some technicolor

to lightened up the grey days...

le perroquet du vendredi 13

i was out on the balcony, taking a polaroid. i had been freezing for only a few seconds when i spotted a very colorful bird moving on the lawn. right under where i was. a little bigger than a pigeon. very green with a touch of flaming red. my first thought was "but, but, it looks like a parrot!". being so very red and very green...

i moved closer to the banister and made myself so sillily noticeable that it flew a little further away, showing a lovely bright yellow above its tail. it stayed in the grass for a while, giving me the eye. then chose to hide in a tree about 50 meters from where i stood, wondering what kind of bird it could be. (i had come to my senses and dropped the escaped-parrot-theory.)

after a few minutes, during which i ran for my camera and its unefficient lense for this kind of photography, it came back. i tried to capture it and obviously failed (~evidence below). the bird kept looking up to make sure i would not jump from the third floor, and finally decided to move a little, towards one of the small trees trying to grow in the lawn. as if it wanted me to make sure it wasn't exotic at all, it landed in this very special way, on the trunk and... pecked it.



later on i searched for a woodpecker in a book (~scan) and was made sure that i had indeed met one (~middle, right). i felt very silly (parrot-wise), lucky (in this urban environment) and happy. this was my first encounter with a lady woodpecker.

quick snap

it is very odd for me to walk in the neighborhood.
i drive too much.

but it's also quite amusing to feel like a tourist when taking a picture less than a mile away from home.

there there

Whenever I’m in the doctor’s waiting room, the most restless person there will be next to me. Whether this person arrived after me, or I chose to sit at their side.

The more I get still, calm, patiently waiting, reading (if I didn’t forget to take a book with me), the more this person will be agitated. She will go through her purse. He will fiddle with his phone. They will painfully sigh each time a door opens for someone else than them, rummage through their bag for this huge agenda and its pages covered with big letters hastily written for so many important appointments.
One (apparently also including every-one-else) has to be sure they’re at the right place, at the right time, on the right purpose.

Then again, maybe I am not really patient, because not really waiting. Some appointments are indeed worth being nervous. But, most of the time, for me, they only mean getting a prescription renewed. One minute, looking at those old posters on the wall in front of me. The next, reading a sentence for the second time because this little boy three seats away, after inspecting these images and their lecture on a healthier you, made a comment on how damaged they are and, turning to his mother earnestly added: “I didn’t do it”.
Not much of a waiting room for me. It’s more about being here now than about getting “in there” soon.