As you can probably imagine, I was popping up like a piece of crisp toast Thursday. The phone rang incessantly. Many of you wanted to know what happened to the paper because it was not delivered. A. The folks in the mailroom down in Lumberfun could not get it to the Post Office on time. The second waver of calls was from people who wanted to know why I wrote that school begins on September 25 and not August 25th. A. I was stoopid. I even got a call from a very small and hopeful voice who wanted to know if school really had been set back a month. I had to break to him the bad news. School does start this week. Almost impossible, isn’t it?

That I was popping up and bobbing around like a cork in a hurricane is really nothing unusual for me. I try to do everything at once, and especially at work where I am a Gang of One. I am forever sitting down only to be back up and running around in usually less than 30 seconds. One memorable day I made it seated for three whole minutes! A new but reverse world’s record, Usain Bolt!

I made it through the very long work week, and then, just like that sign at Ferguson’s used to say “If you don’t believe in life after death, just wait till quitting time!”’ I came back to life Saturday morning. I jumped into a friend’s car and off we went, but of course I had to get him to stop every three miles or whenever I spotted a flea market, junk shop, antique store or picturesque church. Even in a car, I can’t sit still! Even while I’m driving!

By Saturday evening, I was wiped out again.

On Sunday morning, instead of getting up and going to church as I was taught to do and ought to do, I slept and lolled around the house all the morning. I finally had enough strength to walk outside and search for the newspaper, finding it without the aid of Time Team America. Then I had the great good sense to decide to sit on my side porch, which I was supposed to have cleaned and organized the day before but which I didn’t get around to before the junk collecting addiction hit me.

I was determined to sit on the porch for at least ten uninterrupted minutes, I was trying for another world record, so I collected everything I needed for the duration. Newspaper, glasses, bottle of water, and the telephone. I was set to be seated, except that because I hadn’t cleared the porch the day before, I had to scramble to uncover a chair, a comfy chair, beneath all the salvaged doors, weed eaters, broken wind chimes, watering cans, tin tubs, rugs that I had taken outside two years ago for the cleaning that they never got, and much more stuff. In the end, I could see my rocking chair, but I couldn’t wade or tunnel to it, so I got one of those webbed lawn from the ’50s and parked myself.

I began to read the paper, but not two minutes into it (of course I was speed reading, and was already on section C), I noticed something out there. It was... it was... my yard! And it was beautiful! And alive!

I was about to have my very own National Geographic moment! Right here in San Pablo (sorry, Linda!).

Things in the yard, commonly known by their common names “plants” were vibrating. I looked closer. There were squirrels aplenty, for sure, but there were also birds of every description, well except for emu, ostrich and dodo.

Soon I could ascertain that squirrels greatly troubled the trees and plants, while birds only slightly vibrate the limbs and leaves. Then I began to count the various birds that is aw. A mourning dove that alighted on the sundial directly in front of me and which stayed there for about three minutes until it blew off in search of its mate, which was in Bonnie’s yard. I saw mockingbirds, but which were strangely and sadly quiet, in fact everything was eerily quiet, as if the birds knew not to make noise on Sunday. I saw a gorgeous hummingbird visiting the arrowhead flowers in the goldfish pond. I saw Carolina wrens and nuthatches, two small birds that while active are very secretive. And then I saw a bird unknown to me. He, it must have been a male because he was so boldly colored, sported a chartreuse colored breast and flashed a little red on the wings. He looked as lost as I was dumbfounded. He peered around, And then flew a very short distance, and then returned to his original spot. Then I realized that the fire ants were probably after him, explaining his odd behavior. He was a bird with a sharp, distinctive beak and rather long tail feathers. He was beautiful and he was generous to stay around the yard, within eyesight, for about five minutes.

There were many other kinds of animal life in the yard, and they, too, were busy on errands and missions known only to themselves. There were butterflies and several kinds of what appeared to be moths, but during the day? Wasn’t sure. There were dragonflies, wasps, bees, which visited the flowers right behind the hummingbird (on purpose?), and skinks, lizards, and geckos ( or maybe they were all one of these, who knows for sure?)

All I know is that my yard was literally buzzing with life Sunday morning,and I had a front row seat to take it all in. And I did

I sat completely motionless after I discarded that newspaper, and the outdoor adventure played itself out directly in front of me. It had been so long since I had sat outside, remember April?, that I had completely forgotten what a wondrous and marvelous place my wild, overgrown yard is

I will eventually and officially have it designated a Wildlife Sanctuary, which it already is because I designed it that way. and then all my friends who deride me for living in the jungle will feel the shame due them!

But for one glorious and silent and sedentary Sunday, the yard was the place to be and I was there. Side porch, front row, Bob Yuker! Sitting was easy!