Some birthdays are a bitch. This one was okay, but I still got nailed. One of those where you go back to sloshing in the amniotic fluid. Like I couldn’t get outside myself and all.
It was a beautiful if warmish day. I spent the morning answering emails and comments while I watched the English riots go by in my Twitter stream and wondered why I didn’t have a tracking number for the MacBook Air yet. By mid-afternoon I realized I hadn’t gone outside except to feed the birds. Pretty damned stupid for your birthday, I thought, and decided to go hiking up the mesa. Couldn’t hurt, right? And I knew I needed it.
It’s time to find another route, however. This 3×6 ft sign was lying by the side of the trail back in the “wilderness” near here. I thought it was pretty cool, actually, and propped it up to take a picture, but a bleached steer skull this is not. Several beer cans were arranged artistically nearby. I wondered if this was Don Carlos Lounge, except there wasn’t any left for me.
A little farther up the trail, I heard a sudden loud, sharp “KREEE!” sound: a piñon jay, I knew. These guys usually fly in major flocks, though, and make a noise like sea gulls. There’s no mistaking it. So what was one bird doing all alone? I took a few more steps. “KREEE! KREEE!” again, this time right in front of me, coming from a piñon tree, of course. I peered inside the branches: a single piñon jay was hopping back and forth but didn’t try to fly away. “KREEE!” Maybe it was injured or guarding a nest. “KREEE! KREEE!” (All right, all right!) I turned away and kept on going.
The rest of the way up, I never saw another soul. By the time I reached the turnaround, I realized just how hot it was. Only 85 °F in the shade, but probably another 10 degrees in full sun. And at 7,000 feet, you get microwaved as well. The only things that saved me were a blue steel water bottle and my birthday. It felt good, though. When I got back, I sat out in the breeze. My sweaty T-shirt felt icy-cold against my chest. Ten minutes later, it was dry.
All plugged in now. August. Fire. Motion of the stars.
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