Happy Thanksgiving 2020!

 

Happy Thanksgiving 2020! Ticked-Off Turkey is still as ticked-off as he was when I made him 10 years ago, but I'm actually very grateful for a lot of things right now, even here at the end of one of the strangest years I've ever seen. Best to all from Brooklyn, NY.

Jamaica Bay swan rescue

 No photos or stories of my own today, sorry (oops, ok, a doodle slipped in at the end!) - I think we've all had a rough week and I just can't resist sharing this really lovely NY Times story about New Yorkers rescuing an injured swan from the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Most fortunate swan, to be found by the particular woman who found her - a former animal care manager at Manhattan's Wild Bird Fund. I would be scared to get close to a swan even if it did look injured, I think a lot of us would, but Ms. Cordova-Rojas knew exactly what to do, and found the helpers she needed when she needed them, too. Hooray for these good New Yorkers! 

Click here to read the story. Feels so good to share this tonight. 

And it's so good to see such good publicity for the Wild Bird Fund - I first learned about them after my own encounter with a bird in need of assistance, a woodcock I found lying stunned on the sidewalk on Broadway after a late night at work. A friend at my kayak club is a trained rescuers for the WBF, and he had a ton of good information about what to do should I ever find another dazed bird lying on the sidewalk. Birds & NYC window reflections are a bad combination, they just think it's sky, and my friend mentioned that woodcocks are especially at risk because they habitually fly low when escaping a threat, and also have eyes set far back on their heads, making it hard to see what they need to in a confusing streetscape of light and reflection. 

click here for my blog post about that rather surreal-feeling evening!

Oh, and here is a picture after all - I hadn't drawn in a while before the evening I tried to help that bird, but it was such an attractive bird that I had to try to draw it in happier circumstances later. BTW, woodcocks are also known as "timberdoodles", so this was my timberdoodle doodle! :D 

Walking again!

So remember that time I went to cast my early vote in a wheelchair? Amazing to think that was just 2 weeks ago, especially with all the breath-holding this week - it's felt like a month! Also, if you missed it on Facebook, you may not remember this as somehow it didn't make it into the blog here, I skipped straight from the medical update to that lovely Halloween sail. 

So anyways - I had intended to join in the early voting we have here in NYC, but I had of course had absolutely no clue that I was going to be so dreadfully shaky on my pins after 2 weeks in the hospital when the time rolled around! It wasn't that I couldn't walk at all but at this point, one week after my release, I'm seriously not sure I could've made it once around my own block, let alone to Brooklyn College, my early polling location, about 3/4 of a mile away. Also really didn't want to be on public transportation yet, so I asked some friends in the neighborhood if they could help. My friend Gail came through immediately and also had the very good idea of the wheelchair; she has some friends whose daughther has a small theater company and Gail was able to borrow an old but fully functional wheelchair from the prop deck - that worked out so well. 

That was the 26th of October. My new chemo was starting on the 27th, and I didn't know how that was going to go, hence my hurry to vote before that. As it happened, the new chemo is going fine and I'm very happy to report that today I actually walked a mile and a half! Still very slowly, but I went up to the Little Free Library up near Courtelyou Road, a few blocks to the north, to drop off some books I was done with, and then I just wandered about enjoying the weather (amazing, 72 degrees when I went out in the afternoon) and the foliage, which is getting lovely. Here are a few samples, click any photo for a slideshow view.  

 

Halloween Sail on the Schooner Adirondack

Well, what a glorious day. I'm still not very energetic these days, nothing much more than short walks in the neighborhood, but word made it back to an old friend on the Schooner Adirondack that I might want to go for a boat ride. Halloween afternoon turned out to be a glorious day, and I'm so glad TQ and I were able to go! Let's hear it for little birds - thank you!

And in this case I think the pictures are worth more than words - so here you are. Hopefully click on any photo for a slideshow view!