The swallows, originally uploaded by raoulpop.

A crop from a larger photo. I didn't have a telephoto lens with me. They saw me but let me approach. The funny thing is that the female (the one of the left) kept chirping and looking at the male (the one on the right) for clues about what to do. He would chirp reassuringly as he kept an eye on me, and she'd stay on the perch. When I got too close, the female let out an alarm chirp and flew away. The male looked at me for a few more seconds, then flew away as well. Interesting how social and communicative they are. Taken in North Bethesda, MD, USA.

Mom in limousine blue

Lies one in reserve

For babe in diaper new

High arched chariots

Warmed up urns

When crawl on roads

Chaos up churn

Screeming horns a torrential affair

High up heavens, shuffle dare,

Suits of black, poison in flow

Skies blind, darken swallow

Concerns show not when Hi-fis tall

Warnings into ears deaf fall

Global Tax fix

On wretcheds all !

And there's another sign that, fine weather or no, the summer has gone: the swallows. It's hard to notice an absence, but they have not been around here for a couple of days. The other half has seen them elsewhere, but there are fewer, much fewer, and the sky seems so quiet without them. If it takes more than one swallow to make a summer, how many non-swallows does it take to make it end?

And we'll be getting fewer evenings like these, too, soon. Must remember to enjoy them while they last.

I spent much of this weekend touring around the Los Angeles River with Urban Photo Adventures. They're a start-up business headed by a pair of savvy Hollywood location scouts named Mark Indig and Ken Haber. Urban Photo Adventures is organizing a series of special 2-day Los Angeles River photography tours. Their first full-fledged tour will take place on Saturday/Sunday November 8th and 9th 2008. Conflict of interest note: Urban Photo Adventures are indeed paying me to docent portions of their river tours, so I do have a small financial stake in what I am promoting on this blog entry.

The Urban Photo Adventures tour is a bit different than tours I've led in the past. It includes background on history and revitalization efforts, but it's a bit less focused on the most natural areas, and more on photogenic gritty urban parts of the river, and the neighborhoods around them. Think L.A. Conservancy's Cruising Industrial Los Angeles plus some of FoLAR's River Revitalization Tours added to the mix. Usually when I lead a tour, we move along relatively quickly from site to site. Urban Photo Adventures' photo tour gives plenty of time for photographers to explore and capture each site. These extended tours run two full weekend days from 8am-6pm each day.

The past weekend's dry run went well - Mark and Ken have done a lot of scouting to find excellent unusual and hidden spots. They even showed me a couple nooks and crannies in places that I had never seen before - including some off-the-beaten-track locations at the ports. One of these included a great gaggle of urban sea lions relaxing on a low industrial wharf. It's just the kind of natural/unnatural juxtaposition that is found in many spots along the L.A. River. Some other photo tour sites include: Sepulveda Dam, Devil's Gate Dam, downtown historic bridges, the soft-bottomed scenic Glendale Narrows and Lower Arroyo Seco, and neglected rail- and graffiti-strewn areas on and near the river. The photo tour includes a brief wine tasting at the San Antonio Winery (the last of the remaining wineries that once were prevalent in downtown Los Angeles, wineries that grew grapes watered via zanjas from the river) and a 45-minute boat ride at the Los Angeles Harbor (at the mouth of the L.A. River and the Dominguez Channel.) The port views there are monumental and spectacular -huge cranes, tankers, pelicans, sea lions, and the longest bridge in the city.

I was struck today in seeing many of the most concrete parts of the river looking rather green. Over the course of the dry season, sediment settles in places on top of the concrete river bed. Plants begin to grow in these shallow sandbars. The plants attract insects; the insects attract birds. In the "exclusively industrial" city of Vernon, the stretch of the river near the Soto Street Bridge was teeming with dozens of swallows swooping and curving through the air. I like to think of it as instant nature - just add earth and water. Unfortunately a lof of these sandbars will wash out during the rainy season... but they'll be back.

I've interspersed various example photos Ken and Mark have taken at river tour sites. Larger versions and many more photos are viewable at their website gallery.

If you're interested in photography and in checking out some of the hidden faces of the mighty Los Angeles River, consider signing up for a tour. Full tour information is available at Urban Photo Adventures website.

sir robin-"a newt?"

villager-"it got betta. . . "

***

now for the frenchmen!!!!

Frenchmen-"We fart in your general direction"

Frenchmen-"Of course I'm french! Why do you zink i haze this ridulouz accent??"

Frenchmen-"Your mother was a hampster, and your father smelt of elderberries!"

Frenchmen-"You tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms!"

Frenchmen-"Go boil your bottoms sons of a silly person!"

Frenchmen-"You empty headed animal food trough whopper!"

***

Workers:

Dennis-"I'm 37. I'm not old."

Dennis-"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords, is no basis for a system of government."

Dennis-"Help! Help! I'm being repressed!!!"

***

Guards:

Guard #1-"Where'dya get the coconuts?"

Guard #1-"are you suggesting coconuts migrate?"

Arthur-"Not at all, they could be carried"

Guard #1-"What a swallow carry a coconut?"

Arthur-"It could grip it by the husk"

Guard #1-"Its not a question of where he grips it.  Its a simple question of weight ratios, a 5 ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound coconut. "

Guard #1-"listen in order to maintain an airspeed volocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings 43 times every second right?"

Guard #2-"It could be carried by an african swallow!"

Guard #1-"Oh an african swallow maybe but not a european swallow thats my point."

Guard #2-"Oh yea i agree with that."

Guard #1-"but then again african swallows are non-migratory"

. . . . .

***

Father-" Whats not to like about her?  Shes rich! Shes beautiful! Shes got huge.... tracks of land!!!"

***

NWSN-" NI!!"

NWSN-" We want a shrubbery"

***

roger-" I am roger the shrubber i sell shrubberys."

***

Black Night-"NONE SHALL PASS!"

Black Night-"tis just a scratch nothing but a flesh wound"

***

Narrorator- " a moose once bit my sister"

Arthur-"On second thought lets not go to camelot, tis a silly place"

So I got to work on an illustration project for Petersons StudentEdge, which is a college planing online resource for high school students. It is a pretty cool tool when planning for you future so check it out at www.mystudentedge.com or if you are in high school ask you counselor if your school is set up with it.

You can also check out some cool extras on cafepress.com

I have finally got round to sorting out my photos and I'm pleased to say that I can give you a little up date on how my bird embroidery is coming along.

Here it is along side it's sister piece which I'm doodling on from time to time. As you can see I decided to embroider on the bird pattern.

I am sewing it from the back and getting a lovely spidery sketchy type quality from the stitches which I love.

I have actually almost finished the stitching now, but as is always the case just as I am about to finish, I have run out of thread!

I am using a lovely cream Oliver twist thread, which I will get more of very soon so I can get finished.

CX

Now then, to continue miz series on fishing, let me tell ya about the different types of fisher person, firsty, there are the coarse boys and Gurls.  What is it all about? Grown men, women boys and girls sitting around muddy old ponds and stretches of canals and rivers with long poles with string through, dangling worms in front of fish you wouldn’t feed to the cat if you caught any way – daft in it – No No No it ain’t – when asked Why? Oh why? My answer is always the same – It’s about being there – enjoying the countryside and having a chance to contemplate life.  – It’s what you see – Kingfishers, Swallows, Herons, water voles, skylarks damson flies, butterflies and wild flowers. The fishing is just a reason to be out in the beautiful English countryside a bit like walking the dog it’s an excuse to explore and enjoy, with the ever present excitement and expectation of the ’Big un’, catching that mystical and elusive monster that lurks in the murky depths that is always tantalizingly nibbling away at your worm – but alas it never seems to ‘take the bait’ – on the very odd occasion it does and your ready to strike and not pouring out a cup of tea or supping on an ale – the rod bends the line screams and, and and………. Twangs……… snap……. the bloody thing got away again – oh well never mind.  Where would be in the pub without the stories of the ‘ones that got away’.  If we only talked about the ones we caught there would only be time for half a larger!

  Uncle Bunty - Tight Lines

I feel so refreshed after having spent the long weekend on a fantastic beach with my even more fantastic husband, we finally got our honeymoon after six and a half years of marriage!

I'm a bit behind with all my creative stuff, so for now I just wanted to post a link to these fantastic web seminars that Oprah Winfrey is doing with Eckhart Tolle, author of 'The power of now' and 'A new earth'

I'm reading A new earth at the moment and I'm loving listening to these seminars along side the book.

Find them here

And I also just wanted to post some random acts of creation!

CX

A monument in Paul Church – but who was he?

An eighteenth century "oops!"

It's the people who make the atmosphere

Millennium sundials

More than a century of service

Swallows are damn' quick fliers!

Also, now that I come to consider, Starlings are flocking in urban areas ready to take the rural plunge for winter feeding.  Swallows and Martins are lining the telephone cables (where there are any left these days) and seem to be preparing for migration.  Crows, Rooks and Jackdows in mixed flocks are starting to find roosting trees away from urbanisation too..

I looked back into some of my daily journals for the late '90's and find that I was commenting on such behaviour then BUT, in middle to late September.  In our area farmers have already finished 'hay making' and its attendant rituals of ploughing, harrowing and now an early winter grain crop has been sown.  Generally wheat I'm reliable informed by one aquaintance who says that he hopes to harvest by December and replant for a spring  cropping too.

I do like the autumnal times but not in August.  Late october and then for the remainder of the year I like the darker nights and shorter days when good things can be done in the quiet and comfort of a cosy home.  Jam and chutney making, bread baking, generally things that our  forebears would have done to prepare for the (then) long cold barren months.  I love a howling gale scything across the flat fens, rattling windows, loose guttering and the ubiquitious corrugated iron.  Sitting before a roaring log fire sipping some warm elderberry wine and staring into the flaming caves and tunnels of the inferno is something I value as part of my heritage.

It's definitely too early in the year to be thinking these thoughts.  I have many more nights pitched in some quiet corner to contemplate first.

Cheers and good night.

Not that I got much chance to admire their aerobatics. For I discovered that the only thing on two wings scarier than a buzzing buzzard is an adult swallow defending its young. Buzzards might be bigger, but swallows have the advantage of speed, accuracy, and an enraged chattering noise that's more alarming than it might sound. So I shall confine myself to admiring them from the doorstep in the my-god-is-that-sunshine and enjoy the show while it lasts. Because pretty soon they'll be off to bother the flies of West Africa. And I'm not sure that I can blame them at all.

PS Anyone notice the progression of the last three posts? No doubt, this time tomorrow I'll be menaced by a cat...

Last week's collection was Kathleen Jamie's The Tree House, which I picked partly because I remember poetry Andrew recommending it, and partly because of its beautiful title. Jamie won the Forward Prize for Poetry for it in 2004.

It's a slim collection with, as you might expect from the title, the theme of human interaction with nature running strongly through it. Perhaps that was part of the reason I warmed to it instantly: I loved the dialogue with birds, trees, puddles, flowers; and I loved the shimmering clarity and conciseness with which she writes. Another one of those poets who I read and think, ah, this is what poetry is for me. I'll have to dig out her first collection, Jizzen, which I have to confess makes me snigger.

There was quite a lot that I wanted to find out about: where is the specific wishing tree of the first poem? What are the traditions of Water Day? Who was Hölderlin, and should I read him? I plan to look some of these up, but the only frustrating thing was my lack of Scots dialect, which rendered a few poems incomprehensible.

Favourites - and I'll list them all, although they seemed to be every other page - were 'The Wishing Tree', 'Alder', 'Water Day', 'Before the Wind', 'The Swallows' Nest', 'The Whale-watcher', 'The Buddleia', 'Daisies', 'Reliquary', 'The Brooch', 'The Puddle' and this achingly beautiful, fragile sonnet, 'Swallows':

I wish my whole battened
heart were a property
like this, with swallows
in every room - so at ease

they twitter and preen
from the picture frames
like an audience in the gods
before an opera

and in the mornings
wheel above my bed
in a mockery of pity
before winging it

up the stairwell
to stream out into light

The Tree House, Kathleen Jamie (Picador, 2004)

11 games have been played so far and powerhouses Chiben-Wakayama (Wakayama), Kagoshima-Jitsugyo (Kagoshima), Chiben (Nara), Hotoku-Gakuen (East Hyogo), Kanto-Daiichi (East Tokyo), Kisarazu-Sogo (East Chiba), and Urasoe-Shogaku (Okinawa) have all won their first round games, and young Honjo-Daiichi (North Saitama) with a starting lineup consisting seven 1st and 2nd years (with a 1st year 1st baseman slugger hitting cleanup, most unusual as most teams lineups are loaded with 3rd year students as they're more physically and technically developed at this age) is currently tied with Kaisei (Shimane) 4-4 in the first game of the day right now. (Update: Okuda Pedro just won the game for Honjo by leading off the bottom of the 9th with a walkoff homerun to deep centre on a difficult pitch.)

Some other notes of interest:

• I saw Kanto-Daiichi in the quarterfinals and semifinals of their East Tokyo qualification tournament.

• I have a rooting interest in Okinawan high schools, and Urasoe defeated the 2008 Spring Koshien (invitational) champs Okinawa-Shogaku in the Okinawa qualifier tournament final, so they're a legitimate threat to win it all this summer.

• Baseball exchange students are on some teams. Iizuka (Fukuoka) had Kim Dong-Ming(? 金東民) from Korea as it's leadoff hitter and starting shortstop, as a 2nd year, definitely the core of the team. Magario Mike(?) is a Japanese-Brazilian 2nd year outfielder and 187 cm tall slugger for the powerhouse Aomori-Yamada (Aomori). And Honjo-Daiichi (North Saitama) also features two Japanese-Brazilians, ace Ito Diego and starting shortstop Okuda Pedro. They have both gone through the "Centro Trainament Yakult"(?) baseball academy before going to Honjo-Daiichi. Ito Diego (left) and Okuda Pedro

• Urasoe-Shogaku's (Okinawa) cap is designed like the Tokyo Yakult Swallows cap, and this is probably intentional as Urasoe is the Okinawan city where the Swallows hold training camp every spring.                   Urasoe-Shogaku         Tokyo Yakult Swallows

• Pitch counts are often mentioned during game commentary, mostly as how it wears down pitchers, and some teams even talk about a walk being just as valuable as a hit (not true, but close, and way better than discounting the walk). The tides are slowly changing even in high school ball.

I'm happy to report that after a week of rain, summer is still very much here.  There are still baby birds in the ponds, houses, and trees.  There are fields and rows of flowers in bloom.  Not too many bird migrants coming and going yet.  Although I did overhear that some of the swallows have left for the south. 

I saw dragonflies again today but none close enough for portraits. 

Here's the important part:  Sunrise today was at 5:48.  (Eek! Getting close to 6 a.m.).  Sunset was at 20:49.  The 9 o'clock gun just went off with a big thump on my windows as I was looking up the sunrise and sunset times.  Yes even where I live I sometimes get a distinct thump. 

The forecast for the next 3 days has 30 plus temperatures at YVR!!  Not my favourite. 

Your bulletineer went on a minor expedition and walked down this path today:

You see what I mean about summer still being very much with us.  The cool wet days of the last week have "spruced" things up again. 

The "Celebration of Light" (the local fireworks show) has ended for another year.  We sunwatchers carry on with our much more important celebration of light each day. 

August is here.  She always has a different character than July.  I listened to the most fabulous Ted Hughes' poem today.  Oh yes he was a REAL poet.  So was Sylvia!  The Seven Sorrows lists the sorrows of autumn.  We're not there yet but he speaks of the third sorrow being the sun gathering the minutes of the evening (the golden and holy ground of the picture) and the catacombs of the dragonflies.  And he speaks of the year packing up like a fairground which came for the children--part of the sixth sorrow.    It's a terrific poem.  Read it if you have a chance.  I must try to remember it for the next season. 

As the sun gathers up a few of the minutes of the mornings and the evenings, I remain your bulletineer and friend.  Until next time, enjoy these long hot sunlit days of SUMMER!

Daphne

Last time it took less than three weeks to go from this

to this

Let's see how long it takes them this time.

Well, I could hardly call the time I've spent here since February, either 'laid-back or 'relaxing'! But they remind me of why I love the life here.....and made me aware that somewhere along the line I've forgotten to 'stop and smell the flowers'......
My painter, Nikos, also served me a reminder me the other day when he was painting the rear of the villa. He came running in, breathlessly excited about something and insisted I stop what I was doing, immediately, and follow him.

He lead me to the large Evia oak tree in the back garden and then stood perfectly still, just staring at it. So I did the same (with no clue as to what I was supposed to be looking at!). A tree is a tree after all and although this Evia oak is a spectacular specimen, I'd seen it many, many times before - studied it even, for a painting once. I knew it well!

After some time, becoming slightly irritated (I had work to do - and so, for that matter, had he!) I began to turn away.
"Wait!" he ordered "Just wait!"
'OK' I thought, 'I'm obviously missing something. Lets see.....'
I began to make a mental note: Large gnarled trunk, greyish, textured, thick at the base, tapering at the top. Wide elegant branches reaching out in all directions, covered with roundish sage-green leaves that seem to shimmer silver in the sunlight; as the breeze ripples through, showing their paler undersides - like thousands of glittering silver dollars cascading through the air. Nope. A beautiful specimen, as Evia oaks go - but nothing unusual, as far as I could see....

I made to leave again, Nikos caught my arm.
"Just wait - you'll see a miracle!" he insisted
I looked more closely in the direction he was pointing to and saw a larger than average, bright green new leaf in bud. Behind it, further back along the branch and onto the trunk, was a row of greyish 'lumps'. Knobbly bits of bark or so I thought till suddenly I saw one of then move! I rubbed my eyes in disbelief - yes! it had definitely moved....and it moved again....and again...creeping ever so slowly, along the branch towards the new leaf bud.

When it reached it, tiny front legs appeared and clamped themselves around the base of the bud. Within seconds the 'leaf' now began to move too, growing larger and larger before my eyes. Suddenly, in one swift moment, it burst open, revealing....not a leaf at all but a beautiful pair of bright lime green unfurling wings!
"Oh! What on earth is it?" I squealed in both delight and horror.
" A tzitzicas!" Nikos whispered, trying to control his excitement, "Shsh! See! See!"
Suddenly its legs appeared, groping blindly to steady it's grasp on the branch! As soon as it had began extricating itself from its brown crusty 'shell', the 'lump' which had assisted in it's metamorphosis, began to sprout a new green 'leaf' of its own. That in turn, triggered another 'knobbly lump' to egde its way along the branch towards it. Within the space of a few minutes, a whole converyor belt of 'Tzitzicas' had helped eachother into the world, in this way. It was an awesome site. A miracle indeed!
At this point I ran in for my camera but when I returned, just a few seconds later, four swifts dived in and, in one fell swoop, gobbled up the whole lot of them! After all that effort and team work, It felt sad to see new life swept away before it had barely begun! Nature's way, the law of survival, can be so harsh sometimes.
A 'tzitzicas' is of course, a 'cidada'.
The noise it makes is deafening and though it may sound as though there are thousands of them there are probably only a few hundred perched in the trees surrounding the house at the moment.
I used to marvel at the sheer volume of sound a single one can produce! Knowing now, as I do, the unsurmountable odds it takes simply to reach maturity, I think, if I was a cidada, I would be doing my utmost to let the whole world proudly know of my achievement and make sure everyone was aware of my presence, too!

Nature may seem 'cruel' yet I firmly believe in a simple philosophy of Life: 'What goes around, come around'. A few days later my electrician, Panagiotis, called me to the meter box, on the outside of the house, where he 'd been working. He lifted off the (broken) glass front to show me what he'd uncovered; a swift's nest, beautifully, laboriously constructed from moss, leaves and twigs (I used to spend many an hour entranced by the elegant ballet they perform in the sky every springtime when they arrive) Inside, were six perfect, tiny, swift's eggs. Before I could stop him, he'd lifted out the nest and picked up one of the eggs between his fingers. I took it off him, replaced it with the others and moved the whole nest into a nearby tree, fully aware that it was fultile; the mother would probably never touch it now. Sure enough the nest remained abandoned until one day all the eggs just disappeared; eaten by a snake most probably, I was told (Yes, we have them too! But that's a story for another day)

These are just two of the incidents that forced me me slow down this week and both are typically part of the life here on a Greek island. I'm reminded of Laurence Durrell's writing in his book 'My Family and Other Animals', when as a boy in Corfu he would lie in the undergrowth of the olive groves or wait patiently, wedged between rocks in a cove, for hours at a time, mesmerised by the comings and goings of spiders, ants and suchlike. He lived in another world, one in which these 'miracles' occur all the time. It's a world we all share - yet its one that's all too easy to take for granted and to overlook, as we go about our busy, busy lives......How many 'miracles' will you witness today, before your head touches your pillow?

Interleague games officially ended on Monday but the title was clinched by the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks on Sunday, even though they tied with the Hanshin Tigers with 15-9 records. The silly tiebreaker rule doesn't take head to head record into account, if that were the case the Tigers would've won the (still) rather meaningless Interleague crown because they took 3 of 4 from the Hawks (also won 3 against the PL leading Saitama Seibu Lions). Anyways, after a few days off (scheduled as reserve dates for rainouts), regular intraleague play resumes tomorrow with a full slate of 6 games.

Anyways, here are how things shook out following the conclusion of the Interleague period.

1. Hanshin Tigers(1) 43-22-1 .662

Tied for best record in Interleague without having the advantage of playing against the sorry Yokohama BayStars, and beat up on the PL leading Lions and Interleague Champs Hawks. Most balanced team in the league with an on base juggernaut offense (top 3 CL OBP leaders, and only hitters to have OBP over .400 in CL are Kanemoto, Akahoshi, and Arai, and Toritani checks in at 8th with .362) So the Tigers lead the league in runs scored (273) despite homering the least (35), and their shutdown bullpen helps prevent runs big time and they lead the league in this category too (218). The complete package.

2. Chunichi Dragons(3) 36-28-3 .563

Regains the penultimate position in this ranking largely thanks to the Lions tailspin at the end of Interleague, as the Dragons only had a .500 record against PL teams, but managed to take 3 of 4 against Seibu.

3. Saitama Seibu Lions(2) 39-30-1 .565

Ended Interleague campaign on a horrible note, losing 6 straight and 9 of the last 12. Even losing both games to the lowly BayStars. This is still a strong team and PL race has just gotten really interesting with the slumping Lions and soaring Hawks as the top 4 teams are now bunched together within 4 games of eachother. Lions are probably thankful that what turned out to be a dreaded Interleague season is finally over.

4. Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters(5) 39-32-1 .549

Was in the hunt for the Interleague title going into the final weekend, the team continues to win close games as the Fighters have only outscored their opponents by 4 runs for the season.

5. Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles(4) 35-34 .507

A team with very good fundamentals (310 - 256, RS - RA) sits in 4th place in the PL standings but definitely has the capability to be in a playoff position and should be there sooner rather than later. Had first ever winning Interleague season in its history with 13-11 record.

6. Fukuoka Softbank Hawks(6) 38-34 .528

Interleague champions nudged their way up to claim the 3rd and final playoff position in the PL. The team seems to have woken up, it'll be interesting to see if they can keep this up in their own league.

7. Tokyo Yomiuri Giants(8 ) 34-33-1 .507

Solid Interleague campaign of 14-10 has the team back in black. Good pitchers Takahashi and Uehara are returned to the big club after rehabbing from injury. The former should go into the rotation and the latter in the bullpen where he was a successful closer last season. Beneficiary of the new Free Agency rules agreed upon between NPB and the Senshukai (Players' Association) reducing the number of years of service until domestic FA to 8, a quirk in the rule allows FA eligible imports to not count as imports, meaning that slugger Alex Ramirez will not count against the import quota starting next season.

8. Hiroshima Toyo Carp(7) 30-32-2 .484

A decent 13-11 record in Interleague. The dog days of summer may be very helpful to the Carp this year as all of NPB's best will be at Beijing while the Carp will likely not lose anyone to the Olympics. They'll just have to hang on until then, as a 3rd place finish and a seat in the playoffs is needed for Marty Brown to extend his contract as the manager of this feisty club that lost its cleanup hitter (Arai) and ace (Kuroda) to FA after last season. (Though Colby Lewis is doing a fine job filling in for Kuroda with 10-5, 2.28 ERA on a mediocre team playing in a hitters park.)

9. Tokyo Yakult Swallows(9) 30-34 .469

Norichika Aoki is back and has been his awesome self with a slash line of .331/.391/.506. NPB hitters may be getting wise to the ways of the Lim though, as the closer has given up 5 runs (4 earned) over his last 5 appearances. Aaron Guiel's rehab seems to be going well, as he's played 2 games in the minors recently (going 0-3 with a walk), hopefully he'll be fully recovered soon and back with the big club. An Aoki - Hatakeyama - Guiel cleanup could be pretty awesome.

10. Chiba Lotte Marines(10) 31-41 .431

10. Orix Buffaloes(11) 31-40 .437

Both teams had uninspiring Interleague season (10-14 and 11-13). Still no end in sight to their woes, but neither of them are even close to the patheticness of...

12. Yokohama BayStars(12) 19-45-1 .297

Only team to win less than 10 games (.417) in Interleague, the sad BayStars went 6-18 (.250), their saving grace was the sweep of the slumping Lions at the end of Interleague. U-G-L-Y.

At Fort McHenry it was so hot I could rub inside my elbow and roll up little balls of sweat and dirt. A black fly bit my left ankle right through the sock. The flies came in late August, like it was their vacation. I was on the grass near the sea wall, where I loved to be, alone. Tug boats made big waves in the harbor that splashed against the wall. Gulls swooped. Ted told me about the swallows, the littler faster birds with split tails, how they never landed and ate bugs that jumped up from the grass. They made sharp turns, low to the ground, fast as bullets and even drank harbor water without stopping. I wondered, Did swallows ever sweat? It was hot but it wasn't the heat, it was the "hume-a-diddy-tee." That was Ted trying to be funny. He claimed water in the air made it all sticky. "You can breath water like fish do, Andy" he said, "did you know that?" One thing sure, I knew summer was over. "Done and done," as Ted would say. No more back and forth under water at Riverside Pool for me, just to see how long I could hold my breath.

That night alone in Ronnie's room I slid the radio dial across the stations looking for The Lone Ranger. I loved that show. When Alice sent me up there for punishment it was pure pleasure in disguise, like Brer Rabbit in the brier patch. I had saved a bunch of Sunday comics just for punishment situations, so I'd have something I liked to do. I drew Little Audrey without tracing, just by looking back and forth from the comics. She was easy—circles mostly—but I wasn't good enough yet to draw Ozark Ike, who looked almost like he was real-life.

The Lone Ranger music came on at seven-thirty and I tried to draw him from memory. Got his face and hat and mask almost perfect, but Silver's back legs gave me a big-time fit. That horse came out looking like a giant muskrat. Meanwhile, my stomach growled from being sent off to bed without supper. What happened next I don't know, must have gone to sleep. Then morning came and my stomach hollering woke me up. I loved breakfast, especially at Alice's—eggs and bacon and white milk gravy over biscuits—she was five times the cook Momma was, even on a bad day.

On one of Ted's Saturday Evening Post magazine covers—he kept piles and piles of them—bright sunlight comes in the huge living room window. The family is dressed for church, and most of them head out the door, except the daddy—who looks like Ted. That daddy, he's slunk down in his chair with the Sunday funnies, and you can tell by his face he's in big trouble. Mr. Norman Rockwell, the best drawer in the world, drew that. There was always a story in one of his pictures because of how he made the faces, the expressions on the faces, and the way people sat and stood and dressed. Just by looking you knew exactly how it was all going to turn out. His pictures were funny, too—but not just funny.

Ted's ugliest pigeon was his best one and for some reason he was the only one I wanted to draw. Ted called him Mister de Leon, after a Spanish guy who discovered the world. Mister de Leon was the biggest pigeon I ever saw, and he had two shades of brown feathers and one white spot just under his beak. I tried to draw him like Mr. Rockwell would, but he moved around too much. Waddled when he walked. But that thing could fly. No matter how far Ted took him on race days, he'd find his way back to the roof coop faster than real. Forty, fifty miles sometimes. Won all the races. Beautiful in the air, but—like I say—not much to brag on on the ground.

As usual Ted's pigeons were every which way all over the roof. He had the coop doors open and used a long handled scraper to clean out the mess. Birds were perched on Ted's shoulders and one on his head. You could tell they were glad to see him. "A pigeon is lazy," he said. "Won't take the time to clean up after itself." Ted had carried feed up in a fifty-pound sack and sat it off to one side. He took the garden hose and washed out the coop, then filled the drinking troughs. "Serious, Andy," he said. "It's a fact. Watch 'em in the park. A pigeon won't fly if it has a choice. A pigeon'd rather stroll anytime than lift a wing."

Ted did a special wave and his pigeons took off and flew huge oval patterns over the rooftops, all together, in perfect time. The sky was a deep blue with three clouds out over the harbor. A skipjack slid by on the water. Some guy five roofs down the block used a towel to wave his birds off, then he whistled once and they mixed in with Ted's flock. Ted laughed and watched them all circle together. He said, "Gotta remind coop pigeons to exercise, otherwise—like some women—they get fat fast."

Ted put shallow birth nest cups in the coop for the momma pigeons about to have babies. He filled their feed boxes. "Yeah, you gotta keep 'em happy," he said, pigeons and women." Ted looked at me but I didn't say nothing, so he kept on. "I learned about pigeons from pigeons," he said, "but women—well, I learned about women from pigeons, too." Ted did a big sigh. "Be careful when you marry, Andy. If you marry. Impossible to take an unhappy woman and make her happy. No man can do that." He smiled. "Best a man can do is find a happy woman and keep her busy."

Ted held up a handful of feed and let the grains fall through his fingers. Even as high as his birds were you could tell from how their wings dipped they heard the grain hit the roof. Beautiful. The guy down the block whistled three times, two long and one short. Ted quick did a code whistle, too—five short and one long—and the mixed flock split up and swooped back to their roosts. Somehow Ted got five of the other guy's birds mixed in with his. He had won a pigeon war and I didn't even know there had been one going on. "The main rule of pigeon raids," Ted said, "is you have to return captives to their rightful owner." He shooed the prisoner birds off the roof and sent them home. Ted was no schnocker, the name he called the guys who'd cheat and keep a bird that wasn't his. Damn right. Ted was no mutt.

When it came to girls Ted was just like my Daddy, and according to Momma that was the problem, or at least one of the problems. She claimed other women were the main reason she chased him off—that and the drinking. Ted was no drunk, but more than once I spotted him at Cross Street Market messing with some girl. That one day I was watching a guy hose off the concrete floor down at the fish end and Ted was with Rhonda Duffington working in her daddy's fish stall. He didn't see me. All five Duffington sisters worked at in family business, but Rhonda was the best looking one. She was married to some Polack guy, but everybody still thought of her as a Duffington anyway. "All them girl's," Daddy said once, "now there's wall-to-wall beautiful."

I had ducked behind the fish stalls and snuck up the aisle where they keep the trash and worked my way close enough to the Duffington stall to try and find out exactly what was what with Ted and Rhonda. First thing I heard was her saying, "My marriage ain't no business of yours, Ted." But meanwhile Rhonda smiled at him like he was Clark Gable.

Ted laughed. "Girl, do you know the Italian way to keep a man happy?"

She said, "Mister, you here after seafood or what?"

"Sort of," he said, and pointed to Rhonda's fish display laid out on crushed ice. "Your creatures look awful puny, though. Cloudy eyes."

Rhonda looked at him like her brain was thinking about anything but fish, maybe some kind of delicious dessert. She batted her eyelids and said, "You gonna be at Lombardi's tonight, Hon?"

"Maybe."

"I can get out," was all she said back.

Ted did his silly grin. "Then who knows, I might just show up for a drink or three." He winked at her. "Now let me explain about pasta."

"You ain't I-talian!"

Ted put his hand on Rhonda's arm and looked in her eyes. "Damn straight I am, girl!" That was a lie. Ted was no Wop—he was pure Bohunk—but you could tell by the way she ate him up with her eyes that Rhonda believed his every word.

Part three of The Last Dog will post tomorrow.

01. When You're In Love :: Original Swallows version
02. WHNYRNLUV :: Y-TRON's Ripped Out Single Edit
03. Language Is Restless :: Y-TRON's Booty Earthquakes Remix
04. WHNYRNLUV :: Y-TRON's Ripped Out Remix (extended version)
05. WHNYRNLUV :: Y-TRON's Spaced Out Remix
Artwork (300dpi)

[To save on a PC: right click and save. On a Mac, click the link / Go to File / Save Page As]

This digital EP is a sneak peak at the upcoming Swallows remix collection, Loud Machines, featuring more from Y-TRON, Radio Sloan (featuring Team Gina), Raised by Television, Sea Otter, Pallaton, The Artificial Sea and a couple of surprises from Swallows! This collection will be shared as a digital album through MINI LIFE and possibly a short run of physical copies for you to have and to hold.