Chicago Weblog

CVH was sitting and working at her desk today when she heard a tapping, a gentle rapping.

“Now what could that be?” she wondered.  After a moment she realized that someone was knocking softly at the front door.  She went to the door and opened it to find her beloved pair of wild ducks, Doofus and Dorothy, standing on the porch awaiting some morsels of bread.  This duck couple has been nesting each spring in the bushes by the house for God only knows how many years.  Charlaine feeds them bread every day or so and looks forward to their annual return.  I think they just leave a lot of mess on the sidewalk and steps.  “How polite,” she thought, “Instead of rudely quacking and demanding food, they nicely knock on the door now.”

The Kentucky Derby Marathon was held today, and our company fielded a small team of runners and walkers.  I was a member of the team, but I wasn’t perambulating the course – I was one of the support team, cheering on the others.  I stood by the course ringing a cowbell for an hour and a half (I wore earplugs).

The morning started out cold and rainy.  I went to the designated spot where the race organizers had said that there would be bleachers and noisemakers and maybe even snacks.  But when I arrived, there were no bleachers or noisemakers and certainly no snacks.  And there were only about six of us.

The sun finally came out and it turned into a pretty, if humid, morning for running.  So I walked down further toward where the runners were coming from and was amazed at what fifteen thousand people  coming down Fourth Street looked like.  I was reminded of the old remark about if all the Chinese started walking by four abreast, they would never stop coming.

Not the Kentucky Derby Marathon

There weren’t many people in costume; apparently that’s not as popular as it used to be or the rain discouraged the use of such elaborations.  There was a cute SpongeBob SquarePants, a couple of Elvises, a race horse (last year’s Derby winner Mine That Bird), and what I think was a nineteenth century riverboat gambler or gentleman – it was hard to tell which.

At my corner there was also a guy who showed up in his car and argued with the policeman about letting him drive across the course.  I wonder why he engaged in such counterproductive behaviour; the cop a couple of blocks down was letting people across, but once he decided to argue, well, that was it for him.

Our team leaders both finished the half-marathon in under two hours, and one team member came in 23rd in their division!  I rang them on, as well as the rest of our team.  Eventually the last walker of our team came by, and I holstered my cowbell.

A co-worker told me that Norton HealthCare, one of our local medical megacorporations, was sponsoring a walking club: free signup, and you can walk around the Louisville Zoo early in the morning before it opens up to all the rug rats.  I called the number he gave me and spoke with a nice lady who took all my information.  Sure enough, a few days later two packages arrived in the mail, one for me and one for my wife.  We each got a t-shirt, maps of the zoo and the malls, a pedometer, a wrist or ankle packet, and other schwag.  All free.  Well there’s no such thing as a free lunch, of course, so I figure somebody managed to get a grant.  Perhaps the zoo got some money to get more people in the gate; perhaps a green grant as part of the stimulus plan?  Who can say?

The Topsy Turvy Planter

I’ve decided to try three different tomato plants (Early Girl, Celebrity, and Black Prince) in the Topsy-Turvy (As Seen On TV!) containers this year.  When I went to hang them up, however, I discovered that the hoop on the planter is very small and I needed some S-hooks to get them up on my plant hangers.  Another trip to the hardware store ($4.22).

The big dark rabbit was out for silfay behind our house last night, and when I went to confront it in an effort to direct it away from my lettuce plants, it hopped toward me instead of away.

Awfully cheeky, I thought, until I saw it had hopped over to the side of another rabbit, this one a wild one, not a bred one like itself.  “Well,” I thought, “he’s found himself a native wife.  Or she’s found herself a wild husband.  In either case, they seem to make quite the pair.”

What I fear, of course, is that this lapine canoodling will lead to more rabbits,  more silflay, and my garden will be rendered “zorn”.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Many will not come again,
And take from seventy springs fifty,
I’m only left with some twenty.

And since to look at things in bloom
Twenty springs are little room,
About the parklands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

OK, so the second stanza doesn’t scan, but then I don’t believe Housman was twenty when he wrote it either.  And the trees here may not be cherry ones, but they are beautiful and full of flowers this week, so we went to Cave Hill to soak in the spectacle.

First, though, we made the rounds of several gardening stores, picking up an eggplant, three tomatoes, a marigold, banana pepper, bell peppers (2 green, 1 red), a jalapeño, basil, lemon balm, and swiss chard. ($33.56).

Cave Hill spring scene

Then we were off to Cave Hill.  The grounds there were simply stunning, and just like at our house, the ducks and geese were frolicking and quacking and honking like mad.  Charlaine said that the honking got on her nerves after a while.

At one point we saw an orange fox prowling about; Charlaine said that she hadn’t ever seen a fox in the wild before and I said that its presence here probably had something to do with all those waterfowl nesting about.

We wrapped up the trip with a visit to Burger’s, a wonderful little local grocery store across the street from the cemetery (Charlaine loves to visit fancy little grocery stores).

The big dark rabbit was back again this evening, and I think he is even bigger than ever.  How he is avoiding predators I don’t know, unless it is because his size is so intimidating.

I told Charlaine that it takes a lot of lettuce to fill up a rabbit that big.  Looks like I’m going to be planting a lot of lettuce this season.