Lord, teach me...

Last night: a funeral home visit. A young couple whose baby died in his sleep.

To a young mother, and a young father, and grieving grandparents: I'll pray for you.

Today: a chance meeting in the bookstore. An old friend whose adult child has moved back home in the throes of an addiction. A crumbling marriage. Three young children.

To a distraught father, searching for answers, and relief: I'll pray for you.

I love words. Words are my life. Yet, as hard as I try, try as I might, my words are not adequate.

Father, forgive my feebleness.

Holy Spirit, interpret my groanings.

Lord, teach me to pray.

You can't judge a book...

Perusing the library shelves today, I came across several classics that I need to read. I rejected them all.

One had a dingy, smudged cover with dirty finger prints all over the edges. One was printed on what appeared to be grocery sacks during an apparent paper-saving drive from back in the '70's. One had an eery, unpleasant typeface and the prospect of following it for 200+ pages made me nauseated.

Today, I was guilty of judging books by their covers.

Global Warming?!?

At the time I posted of our trip to last weekend's motorcycle races, it didn't seem important to report the fact that we almost froze to death.

Yes, it was unseasonably cool for the next to last weekend in April, but that wasn't germane to my point. Hence the omission.

This morning, while planning our day's activities, Dora announced that she wanted to go to the bear's game. Since we don't have any playing bears in Birmingham (not even at the zoo), we surmised that she must mean the Baron's game, our double-A farm team of the Chicago White Sox.

So we went to tonight's game. First pitch, 7:03. Almost froze to death, for the second Saturday in a row.

I fully expect to see Olympic slalom qualifying down Red Mountain next Saturday.

Global warming?!? Ain't made it this far south yet.

"See the art in Me"

Dora and I found ourselves alone this afternoon. She crawled up into my chair to share sunflower seeds and impede my reading.

With Zelda and Lovett gone, the house was unusually quiet. It apparently bothered Dora, so she climbed up on the computer table to retrieve a CD. She picked the self-titled Jars of Clay album and popped it into the player.

We listened to the first four songs at varying volumes (she kept turning it up, I kept turning it down, an expected conflict between a four-year-old and a forty-year-old). When the fifth song started, Dora turned it up and got out of the chair.

And she began to dance.

Not head-shaking, bebopping, gotta-pee-right-now dancing. She became a ballerina. She twirled. She skipped. She jumped. She flew.

She never once hesitated. She never gave a thought to her next move as she followed her muse throughout the kitchen, around the island, and back to the reading corner. She was free. Flowing. Focused. I was floored.

The name of the song was "Art in Me."

Images on the sidewalk speak of dream's descent
Washed away by storms to graves of cynical lament
Dirty canvases to call my own
Protest limericks carved by the old pay phone

In your picture book I'm trying hard to see
Turning endless pages of this tragedy
Sculpting every move you compose a symphony
You plead to everyone, "See the art in Me"

Broken stained-glass windows, the fragments ramble on
Tales of broken souls, an eternity's been won
As critics scorn the thoughts and works of mortal man
My eyes are drawn to you in awe once again

In your picture book I'm trying hard to see
Turning endless pages of this tragedy
Sculpting every move you compose a symphony
You plead to everyone, "See the art in Me"

Thank you, Father, for letting me see the art in You, through Dora's dance.

Ever feel like the world is a tuxedo and you are pair of brown shoes?

My friend Jay won weekend passes to the AMA Superbike races at Barber Motorsports Park.

He couldn't use the Saturday passes, so he gave them to me. I was thrilled. I had taken Lovett to an auto race there last year, and we fell in love with the place. George Barber made a fortune in the dairy business and turned his hobby of motorcycle collecting into one of the premier road racing tracks in the world, right here in Alabama. Porsche Driving Experience moved their entire operation from Road Atlanta to BMP, and the top road racing series are beginning to take notice of the facility. It is a gorgeous course. In some places, spectators can see 70 percent of the track. Parking is free and free trams take you anywhere you want to go. It is a prime example of what can happen with a little free enterprise and vision in this state of pork procurers and demagogues.

Zelda and Dora wanted to go, so we made a day of it. We saw a lot of practicing, and some qualifying, and two races. Don't ask me who did what, 'cause I really couldn't tell you. Number 1 led the first race the whole time and won. Number 98 and number 1 and number 3 battled for the lead in the second race, and I think number 98 won (at least, his number was at the top of the big pole in the center of the track at the end). I doubt there was a man there that knew as little about motorcycle racing than me. Or women either. My manhood is not threatened by this, however. Sports have had their proper place in my life for a long time. I go to a game, or an event like this, marvel at the participant's skills, and go home when the last out is made or the horn sounds or the checkered flag waves. I don't have a stake in who wins or loses, and that suits me just fine.

So I thought I'd check out the evening news tonight to see what the race winners actually looked like. Now, with a world-class event in Birmingham with live TV coverage, you'd think it would be a pretty big story, wouldn't you?

Well, you'd be wrong. As was I. Apparently, the NFL got together today to choose up sides for next season. Which means someone somewhere said the word "football." Which means that the world stopped turning to see where our collegiate gridiron gods would ply their trade at the next level. A bunch of them from Auburn went somewhere, and one from UAB went somewhere else, and the Alabama guy finally got picked to go somewhere, too. They interviewed mama n'them, and the college coaches, and the sportscaster who nicknamed them, and the coaches who picked them, and them, until I begin to feel like I knew them better than some of my own family.

But what about the races?!? I screamed at my TV, like a regular sports fanatic.

There were races at the Barber Motorsports Park today, chimed the weekend sports anchor. And he proceeded to show 15 seconds of racing footage. 15 seconds. They didn't even give the winners time to take their helmets off. I still don't know who won. I guess I'll wait for tomorrow's paper.

You think the Birmingham News heard about the NFL thing today, too?

What'd I do to deserve this?

We went to [trendy chain deli with the good salad bar] for lunch today.

I filled my salad plate to Neil Diamond's and Barbra Streisand's attempt to out-herniate one another.

My first bite was taken to the strains of Barry Manilow pouring his heart out over somebody named Mandy.

I finished my last bite as someone tightened the vise ahold Michael Bolton's thumb.

Disgustedly, I trudged toward the ice cream machine for some frosty relief.

I found a deli employee with his arm up to the elbow inside the machine, an "out of order" sign over his shoulder.

What did I do to deserve this?

Bilingual Conversation

I was sitting in the children's section of the library today, determining the check-out worthiness of a stack of books while Dora pestered the caged parakeet, when the cutest little scruffy-headed Chinese girl came around a shelf with a sippy-cup of milk.

Hi! she grinned at me.

Hi! I grinned back.

Her dad followed close behind. I nodded hello to him. Before he could respond, an older little girl came running toward him, clutching a video.

This one, daddy! she cried, holding it aloft for him to bag.

[Uninterpreted response in Chinese], he replied.

But just one more, please daddy? she begged.

[Uninterpreted response in Chinese], he replied, stuffing the video into his book bag.

Birmingham is a multi-cultural city, despite our well-documented racist propensity. UAB attracts medical students and researchers from all over the world. We have large Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Latino populations within the metro area. I grew up not too far from Birmingham (as the crow flies, that is; light-years away culturally and otherwise). I don't remember if I knew a single bilingual family then.

I was blown away today by the little Chinese girl's ability to converse with her father in two languages.

I have trouble conversing with mine in one.

Today's word is...

I came across two words today that I had read before but couldn't define:

dilettante
esoteric

If you can use either in a sentence without looking them up, you are a better lexicologist than me.

Hawks vs. doves

I work on the fourth floor of a six-floor building on the bank of a corporate-park lake. The property is beautifully landscaped and forested. We're accustomed to geese, duck, deer, and fish sightings, so I'm always on guard for the next faunal encounter. As I looked out a window at the cubicle farm today, a hawk caught my eye.

He had a death grip on something, so I ran down the hall to my boss's office for a closer look. He had caught a dove, and it was still flopping around trying to free itself. The hawk put a choke hold on it, though, and a few seconds later it was motionless.

And then, three stories above the ground, the hawk started plucking the feathers off the dove, spitting them out to float to the ground like lazy snowflakes.

Dee, a coworker, came to see what had me pressed up against the window. He was visibly upset when he saw the hawk dismembering the dove.

Aww, that's not right! he protested. The hawk, oblivious to fourth-floor criticism, kept on plucking.

Now, Dee, did you have your usual chicken biscuit for breakfast this morning? I asked.

Yes, he answered.

Well, someone did to your chicken what the hawk is doing to that dove, I replied.

Don't say that! Dee squawked. But he realized it was true. And that it is a natural part of life.

I'm anxious to see what Dee brings for breakfast Monday morning.

Awaiting Napolean's return

The grass is greening, the azaleas are blooming, and the trees are leafing. The goldfinches have on their spring attire, the bluebirds are nesting, and, thank goodness, the time has changed. All that is left to prove to me that spring is really here is the return of the hummingbirds.

I put out my feeders yesterday, filled with a 1:4 sugar:water mixture. They ate it up last fall on their way south. Some days we had six hummers fighting for sipping space - all ruby-throats. Most entertaining was one I dubbed Napolean - the smallest, and meanest, of the crew. My feeders came without perches, so the hummers have to hover to dine; I fashioned a perch from a piece of galvanized wire just to see if they would use it. Napolean claimed it as his command post. He would sit for minutes at a time, without drinking, just to chase away patrons of either feeder. He was quite the little dictator.

We thought we lost him once. The pull cord on my garage door is nylon with a red plastic knob for a handle. He flew into the garage thinking the knob was a flower and knocked himself silly trying to get back outside again. Dora was hysterical, thinking he was dead. I took him around back and held him up to the porch screen. He grabbed on for dear life and spent the night sleeping it off. Next morning, he was back at his post on the perch, menacing every hummer in that dared come close.

It was reported that Hurricane Ivan affected the southerly migration of the ruby-throated hummingbirds last fall. I sure hope not. I'm looking for their return any day. Please let me know if you see one in the Birmingham area. Tell the Little General his nectar is on the house.