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This Bird’s Not a Wizard

Posted in Birds, Journeys, Nature, tagged bird watching, birds of prey, falcons, merlins, pat bean on September 30, 2013| 4 Comments »

This great photo of a Merlin in pursuit of a blue jay was taken by John Harrison who put it up on Wikimedia.

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Yet I Think It’s Magical

I had been seeing this dark bird shape flash overhead for several days, but hadn’t got a good enough look to identify it. Solving the mystery of what bird I’m observing is part of my bird-watching passion.

A close up look at a merlin. — Wikimedia photo

It was mourning dove size, but it flew nothing like a dove. I thought it flew like a hawk but it was too small for the Cooper’s hawks that have been keeping the apartment complex company all year.

The brief glimpses I had of the bird were tantalizingly frustrating. It would fly overhead past me, and by the time I looked up after seeing its shadow, it had disappeared into the trees.

Merlins, before they grew up and became majestic birds of prey. — Wikimedia photo

Finally a few mornings ago, as I sat drinking my cream-laced coffee and watching dawn break, I identified it as a merlin. It whizzed past my third floor balcony at eye level, probably after one of the small song birds that had been flitting around waiting to catch the morning sun, too.

Merlins are not year-round residents of the Tucson area, but they do migrate through and winter here, according to my birding field guide. Since I haven’t seen the merlin in the past couple of days, and since it’s not yet winter, I suspect it was just passing through on its way farther south.

With all the small birds around the complex, it probably decided this was a good place to fuel up. Merlins, according to Cornell University’s ornithological web site, rely on speed and agility to hunt their prey. The merlins often hunt by flying fast and low, using trees and large shrubs to take prey by surprise. While they actually capture most birds in flight, they will also tail-chase a bird to catch it.

. While not a lifer, I’ve only been able to identify this member of the falcon family a few times. But bird experts say the merlin is becoming more numerous in urban areas, so perhaps there are more “magical” merlin sightings in my future.

The Wondering-Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Ian Butler Photographer http://tinyurl.com/ledqorr Great photo of a dunlin for all you birders out there.

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September in the Rear View Mirror

Posted in Journeys, Nature, tagged 9/11, autumn, pat bean, Warren Buffet on September 27, 2013| 8 Comments »

“You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean it was uncertain back in – in 2007, we just didn’t know it was uncertain. It was – uncertain on December 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18^th, 1987, you just didn’t know it.” – Warren Buffet

I want to think of September as the beginning of my favorite time of year — but now I know it has to be shared with 9/11. — Photo by Pat Bean

I Let the Month Pass Purposely

Nine/Eleven: A word that once was only the numbers one called in an emergency. Now, 9/11 has become a synonym for pain, anger, tragedy, loss, and images of two toppling towers, a violated Pentagon, and a plane crash in which both villains and heroes died.

The first sign of autumn from my balcony window. — Photo by Pat Bean

Perhaps that is why I’m suddenly realizing I lost what has always been my best month of the year, the one that ushers in my favorite season of the year, autumn. I realized my loss when I wrote down the date in my journal this morning and the unthinking passage of time was hammered into my brain.

It’s not unusual for me to let time slip by too fast without thought, but this feels different. I saw people blogging about the terrorist attack earlier this month, and decided both not to read those blogs, not to think about their content, and certain not to write a similar one of my own .

I was a newspaper city editor on that fateful day back in 2001, and the job had immersed me in giving local meaning of the tragedy event to the paper’s 65,000 readers. I had followed up the next year in overseeing and writing a memorial series on 9/11.

Enough was enough, I had thought this year when I thought to ignore the day. I want my cup to be half full not half empty. I want to remember happier days. And so I let September slip me by.

But now I’m remembering, and as I write this my eyes are becoming moist. I guess I wasn’t meant to forget.

The Wondering-Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: At least this blogger kept his eyes open to the joys of September http://tinyurl.com/ma4mmeq

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Beautiful and Thorny

Posted in Journeys, tagged beauty, flowers, nature, pat bean, thorns on September 24, 2013| 4 Comments »

“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.” – Alphonse Karr

Pink and yellow and thorny. — Photo by Pat Bean

It’s a Good Combination

When you’ve reached the seventh decade of life, you begin to notice patterns: The sun comes up and goes down every morning, even if its hidden by clouds; women are attracted to men with a bit of wildness in their character — and then expect to tame them; and being too nice a person usually means one ends up getting taken advantage of even by good people.

How many times have you been pricked by a rose bush thorn? — Photo by Pat Bean

The latter is because people treat us the way we allow them to treat us. It took me way too long to discover this fact.

But I finally noticed that prickly people – I’m not talking cantankerous or mean here – get along well in life. Perhaps it’s because most of us prefer a bit of spice instead of too much sugar. If I hadn’t been so intent on ignoring everything about my mother for so long, I might have come to this conclusion much earlier in life. She could be a bit snarly at times yet, I was astonished to see, my kids adored her.

This prickly business seems to be a natural part of life, especially when it comes to nature. Some of the most beautiful flowers have thorns. I wonder if that’s to protect them, or to make us work a bit to enjoy them.

That’s another thing the years have taught me. Nature has a lot of good advice to give if I will just open my eyes to see it, and my mind to accept it.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Delicious Autumn http://tinyurl.com/ll8s442 This looks exactly how I like to travel. Perhaps I’m getting homesick for the road

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Bluebird of Happiness

Posted in Birds, Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged bluebird of happiness, bluebirds, mountain bluebird, pat bean on September 20, 2013| 2 Comments »

“The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression.” – Gary Larson

Three Choices

Male mountain bluebird. Have you ever seen anything bluer? — Wikipedia photo

North America has three bluebirds, an eastern, a western and the mountain bluebird. My tiny blue, glass figurine that represents the symbol of happiness — which is still hidden somewhere in the bins I stored away before taking to the road in my RV — most certainly represents the mountain variety. I hope I find it soon.

A mountain bluebird’s feathers, in my experience, are the bluest of blues. So blue that I was startled the day I first saw one. It seemed to sparkle in the cool, high mountain air where a recent snowfall had frosted the spruces and firs.

It was April 10, 1999. The day is etched in my memory because it was the day I began a passionate love affair with all birds – from the gigantic California condor, whose recovery from near extinction I have often wrote about, to the tiny calliope who once flashed me with its brilliant purple neck feathers.

This is an eastern bluebird that I photographed in the Natchez Trace as he sat on the rearview mirror of my RV. He’s cute, too, isn’t he? — Photo by Pat Bean

I’ve seen many mountain bluebirds since then, including at least 300 the time I was driving Highway 95 through the Glen Canyon Recreation Area. For about 10 miles of the drive, small flocks of the birds flittered along the roadside as I passed them by. I occasionally pulled off the road for a better look through my binoculars. The red-rock settings of the canyon made the blue feathers of the bird stand out — and glitter like stars on a dark night away from city lights.

Once, I participated in an Audubon check of bluebird boxes near the top of Monte Cristo in Northern Utah. During one of the nest box inspections, the leader of this long-term project was dive-bombed by two agitated bird parents as he unscrewed the top of the box so we could all check what was inside. I held my breath as I observed six baby mountain bluebirds with developing soft smoky gray feathers. It was truly a magical moment, especially when we all retreated and the parents saw that their babies were unharmed.

And so was the moment I had yesterday, when I observed my first mountain bluebird in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains, which are now my backyard.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: 23 Thorns http://tinyurl.com/qbdv4fk I started this blog because it was titled Baobab Tree. I can’t resist trees — or blogs about them. But the blog talked about a lot more than trees, including rhinos and fish eagles, and I was fascinated and charmed by the conversation, lengthy though it was – and with more to come. .

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The Value of Journals and Scrapbooks

Posted in Journeys, Writing, tagged editors, Grandparents Day, journals, pat bean, scrapbooking on September 18, 2013| 3 Comments »

The joys of being the first female editor to invade the editors’ meeting at the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah.

Managing to Survive my First Job as an Editor

When I sold my home in 2004, and rid myself of almost all my possessions so I could spend the next leg of my life’s journey traveling this country in a small RV, I packed away the few things I couldn’t part with in bins, which eventually ended up here in Tucson with my youngest daughter.

I just retrieved those bins and have been reliving the memories they hold. One of these had me belly laughing until I almost peed myself. It was a printout of an AP photo that had been posted on the board at an editors’ meeting, my first venture into what until then had been an all-male domain— I should note that the year was 1980 when women were just beginning to make themselves a force to be reckoned with in the working world.

On my first day in attendance as an editor at the meeting, one of the macho male newspaper editors boomed out: “OK guys. We all have to watch our language now. We have a lady present.”

I still journal and scrapbook. These 2 pages are from the Nana’s Day celebration my daughter’s family gave me for Grandparents Day.

Perhaps he didn’t mean his words as a put-down, but I took them that way. I didn’t want to be treated different, or special, because of my gender, especially not when I was fighting for equal pay for equal work. While I never cuss (unless you count the S word, and back then not even that) I flared back with: “That’s right. You #$%^&**” guys.” I didn’t spare the offensive adjectives. “Watch your language.”

They all laughed, but I think they got my message. At least there were no similar comments, or vulgar words either, in future editor meetings.

There did, however, continue to be sexism actions from the photographers, who posted the day’s picture selections on a presentation board. Almost every day there would be a cheesecake photo – one time it was Miss Nude America – that had no chance in a zillion of making it into our family-oriented newspaper.

Finally, I piped up: “OK. Fair is fair. What about some beefcake tomorrow?”

The above photo, with stickers identifying me as the blonde, and the caption: “Lets get this editors’ meeting over with, made the presentation board the next day. Everyone laughed, including me. I do have a sense of humor. In fact, I loved the joke so much that I swiped the photo printout and put it into my scrapbook. It still makes me laugh.

The upshot of my beefcake request, meanwhile, is that there were no more cheesecake photos brought into the editors’ meeting. Sometimes you just have to tackle issues by way of a back door.

And always scrapbook, so that memories, and belly laughs, can be relived.

Bean’s Pat: Totsy Mae http://tinyurl.com/ll74neu I absolutely adore this artist’s fantastic watercolors.

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Words

Posted in Journeys, Travel, tagged pat bean, Voltaire, words on September 12, 2013| 2 Comments »

“One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.” – Voltaire

Mr. Bearjanlgles: Now this is what I would call a play on words. — Photo by Pat Bean

I’m a Writer – So Naturally I Love Words

The question was asked the other day about which word I would ban if I had the power. The F word came to mind first, perhaps because a grandson was in the habit of using it on Facebook.

I finally told him if he said it one more time, I was going to personally track him down and wash his mouth out with soap.

But then I was briefly married to a man who used that word often, and didn’t find it as offensive coming from him as I found it coming out of the mouth of an 18-year-old grandson.

Perhaps that’s because the man, who was my second husband for all of eight months – but we won’t go into that except to say we are still friends – was just about the most intelligent person I’ve ever met. He used the F word for its shock value, not because he didn’t have other words to express his thoughts.

“Meanings are in people, not in words,” he would say.

Remembering this, I changed my mind about what word I would ban. And this time the word itself shouted a cacophony – now that’s a word I love — of congratulations to me for choosing the absolutely perfect word to ban.

The word, if I had the power to banish it from all dictionaries, would be: “Can’t.”

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Discovering America http://blogs.americanprofile.com/author/patbean/ Since I’ve settled, at least for a while in Tucson, my blog has become more of a thrice-weekly journal than a travel blog, like it mostly was when I was living on the road in my small RV. But I’m still writing a travel blog. It is called Discovering America and it’s for America Profile Magazine. I post three times a week. I thought I would point this out by giving myself a Bean’s Pat today; just in case some of you miss traveling around the country with me.

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Photo Challenge: An Unusual Point of View

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Art, Journeys, Nature, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged morning walks, nature on September 9, 2013| 3 Comments »

“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.” – Henry David Thoreau

Mother Nature used the rain to paint this canvas of wet and dry gravel pattrns. My apartment is at the top of the stairs yu see in the background. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Mother Nature used the rain to paint this canvas of wet and dry gravel pattrns. My apartment is at the top of the stairs you see in the background. — Photo by Pat Bean

Morning Walk with Pepper

It was lightly drizzling this morning when Pepper and I took a walk while dawn made her presence known. This is my favorite time of day, and as usual, Pepper and I had the apartment complex courtyards to ourselves.

This is a close-up of the lavender blossoms on the bush next to the tree, which a gardener neatly trimmed. I can’t help but wonder how many blossoms were lost to the trimming tool. — Photo by Pat Bean

Some mornings we leave the manicured grounds and take the short trail beyond the parking lot ,so as to glimpse a view of the unfettered desert in its many moods. But not this morning.

Today, we simply walked the path we walk several times a day, keeping our eyes open to the world around us. Well, I keep my eyes open and Pepper keeps her nose open. Like most dogs, she sees more through smell than I see through my eyes.

Her nose lets her know there is a lizard hiding beneath that rock over yonder, and that Ellie, a favorite German shepherd playmate, peed beside this tree. Of course she pees on top of the spot to let Ellie know she’s been here, too.

My eyes, meanwhile, take in a canvas painted by the rain. It’s the pattern of wet and dry gravel beneath a tree just outside my apartment. I don’t have my camera with me, but after our walk I retrieve it and go back down from my third-floor apartment to capture Mother Nature’s whimsical drawing – well that’s how I see it.

And then I realize that it can serve as my point of view for the week’s photo challenge.

Bean’s Pat: Hoof Beats and Foot Prints http://tinyurl.com/nz6fu4o This is a blogger who also takes time to capture the simple things that can be found in a day, when you take the time to look.

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You Gotta Love Rejection

Posted in Art, Journeys, Writing, tagged pat bean, rejection on September 7, 2013| 12 Comments »

I think all great innovations are built on rejections.” – Louis Ferdinand Celine

“I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get me going, rather than retreat.” – Sylvester Stallone

I wonder if bears care about rejection, or if they are always all about being themselves — even if they are blue. — Photo by Pat Bean

Life Lessons from an Old Broad

These days I take rejection slips that result from someone not buying one of my writing submissions with great pride. They are evidence that I put myself out there.

And would a giraffe feel rejected if it looked different from the rest of its kind? OK, so I’m being silly. Reject me. See if I care. == Photo by Pat Bean

But that kind of thinking wasn’t always a part of my psyche.

Looking back on my life, as I sometimes find myself doing, I suddenly remembered all the times when I didn’t put myself out there, whether it was not applying for a promotion, or not taking the risk of revealing my true self because I was afraid of being rejected.

It wasn’t so much that I was afraid of rejection, but that I was afraid for others to know, on any level, that I had been rejected.

Now I realize how foolish I was. Not only is it true that nothing ventured means nothing gained, but the only person who can truly reject me is me.

Does that make sense? This wondering-wanderer says: “Yes.” Now I just wonder why it took me so long to come up with the right answer.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Lightning Dropets http://tinyurl.com/kdkr6bn This blog about writing rejections is what got me thinking about rejections on other levels

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Take Time to Smell the Flowers

Posted in Art, Journeys, tagged flowers, gusto, mottos, pat bean on September 5, 2013| 2 Comments »

“I will be the gladdest thing. Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers. And not pick one.” — Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Afternoon on a Hill.”

I took time to smell the flowers by sitting down to do art with a grandson, and this is what I drew while he drew the Batmobile.

Mottos to Live By

When I woke up from my unthoughtful, unlived life at nearly 40, my motto for the next few years became “Grab all the gusto you can get.” It was plagiarism of a Schlitz beer commercial: “You only go through life once, so you have to grab all the gusto you can get.”

With nearly half my life blown away, I realized that the only regrets I had were for the things I hadn’t done … well mostly anyway.

My grandson Patrick’s Batmobile.

During the next three plus decades, I did many things – and have regrets for none of what at times may have been an “excessive life.” Perhaps that’s because I did nothing I would have been ashamed to tell the world, which, along with the mottos “do no harm” and the Golden Rule form my spiritual center.

But these days, which now number more behind me than ahead of me, my passion has become one of “taking time to smell the flowers.”

Doing so interferes with more ambitious goals, such as finishing my book, “Travels with Maggie” – which is still moving slowly along. But then I can’t imagine giving up the flowers to make the writing go faster.

Of course smelling the flowers is more than just blossoms.

This morning, it was simply taking time to sit on my bedroom balcony, drinking my cream-laced coffee, and to stare up at the Catalina Mountains while the sun made its entrance for the day.

I suddenly realized it was as close to meditation – meaning emptying the mind – as I have ever reached in my life. I have been too busy grabbing all that gusto, when the flowers needed more quiet smelling.

But then I smiled, thinking about all that gusto. I wouldn’t change a thing.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: September writing resolutions http://tinyurl.com/mfkmqxf Fine words to live by for the month, except that I already keep a timer by my computer and set it for 15 minutes. Old broads need to move often so they can keep moving.

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Time for a Soapbox Rant

Posted in Journeys, tagged a sad trend, journalism today on September 3, 2013| 22 Comments »

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” – Pogo, aka Walt Kelly

The sun is setting on journalism being anything more than paparazzi to celebrities, especially those who are not good examples to anyone. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The sun is setting on journalism being anything more than paparazzi to celebrities, especially those who are not good examples for anyone. — Photo by Pat Bean

It’s All Our Own Fault

How many of us have read more about Miley Cyrus than about the real possibility of going to war against Syria?

Millions more, according to CNN Managing Editor Meredith Artley, who supported her words with facts that were her excuse for making Miley Cyrus’ disgraceful behavior the top CNN story last week.

The truth pains me.

I started my journalism career back when hard-working reporters kept a bottle of Black Velvet (they couldn’t afford the good stuff) stuck in the back of a desk drawer, and when demanding city editors chomped on a cigar as they chewed me, or other reporters out, for not digging deep enough for our stories.

It was the era when journalists were trying to bring the truth about the Vietnam War to the public, the days of Watergate reporting. I, personally, wrote stories about the pain of a mother who had lost her son in Vietnam, of tough environmental issues that may have made a difference, and stories about an Idaho congressman who was kiting checks – and felt victorious when he was not re-elected.

Newsrooms, during my 37-year career, got politically correct. The booze and the cigars were banished, which was probably a good thing. But what pains me is that celebrities have escaped from the back entertainment pages to dominate Page One headlines. It was already starting when I retired almost 10 years ago. And it gets more blatant every day that passes.

That it is happening is “Bullshit,” said the CNN managing editor. “We know it and you know it. We also know that you are probably dumb enough … to click on the stupid bullshit anyway, and that you will continue to do it … You want to know how many more page views the Miley Cyrus thing got than our article on the wildfires ravaging Yosemite? Like 6 gazillion more. That’s on you, not us.”

For CNN, those millions of page views add up to millions of dollars. And that’s the reason for the media now giving people what they want instead of what they need to know. I wish it were different. But it’s not.

Pogo said it perfectly. The enemy is us, and we have no one else to blame. Well, I, for one, am going to boycott all front-page entertainment news from this day forward – and make my hits count for more important news.

Who will join me?

Bean’s Pat: Jesus and the $20 Bill http://tinyurl.com/k3o5mrj Great memoir story by one of my favorite bloggers.

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