Hope and Whiskey

A lot of Americans are overwhelmed right now. Friends who were going to join us on a trip decided to stay home; regular writers have nothing to say. And I get it, I’m exhausted, too.

Jane Goodall was the first person chosen for the NetFlix series Famous Last Words and even as this unholy shitstorm whirls around us, she gave us a message of hope:

I highly recommend watching the entire episode if you can. She sips whiskey and spills tea. She also made a podcast called the Hopecast and has a mailing list of hopeful stories and actions to take, at the same link.

I saw her speak at the University of Minnesota many, many years ago when a friend was majoring in Ecology and his internship involved typing old paper reports from her team’s observations of chimpanzees in Gombe. Twenty-five years ago, she looked much as she does in the video. Hope and whiskey keep you young!

I’m off for a much-needed break. You can’t do much without a phone in the city, in this world we’ve let them build around us, but I’ll be without laptop or tablet. If I’m lucky I’ll be birding every morning and hiking a few days, relaxing in cafes and a spa, browsing through museums, bookshops, record stores, markets, and the like.

The American Robins were especially dramatic this morning, at Timber Creek. They don’t migrate, so I’m not sure what it is. Maybe they see their neighbors migrating south and argue over whether they should join. Migration is on a lot of people’s minds these days, either wanting to do so, or wanting to stop others from doing it.

I really enjoyed this read, by Bill Davison. Like me, he was watching the common birds. He encountered five teenage boys on bikes. And got them to watch the birds with him:

Flyover Country

A good friend of mine wrote something good, so I’ll share that as well.

How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich