For the unenlightened, PCR stands for Polymerase Chain Reaction, and is just about the most useful thing ever. If you're into DNA, that is.)

The Nanodrop giveth, and it taketh away. Sixteen hours for a digest--five seconds for a verdict. On stressful days, you will find yourself offering human sacrifices to the Lab Gods. I know one of my professors has a Voodoo doll nailed over his bench.

Spiffy--it emails you/texts you when your PCR is done!

There was an offer for an internship this summer at CERN. And because I am not a Physics major, I can't go. Which is a bummer, because I wouldn't hesistate a second. Is it a sign that I'm too nerdy if I can point out that their animation of electron movement around the atom is wrong? And that I've toured a particle accelerator? Know what the pattern that appears when two gold nuclei collide means? Have read a book entirely about the Universe's first second? When I was twelve?

To make it even better, this morning in Ochem the Professor treated us to a reenactment of Atom Wars, with costumes and all. Featuring Old Pi-Bond Kenobi, :Nuc Skywalker, Han 'Proton' Solo, and the Death Star (aka Carboxyl). And, of course, the Force. The Electrostatic Force.

And guess who's visiting The University sometime this semester?

Tomorrow shall be another Day Of Science!™, as The University is hosting what is apparently the most famous open house in Texas, and I have volunteered with both Science Geek Organization and Highly Selective Science Program, so I will be both painting faces, blowing gloves into balloons, making liquid-nitrogen ice cream, dipping random objects into liquid nitrogen and pounding them with a hammer to make them shatter (remind me to tell you the story about liquid air, a mouse, and my hand at some point) and blowing up things with the power of Chemistry! (And hopfully not painting ice cream and blowing up faces, because that would be rather messy. Not to mention a hassle to explain to the parents.)

Finally, I have discovered that this song does indeed make everything funny.

***

Also, The Boy is coming home for a week. Not that I'm counting days hours seconds or anything.

(Plus, today was his birthday and our two-year anniversary is next Friday. What a week this will be!)

An evening at the theater

Tonight was an evening rehearsal, which I missed three hours of due to a Statistics midterm. I made it in time for the last five minutes, then we headed to the theater building for a performance of Dostoevsky's The Idiot, in which our beloved Romanian TA was acting.

The performance was astounding. The piece is masterfully written, and the acting was wonderful.

***

Today was a day filled with, pardon the expression, batshit-crazy British professors. One of them wouldn't hesitate to use the adjective on himself, the other one would offer no evidence to the contrary.

And I've spent three more hours with both of them aside from the three hours of classes.

And, as always, The Oxford Man (as he describes himself) couldn't resist the urge to add "So kann er, und er tat" after one of the lines in Act 3 during rehearsal.

EDIT: The line that came before mentions summer evenings, maidens, and grapes , asking whether one could imagine something better than this; the next line mentions open mouths, closed eyelids, and Turkish drapes.

"So kann er, und er tat" translates to "yes he can, and he did [imagine something better]"

(Just thought that might help a bit, I forgot you can't actually read my mind.)

Midnight

It began like so many times before. We had agreed to meet in the entrance hall to attend one of the residential hall programs involving free food.

Once the food was gone and the crowd followed suit, we remained behind, talking, playing on the piano. She played and played, we talked and talked. When she stopped, we stopped. We were astounded. Passers-by clapped. She had improvised all of it, yet sounded like a concert piece. She has talent.

Then he suggested that we find a more comfortable place to talk.

Naturally, we headed to the Noodles, the rubber string structure that serves as playground to college students on campus.

We tied strings and made swings and trapezes and couches, sat and swung, around and around, and talked.

We talked for hours, of things important and not. Three children who haven't seen much of the world yet.

When we got tired of sitting and swinging, we walked, around and around, in the forest of yellow ropes hanging from the sky. We noticed that this created impressive amounts of static electricity, and laughed at each others' flyaway hair. We made sparks and bolts of purple lightning, running around and around until the crackle of electricity in the air was enough to create sparks from considerable distances.

It was midnight then.

We'd been there before. Midnight, three children--but not quite children, strangers--but not quite strangers, talking, discovering. We felt a strange connection, shy and awkward, recognizing ourselves in the others.

It was midnight, and we didn't care. We carried on the conversation, interspersed with silences. During those silences, we knew we were all alike, but did not say it out loud.

When the air turned cold, she proposed that we drink a cup of hot cocoa in her room. It was one in the morning. We accepted.

We dropped by his room so he might deposit his bookbag. Both of his roommates were deeply absorbed by computer games, so she and I giggled to attract attention. Both of them turned around, and the look on their faces was priceless. They were astounded by the fact that a girl would visit their room, let alone two. Once he had explained to them that we were only friends, which they clearly didn't believe, the three of us left.

To get past the front desk with a guest of the opposite sex past midnight was much easier than planned by the hall coordinators. She went in through the front entrance, swiping her identity card, then opened the door to the back stairwell where I had brought him. We climbed the seven floors to her room.

We sat on her bed while she prepared three mugs of chocolate.

We drank in silence. Then we talked music. She took her guitar out of the closet, a Fender Stratocaster. She plucked softly while we talked. We passed it around. He asked something. She opened her violin case and handed the instrument and a metal mute to him. He plucked along, then passed it to me. I bowed several bars of a piece, shuddered at how horrible it sounded, then passed it back to her. Once again, she astounded us with her talent. When we believed we could not be further surprised, she took the cello out of the closet. She could not find a mute, so she put it back. Then she sat back on the bed.

Together, we talked some more. We tried to imagine what his roommates were thinking, as the night advanced and he was still not coming home.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. She opened it to a neighbor who asked if she had a large Tupperware in which to carry cupcakes. Unfazed, she handed one to him, and he disappeared down the hall.

He returned a few minutes later with the box full of cupcakes, sat down on the bed, and shared them with us as total strangers except for her. He took the guitar and started strumming. We introduced ourselves.

After some time, he noticed my accent and made a game of trying to guess which country it was from. To help him, I read aloud from a Calculus book, stumbling on words as I knew I would. Every time he guessed, they laughed. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Finally, he told him.

The conversation moved on.

Her roommate came home, with one of her friends. We were now six. For thirty minutes more, we talked. Apparently, they thought nothing of finding total strangers in their room at three in the morning.

Eventually, it was time to go. He and I bid her and them goodbye and left to rejoin our separate floors.

It happened in the past, it will happen again.

Missing: Sheep

Sleep eludes me.

Why not?

I see trees of green and brown and yellow losing their leaves in the spring day
I find yellow roses too
I try to make 'em bloom
For me and for you
And I think to myself... what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue
No clouds of white
Bright windy days
Dark shining nights (pun intended)
And I think to myself... what a wonderful world

***

Inspired by Scriptor Senex, who was inspired by Shabby Girl, who was inspired by Louis Armstrong.

The sky today was so clear and blue, not a cloud in sight.

Tonight, it remained pristine, crystalline stars delineating perfect constellations, the moon hanging like the Cheshire Cat's smile in the motionless sky.

I found an abandoned yellow rose in front of the old astronomy building, under the cupola. I took it home and put it in the vase that still holds my Valentine's bouquet.

Man Who Feeds The Squirrels was sitting in his usual spot, surrounded by eager furries and curious birds.

In the trees, the grackles sounded their loud concert of caws, tweets, rasps, and singsongs. If they are not the most beautiful or most pleasant birds, they certainly add character and feeling to the place. You don't ignore a grackle.

A beautiful day.

And I thought to myself... what a wonderful world.