Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:11 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: change sucks
That's a joke of course. But when you are talking about e-mail systems, it's true. We are on a brand new, browser-based e-mail system that will make it much more difficult to archive our communications as I've been doing. I'll have to figure this out.
Hope I didn't put you on the spot yesterday with my phone call... was only trying to get advice, not have you tell me when I should and shouldn't visit. In any case, I'll gauge the situation and probably come out toward the end of the summer or something. Will let you know when I know.
A
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From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:22:37 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
You didn't put me on the spot at all. Really, you didn't.
We should talk before anyone makes travel plans this summer. We're likely going to Maine with the kids this summer and we usually do things like that in late August. We usually get a house and those are usually hard to cancel, so let's coordinate. I'd hate to be away when you were in town.
By the same token, I'll give you as much heads-up as possible if we're heading west by ourselves.
We have another plan in the works for next summer. We're hoping to pool enough time off to drive with the kids across-country. There are some difficulties with that big of a trip but we've been wanting to do something like that for a long time. They're all old enough now that they wouldn't ask "Are we there yet" while still in Pennsylvania. We'd of course make Oregon a destination if we did anything like that.
I've been saving our e-mails too. I'll have more time to be a human being after this week.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:49 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
Sounds good.
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From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:53:38 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
When you say "Sounds good," I feel like you're putting me on the spot.
Please stop that.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:18 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
I've become what I detest: a west coast spot putter. The horror!
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From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:22:25 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
I thought spot putters were endangered. With all the logging out there and whatnot.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:47 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
You're thinking of the spotted pooder, a small bird aptly named because it's neck looks like a vagina. In the logging towns, you can still find trucker hats that read "Save A Tree... Kill A Spotted Pooder."
Unfortunately, they've been hunted to the brink of extinction for their rose-colored, peachfish-odored throat feathers.
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From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:57:29 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
I believe you Photoshopped a vaginaesque feather pattern onto what was actually a tufted titmouse.
Somewhere on cable, Beavis just had a seizure.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 4:41 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
Dude, it's a fu**ing spotted POODER. Don't sit there and tell me that I don't know the diff--
Ok, it's a titmouse. How the living f**k do you know what a tufted titmouse looks like?
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From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 5:40:30 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
Oh, I know about the birds. I know about the birds real good.
Titmice form a mixed flock with nuthatches and chickadees in the winter and congregate by the dozen in the ten-foot-tall rhododendron right outside my bedroom window. Every day at about 6:30 they start with their little piping call. Sometimes the stupid f**ks even fly into the window.
As bad as that is, the whippoorwill I get in the summer is ten times worse. F***er is nocturnal and sits there for hours, a couple of feet through a wall from my pillow, saying "whip-POOR-will, whip-POOR-will, whip-POOR-will." My Central Pennsylvanian friend T once suggested that I go out there with a bb gun and waste the little motherf***er. But my night vision isn't so good and they get all quiet as soon as you get close.
Then there's the northern yellow-shafted flicker (a medium brown woodpecker) that, every April, perches itself atop my metallic chimney cover and pecks the living Bejesus out of the thing to attract a mate.
Amplified down the flue, it sounds like a jackhammer on the roof, all at 7:00 am and seemingly only on weekends. I went up on the roof last year and found pockmarks all over the damn thing.
Your truckers and their shirts are right. My shirt would say: "Save a Chimney Cover, Kill a Northern Yellow-Shafted Flicker." The print would have to be a little small.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 5:59 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
The trucker hat was real and read: "Save A Tree, Kill A Spotted Owl." Anyone ignorant enough to wear something like that probably can't read small print.
Suggestions for your natural aviary:
1. Cut back your rhododendron
2. Construct a custom "lid" for your chimney cover that consists of multiple upright projections (nails, dowels) so the flicker cannot land.
3. Give the whippoorwill a dollar and suggest that there's more where that came from in Botswana.
If these don't work, purchase some C-4 and mold in into likenesses of each bird. Attach a wire to the decoys and run each of these wires to a detonator (preferable one of those Acme ones with a really big plunger). As they approach the decoys, detonate the explosives. Make sure you are nowhere near a golf course when you do this.
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From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 6:47:25 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
The rhododendron grows faster than I can cut it. Also, it can't be killed.
I believe I will take your suggestion regarding the nail blanket for the chimney cover.
The Audubon Society has rated the whippoorwill as the least bribable of all North American bird species. They come from old money.
If the aforementioned birds weren't deterred by the endless construction at my house, a little C4 won't scare them. Now if I went out there and sang Kenny Loggins' "I'm Alright" to them at the top of my lungs ... that just might work.
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