travel

New Guinea was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

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‘Quite literally.’

My cranky post from last week, “Getting There was Definitely Not Half the Fun,” whined on about how it took such a godawful looooong time to get to New Guinea. This week I’ll continue my rant by regaling you with a few stories about what it was like once we got there.

Dude Man sticking out like a sore birder at the Wamena airport

First, let me say that I am not sorry that we went to New Guinea. (Notice use of past tense here.) It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. For one thing, we saw amazing Birds of Paradise (BOPs for short) and other species we can only find there. But I must say that I have never been anywhere quite like it — none of our trips to Colombia or Ecuador or Guyana or Uganda or any of our five trips to Brazil even comes close to how uniquely different this place felt.

Lovely — but empty — countryside

It was hot, but we’ve done hot (hello, Namibia). It was humid, but so was Borneo. Lots of places have been buggy. No hot water and intermittent electricity? Ditto. True, we were informed beforehand that it might be dangerous — there is a civil war going on — but “dangerous” doesn’t really hit home until you’re told to roll up your windows in the car so you don’t get kidnapped. I mean, in Botswana and Kenya we were warned that it wasn’t safe to walk around by yourself, but that was because of the animals.

“Our” village, Mingre. “Our” house is one of four or five in all

In some of the remoter areas where we were looking for BOPs, we were literally the only outsiders for miles around. There is no tourism, unless you count BOP-crazy birders, so there’s no lodging; villagers double up so you can stay in one of their houses.

Yes, we had our own room. And we were lucky to have a bathroom — to share

The countryside is divvied up by clans who control the villages and the land around them. Our local “handlers” would make arrangements with a clan to use the trails leading into “their” forest. Headlamps secured, we’d hike in the pitch dark so we could arrive by dawn to “blinds” located near the BOPs mating grounds, where we would wait — sometimes for hours — for the BOPs to appear and do their thing.

One of the blinds we used. The front is camouflaged with leaves and branches

Interesting note here: the BOPs clear an area on the forest floor to do their dancing rituals. To get them to appear, you place a few leaves on the cleared area. The birds hate their dancing ground messed up like that, so they show up to clear those pesky leaves away, and then (if you’re lucky) they stick around to dance.

Waiting inside a blind. At least this one had a bench. You peek out those holes when (if!) the BOPs appear. We were lucky; out of 16 BOPs, we only missed one

In the afternoons we would usually bird along the roads. But even here, on a public road, we needed clan permission — not to walk on their land, just to look at it. One day a very angry man rushed at us wielding not just a machete, but an axe. He had not been informed of our presence and was decidedly not pleased to see our group there. Some fast talking by our local handlers was required.

Markers like these denoted village territory. When you got to one, you turned around. Fast

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t take bird photos on these trips. They don’t turn out so hot with an iPhone. Dude Man takes amazing shots, but it takes months of painstaking sorting before they leave his amazing Canon. But I did get a grainy shot of a remarkable bird who, lacking fancy BOP plumage, builds a bower to attract a mate, then decorates it with all kinds of fancy stuff. In former times, these were colorful seeds or flowers. But the clever Bower Bird has adapted, and uses manmade materials to great effect.

A bower (as glimpsed from a blind), decorated with blue bottlecaps, orange plastic found objects, and shiny insect shells and bits of broken glass

If you look closely, you can see Mr. Bower Bird lurking in the bower between the small tree and the orange piggy bank. To get the bird to show up, you disarrange his pattern slightly, which gets him to come neaten it up. This time, the guide put a yellow bottle cap on top of the blue ones. Mr. BB showed up immediately to toss it out. Oh, and that orange piggy bank? The locals said it took weeks for him to drag it from the village.

I’ll leave you with pleasant thoughts of a plain little bird arranging his treasures…and with something truly scary: a growling baby. Something we did not see in New Guinea.

Amagansett, New York. August 2025

Getting there was definitely not half the fun.

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’35 hours to reach West Papua. Even more to get back.’

I watched this movie last night called Red Eye. It’s a pretty good thriller about a hotel worker thwarting a terrorist on a night flight. It’s not a new movie; you can tell because a plot twist involves one of those seatback phones you could activate with a credit card. Remember those? I was always too intimidated to use one, and now I’ll never get a chance.

I did get plenty of chances to mess around with my iPhone. (Plus watch many movies and plow through scads of e-books.) Since it took us forever and a day to get to New Guinea. We left (very early) on a Thursday morning, and didn’t get there till Sunday. Granted, we did cross the international dateline and “lose” a day. But still. Let’s just say I laid waste to the Connections archive.

Me, after landing at one of many airports on this interminable trip

But hey. I just re-read that opening, and I sound kind of elderly and crabby. Let’s lighten the mood, shall we, by mentioning that today is The Child and the SIL’s wedding anniversary. Yup, it’s been three years since that landmark Canadian fete. (Which you can relive through “Two Weddings are Better than One.”)

A lot has happened since August 13, 2022

What on earth prompted Dude Man and me to put up with two back-to-back eleven hour flights (to Istanbul then to Jakarta) plus another eight hours to Biak (with a three-hour layover in Makassar)? The birds of paradise, that’s what. Basically, if you want to see the birds of paradise (or BOPs as they are affectionately called in birder shorthand), you have to go to New Guinea. Because New Guinea is where they live. Oh, there are a couple of BOPs you can find in Northeastern Australia. But for the creme de la creme (or plume de la plume) of BOPs, Papua is where you’ve got to go.

Here’s New Guinea, with some of our BOP spots circled

Incidentally, if, like me, you are “of a certain age,” you may remember “antimacassars,” I entertained our fellow layover victims by telling about how Makassar was where a popular hair oil was produced back in the Victorian era. This hair oil became so popular that these little fabric doilies — antimacassars — were invented to protect furniture from getting all yucky with it. My Gramma Peterson was an antimacassar fan. She also liked magazine racks. And pipe stands.

Outside our hotel in Biak after breakfast on Sunday — three days after leaving NY

Oh well. The Makassar layover was endured, our last flight was flown — and we made it to West Papua. Biak, to be exact. Where we spent the next few days tracking birds and collecting bug bites. One of these days I will get The Dude to extract his very wonderful bird photos from his very good camera. (In the meantime, you can learn about BOPs here: birds of paradise and feast your eyes here: photos of birds of paradise.) I will leave you with a promise to get back to you with more on our New Guinean adventure soon. Oh. One last thing. I drove over to see Anthony, my haircutter, for a much-needed pruning today and he told me that his father, who served on New Guinea during WWII, would have been amazed at our going there. “You went to New Guinea?!? On purpose?!?” he no doubt would have remarked.

At last! Our first birding morning. Note Dude Man’s camo-camera (pics to come!)

Amagansett, New York. August 2025

 

 

 

 

I can highly recommend my grief counselor

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‘AKA the Emotional Support Baby’

Well. We finally made it out to see The Child and the SIL and Mr. Baby. We tried to go visit them in Flagstaff a few weeks ago, but they got colds. Then we tried to visit them in San Francisco, and Dude Man caught a cold. (Actually, more like “the crud:” icky snorty sniffy symptoms that stuck around for what felt like forever — especially for The One Who Had to Keep Hearing About It.)

The Little Family in Flagstaff, before colds were caught

And boy, did we need this visit. Dude Man because he hadn’t seen His Babyness since Thanksgiving. And me because I lost my Mom not even a month ago. (Feel free to read my bittersweet little ode to her, “Beautiful Swan,” if you are so inclined — and have access to tissues.)

The Child was diligent with FaceTiming her Gramma. Here is a screenshot from one of their *sniff* last sessions

I have to say, even if this baby were not the most attractive baby ever to be born to any human, this trip would still have distracted us from fits of sadness and/or grief. What with all the activities we packed into three measly days, we were literally too busy to be sad.

Scott and Mr. Baby engage in a charm contest

We walked in Golden Gate Park, we went to Petaluma to play with Uncle Scott and Aunt Susan, we hiked on Mount Tam, we visited the Palace of the Legion of Honor.

Grampa and Mr. Baby resting along the Mt. Tram trail

Why, on Friday alone we spent three hours visiting Alcatraz, then marched from the pier up more than 1000 steps to reach Coit Tower. And after that, we prowled City Lights Bookstore. I’m exhausted just writing this paragraph!

The Child springs Mr. Baby from solitary confinement on Cell Block D. He was in the joint for stealing his Gramma’s heart

We still had lots of time to chill and engage in baby horseplay. These days, the Baby in Question is keen on chewing on his fist(s), grabbing anything orange, yellow or red, wriggling around while kicking mightily, and lighting up when he sees a person he likes. Which is practically everyone. I liked to glance to the rear as we were tooling about, to catch the gobsmacked expressions of the baby-spotters in our wake.

Mr. Baby appreciates a painting. But not nearly as much as the museum goers appreciated him

Grampa Wayne taught him to say “oooohhh” and Uncle Scott taught him the joys of peek-a-boo. And a splendidly good time was had by all.

Mom would have loved it.

Mom and I share a Baby FaceTime on my last visit

New York City. March 2025

My Mom likes line dancing about as much as she likes yodeling

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‘Which is to say, “not one bit”‘

Again with the excuses for not keeping up with my posts! But these days I have two unbeatable ones: 1) visiting my grandson, and 2) visiting my Mom.

Visiting grandson and mom at the same time via Facetime (!)

A couple of weeks ago, I got to do both in person. I’m finally settled down enough to write about these visits, so let’s start with the one to see Mom.

Mom recently moved to a new apartment at her senior living place, and this was the first time I got to check it out. I’m glad to report that it is as cozy as her former pad and even brighter and sunnier — and much more quiet, once I figured out how to get her heater to stop clanking. (Speaking of clanking, her old place overlooked the loading dock; it’s a good thing I like to wake early, since beefy guys were out there clanking and yelling every morning around 5:30.)

A view of Mom’s former building, with her room (second floor, corner) overlooking the loading dock

Anyway. New apartment = new friends. I got to meet a bunch of them at Mom’s breakfast table. (Hi Eugene! Hi Ann-Without-An-E! Hi Candy! When I mentioned to Candy that I had never met an actual person named “Candy,” she said that her mother wanted to name her Denise, but that her aunt said “there’s no way I’m going to have a niece named “Denise!” and that was that. Read that last phrase aloud with a Sopranos accent to see what Candy’s aunt meant.)

Mom may have changed rooms, but Snoopy and Woodstock were still on Christmas duty at this house on my morning walk

Anyway (again). This place is kind of like high school; Mom has “her” table in the dining room, and we sat with these new friends at Happy Hour on Thursday. Happy Hour starts at 2:30 in this joint (since dinner is from 4:30 to 6:00), and is very popular, with real booze (a popular cocktail is half Sprite, half “blush” wine) and live entertainment. This Happy Hour featured a singer attired in a fancy pearl-buttoned western shirt who played guitar and sang cowboy songs. (One of these was a chestnut called “I Am My Own Grandpa.”) My Mom rather enjoyed this one. But then Mr. Singer told a story about once having the great pleasure of hearing Eddie Albert sing — and yodel. Now, if you don’t know what yodeling is, you can, in my opinion, count yourself among the lucky. But if you are curious, you can watch this video with guys in cowboy outfits yodeling away.

I wonder if Mr. Baby is smiling because he just heard some yodeling?

And not only did this guy yodel, he invited us all to yodel along. Now, my Mom hates to be asked to sing along, so you can imagine how she reacted to being asked to yodel. Well. Not only did Singer Guy’s enthusiastic audience yodel along, but some of them got up and started line dancing. 

Now. My mother hates line dancing about as much as she hates Whoopi Goldberg. Which is right up there with her hate for Robin Williams. Or root canal. But line dance these folks did. While yodeling.

Now, I’m betting Mom would have loved the line dancing at The Child’s wedding (see photo at the top of this post, and the video, below). But then again, maybe not. At least they weren’t yodeling.

There was room at Mom’s table for a few more music-listeners, not just Mom’s pals. There was a couple seated to my right; the man was an enthusiastic yodeler. When the yodeling at last reached a screeching halt, I leaned around the woman and said to the guy, “Hey, that was pretty good!” After which the woman (I’m assuming it was his wife) looked me right in the eye and said, “Thanks a lot.”

Shortly after the line dancing/yodeling session at Mom’s, I was on my way south along the coast for the grandson half of my visit…to be continued!

Amagansett, New York. January 2025

Forgive me for not posting in a while.

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‘I’ve been a bit, well, distracted.’

I was on the phone with a friend the other day (remember phone calls? remember friends?) when she said, “Gosh, you haven’t posted a story in a while!” Which is how I knew that A) She was, in fact, a friend, and a very good one at that, and B) that gosh, I haven’t posted a story in a while.

Well, I have a very good excuse. I mean, besides the fact that Dude Man and I were in Australia for five weeks. (That’s right, folks — five weeks. Four in Australia, plus one in Tasmania.)

Five weeks, people. Five weeks. But we sure covered a lot of ground. (And air)

My excuse? His name is Alexander Whitmore Leakos, and he was born on October 5, when we were roaming Little Desert National Park somewhere on the Southern half of the Australian continent. The New Parents were in San Francisco. (In spite of the time difference — it was 5:00 AM for us and noon the previous day for them — we were able to participate in a very satisfying Facetime call.)

The photo that greeted us at 5 AM

Needless to say, Dude Man and I are thrilled beyond measure to be grandparents. As I told The Child, “Now I can die; I have fulfilled my biological imperative. My genetic material (such as it is) has been passed on.”

My genetic material (or some of it, anyway) made flesh (fresh flesh, at that)

Of course, there isn’t much of my genetic material that’s discernible in this tiny person. This grandkid (shorthand for whom is to be GK) bears an uncanny resemblance to his father. It’s like someone took the SIL and put him in the dryer–on high.

I rest my case. All that baby needs is a teensy little beard

But who knows? Maybe he’s inherited my sparkling wit and/or engagingly hilarious personality. Heaven knows I’m glad he did not get my Swedish Head. (In case you don’t have one, and/or don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, read “What’s that in the road — a head?”.)

Baby doing his Thinker Thing. Note nicely-shaped noggin

Anyway. One of the first things The Child did (after our Facetime, that is) is invite us to join a shared photo album, where she’s been posting photos of our little GK practically every day. I’ll shut up and share a few:

Baby meets Grampa Wayne

Baby meets Uncle Scott (make that great-uncle) and Susan the Great

Baby meets Halloween. We weren’t there for this, but they still had the Mama, Papa and Baby Bear costumes

And one of the first things we did after we got back from Australia — well, actually it was the first thing we did — was visit all three of them in San Francisco. Quite literally it was the first thing. We got on a plane in Hobart, Tasmania, at 6:00 AM, then flew 14-some hours to SF, landing at 6:30 AM and Lyfting our way to their Haight-Ashbury pad in short order.

Baby goes out to dinner

More about our visit — oh, and some stuff about Australia too — when I can catch my breath. And when I can stop scrolling through that shared album.

Can’t resist sharing just this one more. Till next time!

Amagansett, New York. November 2024

The Streets of San Francisco

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‘Where’s Karl Malden when you need him?’

Well, actually I know where Karl is. And I’m thinking it’s not Heaven.

Those of you who follow my blog (thank you!) know that I had rather an unfortunate experience with Karl back in my Ad World days. But, in spite of his rampant sexism and all-around unpleasantness, it would have been comforting to have him — in character as Lt. Mike Stone, that is — out there on San Francisco’s streets last weekend.

Dude Man adorning the streets of SF, specifically the street outside the Pacific Union Club on Nob Hill

See, Dude Man and I were out there in the City by the Bay visiting The Child last weekend. She and her hub, the SIL, have been spending most of their time there because of work. So much time that they have rented an apartment. This new apartment is located near the Panhandle, which they were surprised to hear used to be a pretty dicey area. So dicey that the term “panhandler” comes from there, back when that part of Golden Gate Park was populated with less-than-savory denizens who did a lot of well, panhandling.

Child and Child’s pal admiring views of Golden Gate Park from the tower at the de Young Museum

Their new place is in Haight-Ashbury, which they now call “The Haight.” (I wonder if Her Childness knows hippies used to live there. Actually, I wonder if Her Childness knows what a “hippie” is?)

But this story isn’t about hippies, or even about panhandlers (though close) — it’s about a stalker. A stalker who was stalking us Saturday morning as we strolled (or rolled?) our way down Nob Hill. (Quick note: I do mean roll. Those streets are steep. I guess we can’t plan on retiring there to be near the Kids; no way you could maneuver a walker. Though we did see several scooters chained to lampposts. None in use, however. Just chained. Securely.)

Anyway. About our stalker. Dude Man and I, being on East Coast time, awakened at an ungodly hour and decided to take a walk. Our goal: Coit Tower, where Dude Man wanted to “check out the birds.”

Dr. Dude recording the call of the hummingbirds in the trees around Coit Tower

So, armed with binoculars, we set out, stopping first, tourist-style, to take photos of each other. Dude Man was in the midst of pointing out the building where Kim Novak’s character lives in Vertigo when we noticed a rather seedy-looking character loitering in the entryway.

The touristy photo Dude Man took of me. You can see a slice of Seedy Stalker’s blue windbreaker to the right in the background

Now, being from New York City, where seedy-looking characters are the norm, we weren’t too alarmed. Though we did keep an eye on him, and noticed that yes, he was following us. He kept to the other side of the street, and a block or so back. But when we stopped to look in the window of the Cable Car Museum, we noticed he stopped, too. It was rather amusing, until it was not.

Yes, we reached Coit Tower safely

We decided that he pegged us for well-to-do tourists (taking snapshots: check) who had good stuff to snatch (carrying binoculars: check). We figured he was waiting to catch us in a lonely stretch and demand our valuables. If he didn’t go away, our plan was to wait until there were more people around, then whirl around and confront him. “You’re creeping us out, Fella!” was my planned address while brandishing my phone. “Stop following us or I’m calling Karl Malden (er, 911)!”

There were plenty of people loitering at Coit Tower, but our stalker wasn’t one of them. Maybe it was just too steep a climb

Well, I guess there were too many people around because, by the time we reached Washington Square Park, he had disappeared. By then I was kinda fired up, so I was a little disappointed. Well, maybe not. Oh! Washington Square is in North Beach, which is where we were dining at an Italian restaurant that time The Child had the epic tantrum and had to be carried screaming down the street, a tale I told in “Let Me Go! I Want My Mommy!”

We made it to Coit Tower without further incident, and even managed to secure a table outside an Italian bakery in North Beach on our way back to the PU (the affectionate nickname of the Pacific Union Club). We needed a snack; we had to fuel ourselves for the hike back up.

Though, once we’d earned our steps, we learned our lesson. And Uber’d and Lyfted and Waymo‘d the rest of the visit.

Back home in Amagansett. August 2024

 

“Lucky”

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‘I have a mom and I get to go visit her today’

Whenever somebody in our family does something that my Middle Younger Brother Roger wishes he could do, he says, “Lucky.”

So I’m crediting him with the comment before making it myself. But this time I get to do the lucky thing, not just hear about it: I get to go visit my mother.

Me, hanging around JFK prepping for a previous Mom Visit

I’m getting on a plane in a few hours — writing this post is one way to keep from pacing around the very small Ken & Barbie House and wearing a path in the tile — so I may have to cut this post short. But maybe not, especially if I keep it short.

I should take this card along with me. Or maybe get a “keep calm” tee shirt. Or maybe just get a manhattan in the Delta Lounge

Basically, what I do when I visit my mother is sit around with her, drinking coffee and/or wine and reading and knitting. Talking a lot too, of course. Reminiscing. Gossiping. Solving the world’s problems.

Oh, there’s also walk-taking. Since I get up super-early (I’m on Eastern Time but even at home I’m up irrationally early), I go for a long walk through Mom’s nabe while she’s still sleeping. Then later, fueled up by coffee, we go on walks together. I do a lot of walking on these trips.

I can hardly wait to walk by this school again so I can check the grammar on their sign

Sometimes, if we’re feeling really frisky, we play Scrabble. (That’s me celebrating a seven-letter word in the photo at the top of this story. Talk about lucky.) But Scrabble is more fun with more players, so we usually skip it and do more reading.

My lucky necklace. I wear it every time I fly. Guess who gave it to me? No, not Mom. But close: my one and only Sister

Oh, did I mention that I sleep on Mom’s pullout couch? Actually, it’s much bigger than my bed at the Ken & Barbie House. But it is in rather close proximity to Mom’s fridge, which rumbles off and on through the night.

But hey. Those are not problems. Not at all. I have a Mom — and I get to go see her. Nyah nyah nyah.

Added bonus: A Sister Sighting! Here’s Mom and me with Laura

New York City (but not for long). May 2024

 

 

“What’s that bird?” “Heck if I know.”

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‘Confessions of an Experiential Birder’

I’ve often said that birding is like jury duty with feathers. (See “Jury Duty, Only with Feathers.”) Or that bridge is indoor golf. (See “Bridge? It’s Basically Indoor Golf”.) I also used to say that Hell is other people’s children. But I must be getting soft in my old age — or maybe I’m just craving grandkids — because other people’s children don’t bother me as much as they used to. Unless they are seated behind me on a plane. (See “The Four Seatmates of the Apocalypse.”)

One thing I haven’t said much is the name of a bird if someone asks me.

This is what one of our guides would call a “fancy bird.” Some kind of woodpecker; just don’t ask me which one

That’s basically because, unless it’s some bird that the asker probably already knows the name of — think “robin” or “blue jay” or “wren,” if you’re not too picky about the type of wren — I won’t know. I’m a birder, but I’m not the kind of birder who keeps track of names, much less genus and species and other technical whatnot.

I do keep track of funny signs. (See “Oh no, Danger Man!”) Like this one somewhere in Brazil indicating parking for those over 60

Why, I don’t keep track of anything about the birds. Unless it’s some really interesting experience associated with that bird. Like, on our Northeast Brazil trip, there was this macaw — the Lear’s, or Indigo Macaw — that lives only in a very specific type of canyon. You can read more about this macaw here, but basically, there are only a few hundred of them, they weren’t recognized as a species until 1978 — and, if you want to see them, you have to go to this one sandstone canyon via four-wheel-drive at daybreak to watch them come out of their nests and swoop around. Now that’s an experience — and that I remember.

Waiting around the sandstone canyon for the Lear’s Macaw to show up. They did. And so did some listers

I’m most definitely not a “lister.” Listers are birders who keep a list of all the birds they’ve seen. And, trust me, they care about that list. I’ve had encounters with listers a few times on our trips. Mostly, they’re okay. Though it can get a bit old to have someone constantly piping up “6499!” (the number of birds in their Life List just achieved) or “Lifer!” (meaning the bird just spotted is the first time the person has seen it in his/her life). Variations on this rack-’em-up theme include “day bird,” which is the first time that bird has been seen that day, and “trip bird,” same thing, only for the trip. “Day bird” can also mean a bird that’s been seen every day of the trip. On our most recent excursion, it was the black vulture. Which should tell you something about that trip.

Iguazu (or, in Brazil, Iguacu) Falls. Another terrific experience, especially with these swifts that go dive-bombing through the falls every evening

At the end of every birding day, the group gets together with their checklists and the guide/leader goes through all the birds seen that day. Fortunately for me, this happens at cocktail hour. I dutifully check birds off as I sip, say, a cold local beer or a  caipirinha.Three guesses what happens to the lists.

Paddling on a hot river where there were many caiman — and lots of cool birds too

So. If you see me after one of our birding trips, feel free to ask me about my experiences. (I have lots of good stories — like the one where we had to go to a water park on a Sunday to find a certain rare mannikin. The beautiful Brazilians in their bikinis didn’t quite know what to make of us.)

Just don’t ask me the names of any of the birds.

Amagansett, New York. April 2024

The night we drank all the beer in the restaurant

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‘And there were only six of us.’

Birding is thirsty work. You can rack up a lot of miles during the course of the day, mostly on rough, steep trails. And when you get out of the vehicle to hike, you get even thirstier.

A stretch of hot empty road somewhere in the hot empty Brazilian countryside

Sometimes you hike for four or five hours — before lunch. Then, because Brazil is so goldarned hot — so hot even the birds don’t move midday — you take a break. Then you’re out for more hiking, binoculars and cameras in tow, until it’s dark. Sometimes you’re not done even then — you clamp on a headlamp, and hike around looking for nightjars and owls.

Birder Dude at the beginning of a particularly hot hike

You can drink water like crazy all day long, but when push comes to shove — and there can be quite a bit of both at those Brazilian buffets — nothing hits the thirsty spot like a nice cold beer. Oh, sometimes a caipirinha is nice, but you can polish off a Heineken (or maybe two) while they’re still mashing up all those limes or making garnishes to hang on the rims of the glasses. (Yes, one of the places did that; made little animals and flowers out of strawberries and orange slices and such. Delightful to the eye; a dreadful delay for your thirst.)

A particularly lovely pousada. They would probably put fruit animals on your caipirinha if you asked nicely

So, on a bird trip? I say bring on the beer.

Now, you must understand that I am really a Wine Girl. But on these birding trips, forget the grape. It’s hops I crave. It’s really the only time I have beer, except once in a while in the summer with a hot dog. The other drink I have on these trips is Coca Cola. Real coke, not diet. For that caffeine/sugar high. It’s the only time I drink it, and boy, is it fantastic. I swear: drinking real Coke is like unprotected sex.

Also a rush: hiking practically straight up a cliff to get to the Hooded Visorbearer, a particularly lovely — and very rare — hummingbird

But I digress.

What about drinking all the beer in the restaurant? you might reasonably be asking right about now. Well. we were in this itty bitty town called Canudos, staying at the kind of pousada that has a chain on the toilet and on the bare lightbulb fixtures too. (But delightful, mind you.) We were there because it’s literally the only place in Brazil — and the entire world — you can see the Indigo Macaw.

Another bare-bones accommodation. This one had a view of a blank wall out the one and only window. But it did have a nice shower

There are only three colonies of these bright blue birds and one of them — the only accessible one — is in a canyon a few miles from town. And yes. We found them. Got up at 4:00 in the morning to four-wheel-drive our way up into the mountains to be there at dawn when they left their nests in the holes in the sandstone cliffs.

Dawn at the sandstone cliffs to see the Indigo Macaws. Yes, there were plenty. Dude Man got photos! Stay tuned

The rest of the day passed in a heated blur of dusty birdy pursuit. The pousada didn’t serve dinner, so our guide, Marcelo, got a friend to open his restaurant just for us. It was a couple of tables on the second floor of a building in town, and we were literally the only patrons. They cooked us a special selection of fish and chicken and rice and beans, which was very good indeed. And the beer was delicious and very very cold. It went down so well that we drank every bottle they had — which was seven. (There were six of us; I can’t remember who got to have seconds, but I know it wasn’t me.)

In closing — and in further defense of beer — let me point out that Paul Newman drank a case a day. And lived to be a still-pretty-darned-gorgeous 83. Cheers!

Dude Man striding toward an empty hot gazebo. Gazebos are always empty, tho not always hot. Maybe this one has a cooler full of beer

Back in New York City. February 2024

“You’re not made of sugar; you won’t melt.”

Standard

‘Or so my mother assures me.’

It was so wet out in Vancouver this last trip. So wet that if I had been made of sugar, I would have melted into a Wicked-Witch-style puddle.

Now, you may be thinking, “Gosh, what did you expect? Vancouver, Washington, is in the Pacific Northwest, for heaven’s sakes.” I mean, they have businesses that specialize in moss removal out there.

Who ya gonna call? Moss Busters!

Well, believe it or not, this is really the first time I’ve encountered classic Pacific Northwest wet  — at least the kind of rainy wetness that the area is famous for: steady, unrelenting, unvarying, and mostly sideways.

Wet out? Stay inside and finish another hat!

On most of my other trips, I’ve seen sunny skies. Honest. My Beloved Only Sister has lived out here for more than thirty years, and you can practically bet your bottom dollar that when I visit the sun will come out. I like to think I’m the cause of all this solar energy, but it’s no doubt just dumb luck. Whatever it is, we’ll take it.

Most of my trips require sunglasses and hats — and not the rain-hat kind

But the usual state of weather affairs out there is so consistently wet that everyone pretty much gets used to it. Why, my nieces famously squinted and shrieked, “Too bright, Mommy, too bright!” one sunny spring morning and begged for the curtains to be drawn.

People who live there, my sister included, just kind of walk around in the mist and/or rain with their shoulders shrugged up to their ears. I have yet to see an umbrella. A major concession to the universal damp is to pull one’s hoodie hood to the upward position.

Me with my hoodie hood up. Note: Peanuts characters in the background are not carrying umbrellas

That’s how I’d see the pods of kids in the mornings waiting for the school bus: shrugged into their hoodies, staring at the phones cradled under the “awnings” of their chins. Of course, I had options for my walks. I’d check the weather, then look for a “window” of clear weather. (Or at least a window of not-so-much rain.) Then I’d scamper out for my walk. One day, though, my window closed before I could get back and, if I had indeed been made of sugar, I would have dissolved right down to a nub.

Turns out that everyone in the Pacific Northwest waits for a “window,” then they dash about doing their grocery shopping, dog-walking and whatnot. Of course, at Mom’s place, the population being older, they just stay inside. Mom and I got our exercise by walking the hallways inside instead of the walkways outside. Hey, it was better than nothing — and we got to admire the various and sundry Christmasy-decorated doorways.

Mixed messages decorate a doorway in Mom’s building

To end on one last precipitation-soaked note, I got a surprise the last day I was there. I got up early, as is my wont, and peered out the window to assess the degree of wetness. But hey! There was snow!

The view out my Mom’s bedroom that last morning. Most of the snow had, alas, melted by the time I got this shot. Then, of course, it started raining again

But, my feelings of delight (fresh tracks! flinging snowballs!) rapidly turned into forebodings of danger (flight delays! falling!) I guess that’s how you know you’re officially old.

New York City. January 2024