Crow Gifts and Traffic Jellies!

Happy Thanksgiving madness! The battle with Christmas season is rife. As my dentist explained, "well they don't really make Thanksgiving songs, so I had to go with Christmas songs." Yeah, what the heck is up with that? Why don't we have some? I mean I know at my old church they had a ton of jaunty little Thanksgiving hymns. Very catchy. I think... Maybe. Ok now I'm just singing some All Saint's Day song, but close enough. 

Beyond songs, we need superior Thanksgiving mythology. 

We can't have the representative of Thanksgiving be any of the following and have it feel warm or wholesome: 

• Turkeys - because seriously, the definition of the holiday is basically eating one. You can't cuteify that and then not feel weird at the end of it. Everyone is always trying but it just feels sort of like the real turkeys need to pull a South Park and come back for revenge. 
• Native Americans - it's... awkward cuz of the genocide and all... Just... yeah... no... 
• Pilgrims - cuz the genocide again... also religious zealots are not particularly magical or aesthetically pleasing and they were the ones killing all the fun witches left and right in our charmingly spooky bats, witches and sexy vampires Halloween fun. Overall, just not that appealing when you're already living in aMAGAca. 

So, just need to totally rescrub the whole thing. Bring it back to some kind of Harvest Festival vibe. Keep the food associations. Maybe add some migratory birds? I dunno! I think we just need Barry the Benevolent Bushtit to come and give everyone shoots of corn across our hearths or something. 

Cutest lil tits ever!

I would of course nominate the crow as the new CEO of Thanksgiving because they're smart and they know how to cache food for winter, but they've already cornered the market on Halloween. By which I mean ravens have, and people just assume crows (and jackdaws and rooks and red winged blackbirds and probably grackles ...) are basically just baby ravens because they're both black and stuff. 

We also have dark eyed juncos, since they seem to appear in most of the continental US some time around now. Or, just to stay patriotic, maybe an American robin?

(Actually a thrush, but they had red bellies like European robins, so what the heck)

Maybe - hear me out - we have an American robin driving a sleigh pulled by chickadees and bushtits migrate into town and leave everyone a few ears of inedible cornucopias and leftover candy corn. Then we all eat turkey instead of robins and call it even!

 I dunno. Just spit balling here. We can make Thanksgiving great again!

Or... OR we make house sparrows our representatives, seeing as they are an invasive species that disrupt most native species and are generally pretty loud ubiquitous birds. 

"House sparrows can cause many problems for native birds, including competing for nesting sites, even killing adult birds, hatchlings, and eggs; taking over food sources and reducing diversity at feeders; and crowding out less aggressive birds from traditional ranges and habitats. "

Gee that sounds nothing like the reason for the season!

Aaaaaanyways. Did I mention I kind of hate Thanksgiving on principle? Not just cuz the genocide (which is admittedly awkward), but the whole "holiday centered around large family gatherings and eating a bunch of food" aspect. Just not my chronically ill neurodivergent flavor. 

 But nonetheless if we can't drag Halloween out into November, I think something should stand between us and Christmas just that little bit longer. Also, it should - whatever we decide on - definitely involve its own set of bright sparkly lights and its own musical numbers. 

Speaking of gratitude...

On Tuesday we experienced a milestone: Our first crow gift! 

I honestly thought that we would never encounter these mythical crow-tokens, since the crows don't come to our house much and I couldn't really see how an exchange would take place on the fly (har har) out in the neighborhood. Just didn't seem like an opportunity for them to leave me anything that I would ever recognize. 

And arguably I'm just making it all up but...

We were doing the third loop of our regular pond walk. It was a hopping kind of day, with four Canada Geese dominating a pond full of puny wigeons, mallards, and mergansers. Or so they thought. The blue heron was also in the house, and likely could have put even those gorgeous little mean girls in their places (Vancouver? I'm not really sure where they come from really). 

Not even geese gonna cross this pterosaur!

Our babies had shown up and followed us a bit around our pond laps but seemed largely content in their various trees. 

As we finished up loop number three, Peanut swooped past us and landed with a giant skippety-hop on the fence at the edge of the park. I looked back and saw that Cashew had followed to the outlook and was also watching us. As I looked forward again, it seemed that Peanut had disappeared. 

Reaching for my bag of peanuts, I checked out the tree, but no birdie. 

Then suddenly just a few feet from us, they popped back up onto the fence with something rather large in their beak: a can of cat food. I figured they had just been scraping it clean, but almost immediately upon hopping back up, they looked as us, dropped the can and flew about a yard and change down the fence, still watching us cautiously. 

Allan and I picked it up and scattered some peanuts in thanks. And our first little transaction was completed. 

Not to seem ungrateful but my intention was mostly to carry it out of the park and recycle it. Allan, however, feels that it will be fertile grounds for an art project. 

I'm happy to say it had been thoroughly cleared of any fish guts during its time outdoors and/or in crow custody (more likely it had been washed and put in the recycling to begin with) and only had a few leaves in it (integral part of the art project). 

I still sterilized it on getting home, but yes, this is the story of why we have an empty can of Fancy Feast Tuna Feast in Gravy forever on display in our living room!

The more I think about it the less I think it was a full-on gift and more that it was a request: "Hey, human, the stuff in this can was nummier than peanuts, can you fetch some?" Something to that effect. Either way, it will be cherished forever and a moment of communication with some very lovely corvids. 

As for things I am less thankful for: Seattle traffic!

On Thursday, we go to Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center, which happens to be in Redmond. Which is theoretically not that far away, but it can vary by traffic. During the summer, her camp often invited a pretty hefty commute, falling during rush hour as it did. Now that we travel on off hours, it's typically a much less onerous voyage. On this particular Thursday, it might as well have been in Albania! 

Apparently the I-99 tunnel lost power in both direction on Thursday, something I only learned many hours later from a West Seattle Facebook page. Needless to say, being an underwater tunnel that's claustrophobic on a good day, it was closed. Needless to say, it handles a lot of traffic that was thus rerouted to the other generally-at-capacity routes. 

I noticed the traffic was bad when I checked google maps earlier. However, it underestimated. Traffic was actually more like wretched. 

We left with an hour and fifteen minutes before the appointment to spare for what is ideally a 40 minute trip. This is because, google said that the trip would take an hour, and I tend to overcompensate and arrive everywhere early. But even my temporal pessimism did not suffice!

In actuality, it took an hour and forty minutes, the great percentage of it just trying to get the fuck out of Seattle. We missed most of Allan's session and I nearly ate my own hand. it was gruesome even on the side streets. And just a parking lot heading into I-5.

I am however grateful that although it was too late for the horse riding, Allan's therapist stuck around for an extra ten minutes or so to take her on a little scavenger hunt and let her feed the horses. 

And I'm grateful that Allan and I will not have to dive into the general travel morass next week (we have decided for the time being that neither Allan nor I seem to travel well so Staysgiving it is!) Thursday's commute was enough long distance travelling for 2025. 

Instead, we will be feasting with the birdies and putting Santa hats on all the little crows come Black Friday! I'm looking forward to it!

Happy Final Week Before the Full Onslought of Christmas Season! May your crows be merry and bright (oh so bright) and may all your adult glaucus winged gulls be white... I tried there. I really did.