Captain's Log #8 - what’s your weirdness?

5/28/17

It’s 6:30a.m. and the birds have almost stopped singing. Recently I’ve been getting up at 5a.m. to give myself an hour in the day, a gift. I open all the doors and windows and sip my coffee in the dark listening to the birds, wrapped in sound.

It starts at 4:45 in complete darkness with the quiet twittering of small birds, Oregon Juncos maybe, and builds to a clashing, clattering crescendo by 5:45 with everyone making as much noise as they can!

• Black-headed Grosbeaks (I love their songs the best): https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-headed_Grosbeak/sounds
• Hooded Orioles: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Hooded_Oriole/sounds
• Plain Titmice, Bushtits, House Wrens, California Towhees, Robins. Everyone and more! Singing and chirping and carousing! Even the Red-shouldered Hawk puts in a crashing, discordant screech above it all!

By 6:15 it’s pretty much over.

We have an old nest constructed of mud and grass on a light fixture above our screened-in porch in the backyard built by a family of Pacific-slope Flycatchers a dozen year ago. They raised a brood, left and it’s been empty until this year when a pair of House Wrens raised a family and left. Another family has moved in. Who are they? Our indoor cats enjoy the show. We have a nest box in the front yard. A pair of Pacific Bluebirds raised two broods in it a couple of years ago. We’ve had a couple pair of Blue Birds investigate it, one pair built a nest then abandoned it leaving 3 small, sky-blue eggs. We were anguished and heartbroken. Recently a pair of Violet-green Swallows have built a nest in the box; I think they’re weekenders, or they don’t like the nosy neighbors with binoculars at the kitchen window.

Speaking of birds, at work there is a large room with 4 scanners that the new Office Technicians (OT) feed with paper as if the scanners were Piranha in a fish tank. Alas, there are 5 of us and I often use a scanner in another room. When I walk by this room, or have the opportunity to work in it, the OTs are constantly talking and twittering away to each other like finches in an aviary. They talk about having to buy a new battery for their car, the best grocery stores for certain foods, their favorite restaurants, wanting to buy a keg of Red Bull (!) They’re building a web of relationships, so engaged are they in each other’s lives. I need to find a way to get another scanner that room so I can participate. Listening to Sogun on my phone is rich and engaging but I’m missing out on all the restaurant reviews (and possible story lines.)

I had the opportunity to be out on the units this past week and saw ‘Lola’ and the ‘Grand Nagas.’ I took a closer look at Lola’s photo taped to her mirror (she was out of the office) and in fact she is much more attractive as a woman. Plus she carries herself very gracefully, a conscious effort in someone over 6’ tall and 200+ pounds. I must take lessons, or make a greater effort. The Nagas, as before, was totally normal looking. He was – in his characteristic high, nasal voice - reminding an aide behind the counter about need for his dollar to take to the store on campus and buy something, which he was really looking forward to. The aide very sternly reminded him to behave himself and keep his hands in his pockets, “Am I going to get a call from someone about you?” “No.” He responds well to bossy women. Honestly, it makes me apprehensive about the people around me, what’s your weirdness? “Nothing is outside the Universe,” there are people full of the greatest goodness out there, too.

As an employee, Lola’s going to be released into the community when the facility closes, we all will. I hope she can find a place where people will be open and caring, and not stare. She’ll be safe in the California State employment system. The Grand Nagas will be placed in a home somewhere and will have to build relationships with his fellow roommates, and especially caregivers.  I really hope he’ll be ok. The clients at this facility get a ton of care. The people who look after them are well-paid state employees committed to their retirement & benefits packages. I don’t know about the employees at the community homes. Minimum wage? Taking care of people who won’t ever improve?

At any one moment we are in a snapshot in time. At work, life feels stable, even though one second-level manager left two weeks ago on disability and another took her place. My immediate supervisor (the fireplug with the bushy brown hair) is applying for a job closer to her home; our facility has been advertising her position as open for months, no takers so far. Knowing a bit about what she does, I pity the person replacing her. All the OTs chat about where their next job will be. Only the people with 15+ years on the books plan to stay until the last gasp of the place in 18 months, denying the inevitable as long as they can. (Do I resemble that remark?)

This seems like a good place to stop.

Let me know how you’re doing.

Much love and many blessings,

Karla, k.j. and mom