Purple and Me

We had babies last week. Actually it was probably a week or so earlier but that’s when Brennan and Charlotte, splashing in our pool, spotted the youngster out feeding on a flowering plant nearby. 

        

Photo courtesy of Melanie McMahon

As the sixties song goes “Me and Mrs. Jones, we got a thing goin' on.”

It’s been a platonic affair, my affection for these flighty creatures more pronounced than theirs to me, but there are feelings between us nevertheless. I’ve written about this in a past blog entitled: ‘Pequeño and Me.’ I guess it just got more serious since then. Hummingbirds are now a part of our daily life here in the desert.

While we have a wide variety of birds at our feeders back in Apple Valley, it’s nothing like the mob of buzzing, zipping aerial combatants who swarm around our feeders and dive-bomb our heads here on a daily basis.

In years past, our hummingbirds usually showed up around February or March when our pink flowers began to bloom. We would put out a couple of feeders in the fall but they never seemed to attract the small birds any earlier.

Eventually, as we got used to the birds and them to us, Sharon and I began to pay more attention to those tiny elusive creatures. Then on day, we stumbled upon one of their nests in our front yard. For some strange reason a mother hummingbird decided that a cactus by our door was the perfect place to build a nest and start a family.

When we discovered the nest, it became a game hide and seek between us and mother. Either Sharon or her friend Linda would slowly, carefully slide up to the cactus and try to photograph mom and her babies. It became a game of cat and mouse or more appropriately, Sharon, her friend Linda and mother hummingbird. Both Sharon and Linda were dive-bombed several times when they got too close to the nest. But their efforts were worth it.

Then last summer we began to grow our extended family of hummingbirds. In our absence, Linda spent a lot of time hanging around our house, using our pool, working, reading and relaxing. She put up several hummingbird feeders and watched in amazement as a whole family of the tiny buzzing birds began to descend on our property. In short order, we had a family of more than a half dozen hummingbirds safely ensconced around our backyard.

The year before, Charlotte had named one of the birds Sugar and that name stuck. So, it became a game of finding and identifying Sugar as the birds buzzed above our heads or sat on the outdoor fan and looked down on all of us.

Linda decided to name one of the most beautiful birds of the group: Pequeño. This hummingbird has a beautiful vest of deep reflective purple that also quickly identified her as the most aggressive feeder closest to our back slider.

Now another hummingbird has taken roost in our main feeder. Like Pequeño, this bird has a beautiful crest of almost metallic purple. Unlike Sugar and Pequeño, Purple is far more territorial and protective of her feeder, nearby swing and the air space around her. Dogfights are a common occurrence as errant intruders try to grab a drink from her feeder. I always tell guests to hold steady and don’t flinch as the aerial combat sorties take place around our heads.

Ever so slowly, Purple began to accept the fact that I also live outdoors near her air space. On numerous occasions, she has buzzed me as I read, write and think great thoughts on my cloth-covered perch. Then gradually she began to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to leave and wasn’t the threat she first took me for. A kind of truce has been formed. I don’t go near her feeder and she doesn’t dive-bomb me anymore.

Recently, we added to the accoutrements for our fine feather friends with a new birdbath. It’s a 10 ton behemoth that isn’t moving anyplace. It’s drawn a wonderful assortment of new birds to our back yard.

Then just last week, we discovered a new nest in our front yard cactus. The cycle of life goes on around us, adding more tiny darts and regular birds together.

Getting Over Agnes

I just ended a six month love affair with an older woman. It had all the emotional entanglement, breathless energy and exaggerated freedom of a real affair. A writer’s imagination can sometimes work that way.

The affair began innocently enough (don’t they all?) when I started reminiscing about my first real job after finishing college. Before that, came two years in the Army, finally graduating from college, a hiatus to Europe to find myself and finally, a modest retreat back to Minnesota. It was time to curtail my wandering and wondering and get a real job.

I saw an ad in the Minnesota Daily (the student newspaper) for a job opening with the Minnesota Department of Public Health. It was on the University of Minnesota campus, just a half mile from my two-story hovel on University Avenue. The job was for a staff writer to create articles for their newsletter, write press releases and other sundry writing assignments.  To be honest, I think it was the close distance to my pad that drew me to the job.

It was there that I first met Glady. Like every cliché you’ve probably heard before, there was something about her that caught my attention. She was older than me, dressed like a mid-thirties plain-Jane and expressed little that was remarkable about her presence, stance or demeanor. Yet we immediately connected on some strange yet strong level.

She reminded me of my old English Professor back at St. Thomas College who seemed to sense a hunger in me for writing. He was very encouraging and challenged me to pursue my dream of becoming a writer. Cool guy, he was. She reacted the same way about my writing.

A while back, I wrote a blog about Glady and that seemed to kick-start something in my brain. That’s what happens when there’s a temporary vacuum in my head between writing projects. I began to imagine what would have happened if Glady and I had had a love affair. In reality, there was never anything between us other than a few casual conversations and general gossip about the office.

At the time, I was dating a Hispanic woman and if Glady had taken an interest in me, I probably would have been too daft to even notice it. Truth be told, I had Susan on my mind.

At about the same time I was imagining Glady and me intertwined someplace romantic, ‘Vella’ appeared in the form of an e-mail notice from Amazon. The technology giant had just come out with their new Vella platform which offered short stories, novellas and novels in serialized form. They invited me to submit some of my works to their platform. That invitation, along with my own rampant onslaught of images crowding my brain, was enough motivation to initiate my romance with Glady…in fictionalized serial form, of course.

I knew if I was going to write about that period in my life and the people who inhabited it, I would have to be careful not use the real names of the people involved. So Glady became Agnes, her gal-pal at work had a name change and our boss, the same. Then I was off to the proverbial (writing) races.

But in order for this affair to work, I had to fall in love with Agnes in my head as well as my imagination; hence my writing became a very visceral love affair. If it was to be real in my mind and therefore (I hoped) in the minds of my readers, I had to feel the emotions my protagonist (me) and Agnes were feeling. Our arguments, deep discussions, love-making and ultimately our conclusion had to be real to my inner soul as my finger-tips tapped out our love story.

The premise for the story is simple enough. What happens when an immature twenty-five year old kid meets and falls hard for a mature thirty-five year old woman? I know opposites attract (50 years and counting for me) but I had to ask myself what else might have attracted this kid to this mature woman and vice-versa. That was the journey my protagonist (and me, in my mind) had to take to make it real and ultimately painfully true.

As a famous song lyrics goes: ‘It was sad and complete…’ and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. The affair lasted barely six months and then it was over. I wept in my mind for the loss I felt. It was real and emotional and impactful….like most love affairs. Now it’s time to see if my readers agree.

The way Vella works is simple enough. The first three chapters of any story on Vella is free. After that, beginning with Chapter Four, there is a charge in the form of tokens to read each subsequent chapter. Tokens can be purchased on the Vella platform and there are directions for quantities purchased.

I have posted the first three chapters of my story ‘Agnes, Memories of First Love’ below:

Link to ‘Agnes’ on Vella platform

‘Agnes, Memories of First Love’ is my first attempt at writing a serialized novella for this new Vella platform. I’ve already got several more storylines in outline form if this one takes off.

Falling in love with Agnes was both a satisfying and yet very bittersweet experience. We shared a lot of good times and sad ones too. We both grew and matured as a result and were the better for it.

In the end, it was one of those life journeys that one must take to feel the joy and pain of living when sharing intimacies with another person. It’s a journey I hope my readers will enjoy with the same intensity that I did sharing it with them.

I Have Arrived

I’ve always been interested in real estate. This was long before HGTV (Home and Garden Television) muddied the waters of reality and made real estate seem like a sure bet every time. My first exposure to real estate investing was back in 1965 in San Francisco at the Presidio of San Francisco.

I can remember sitting around a table in the middle of our barracks, talking to a couple of entrepreneurs who were soon to be discharged. They wanted to stay in San Francisco and get involved in real estate. Their objective was to start a business that focused on flipping old Victorian side-by-sides in a neighborhood they felt was on the upswing. This idea of flipping, outside investors, capital outlay, financing and ROI was totally foreign to me but intriguing nonetheless.

This was long before real estate became a speculative sport like gold and silver and antiquities. Now the field includes collectables (American Pickers, anyone), Bitcoin, Meta, NFTs, etc. I was transferred to Louisiana shortly afterwards and never kept track of those two fellows. If they were successful, I’m sure they retired early and are now lounging on some Hawaiian Island.

So I don’t watch a lot of HGTV. The cable channel is really like Oxycontin for the masses – stimulating but it makes outcomes appear more believable than they really are. My own experience with real estate investing was a lot more plain vanilla. Never a lot, never very fancy, but solid and reliable. For your average HGTV watcher nowadays, it would have seemed boring as heck.

The one show I do enjoy watching is ‘House Hunters’, both national and international. It gives me a pretty reliable gauge of home prices around the country, assuming the show isn’t a repeat from years past. The home buyers seem pretty average and believable. None of the individuals or couples seem to stand out from one another. Until now.

Something is going on with the series and I can’t put my finger on it. Whether it’s a trend, deliberate subtle messaging, or a new direction; the series has, on four separate occasions, shown couples of a certain demographic deliberately seeking out their ‘dream home.’

That, in itself, is nothing unusual. What is unusual is their very pronounced (loud and vocal) desire to find a home that speaks to their success. They want a home that says: 'I (We) Have Arrived.' These house hunters have been very focused and deliberate in stating that the house they seek must show status among their peers, wealth (supposed), and a brick and mortar façade that stands out in the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, it sometimes feels like a 60’s television version of the ‘Beverly Hillbillies.’ Nouveau-rich status seekers wanting to make a statement. It is simplistic and dumbed-down; often bordering on unreal or sketchy scenarios. There seems to be a message here, but I guess I’m too daft to get it.

‘House Hunters’ is probably the most realistic show on the channel even if some of the real estate agents shown seem to be competing for attention right out the clown car.

On one episode, the real estate agent changed her outfits seven times during the house hunting process, each outfit more revealing than the last. I was certain by the time they got to ‘closing’ it could have been held in a clothing-optional resort. I guess if she couldn’t make it to the ‘Bachelor’ or ‘Survivor’ or ‘Big Brother,’ then HH might have been a suitable consolation prize for her. I know there is always an entertainment value added to these shows but sometimes it can be a little over the top.

Another series ‘My Lottery Dream Home’ falls into the same kind of trap. ‘My Lottery Dream Home’ follows lucky lottery winners seeking to buy their first home. The host (my wife loves this guy) dresses like a clown and acts the same way. His primary job is to remind these lucky folks that they are now millionaires and can do or buy whatever they want. And, more importantly, that they deserve it.

I still haven’t figured out the motivation behind these deliberate attempts to send subtle messages in the shows themselves. Of course, I’m not a producer and I don’t care about ratings. Still, it would be nice to have an honest presentation instead of a structured, manipulated storyline.

We seem to be at a point in this country where many consider housing to be an inalienable right along with education, public health and protection from harm (fire and police). It’s an interesting perspective and one that deserves further discussion and debate. I’m just not sure that housing as status and gambling as deserved earnings is the right approach to take. But then again, that’s me, Mr. Plain Vanilla.