Green Birds

Yesterday was a strange day for me. I left early to go to U of C. Almost the first thing of note that happened was that I was hurrying to catch a train and I fell on the escalator. I caught the train and then looked at my left hand, which had born the brunt of the fall. It was totally black with grease, but under the grease there was a long, shallow cut on running vertically on the outer palm. I have no idea what was so sharp and so dirty on that escalator. Happily, I had some hand sanitizer, and had sat in a seat where someone had left their newspaper, so I got myself cleaned up more or less. It was a startling way to start the day.

There's more though. When I got out at the Garfield stop as usual, I had to wait a long time for the bus. While I was waiting, I looked about me vaguely. The freeway was rushing by under my feet. People were shivering and complaining about the cold. And suddenly, a small ways down the street, I saw a flock of birds rise out of a tree. This is not an unusual sight in October, which is after all a season of migration. But these birds were green, and I don't mean brownish green or dark green or yellowish green--I mean bright grass green, GREEN. I couldn't believe my eyes. They rose out of the tree, flapped around, settled back down on the grass--and they were the same color as the grass. They might have been tropical butterflies, but too big. They might have been parrots, they were that green, but parrots don't live in Chicago. San Francisco maybe--I saw The Parrots of Telegraph Hill--but not Chicago, not with frost coming on, surely! I walked partway down the street, rubbing my eyes and trying to get a better look. No one else seemed to find it the slightest bit strange. I still couldn't quite make out the shape of the birds, but there was so much traffic, I was worried that if I crossed too many streets I'd not make it back if a bus came. So I gave up and decided it would remain a mystery.

Later, at home, I told Pocket of Bolts about the surreal green birds. I suggested that perhaps I had been hallucinating, but thought hallucinations were a kind of on-again off-again phenomenon, and I had looked at these birds for a really long time. He said he was sure I wasn't hallucinating, and said I should google it. "Google what?" I said scornfully. "Green birds?" "Green birds Chicago," he suggested. You know what? Google knows everything; Google holds the key to (nearly) all the mysteries in our lives. I did the search he suggested, and sure enough, actually did manage to track down the green birds of Chicago. They are better known as "the Hyde Park Parakeets," a flock of feral Monk Parakeets (a sub-tropical species native to Argentina). (The photo at left gives you a sense of how green they were--not my photo, just found it on the web.) According to a web-site devoted to this fascinating phenomenon, "Chicago probably has the harshest winter monk parakeets face in the world, and it has been speculated that they survive exclusively on bird seed in backyard feeders during the coldest months." Well, now I have actually seen them.

I suppose from a blogging point of view the rest of the day is a bit anti-climax. I made it to campus, did some research, took a while to settle down, but finally got down to work and wrote my daily two pages of dissertation. I found a really nice comfortable sunny spot to do that in. At three, I went to the paleography class. At four hours a session, it's amazing I can keep focused, but it's actually really interesting. The class has no structure whatsoever. The teacher just flits from one character to another. Gradually, though, I am getting the feel for certain principles, begin to recognize certain forms, and acquiring more familiarity with the vocabulary of the discipline. I am learning something about the less obvious ways that character forms are related. A long time ago, I took a Chinese Historical Phonology class, where we were encouraged to think of etymology as inextricably linked with phonology, and were studying the changes in the language and explicitly NOT in the script. Here it is the reverse. The phonology figures peripherally, and what is of most concern is development of script forms. It's like the other half of the coin. Both sides are interesting. This side is actually a bit more accessible.

It was a cold night, and as I made my way home, I realized my phone battery was totally dead. Usually I call Pocket of Bolts to let him know when I'm on my way home, and I was worried that he'd be worried. He was a little worried, but is a steady chap. Our apartment was warm. He and I have been vying with each other in nostalgic cookery--foods from our childhoods. Last night he made pot-roast in the crock-pot, traditional recipe, Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup and all. Surprisingly, it was really quite good!