Good afternoon, and I hope you’re doing well in there!
I have been editing A Crown of Cobwebs, and though progress is slow, progress has been made! I have finished the first three parts, only two more to go!
In the meantime, may I present to you the next installment of Interstellar Sunrise! In this episode, the crew visits a planet overrun with an invasive grass, and use drones to release ants into the overgrowth. I love love LOVE the sound effects in this episode! It also features the vocal talents of my darling wife as Rebecca Chen. I think she did a great job, but I might be biased. What do you think?
Personal Note
My wife and I are trapped in quarantine with two absolutely insane roommates.
One of them is nice enough during the day. He smiles and babbles about this and that, but when nighttime comes, I don’t know what comes over him. It’s like he’s suffered PTSD. He can’t sleep through the night, and wakes up randomly, screaming. One of us has to go in and calm at least four times a night just so he can make it through his night terrors and sleep to the morning. I don’t know what he’s seen, but it must be intense.
Our other roommate says he’s doing fine, but I think he’s starting to lose it. All he wants to do is watch kid’s cartoons and reruns of Blue Planet, which he continues to call by a longer and longer name. It’s already up to “Deep Sea Underwater Nation Adventure.” By the time this quarantine is over, it’s going to be a paragraph. He eats all our quarantine snacks too. Goldfish crackers were supposed to last weeks, but he ate them all so we’re out. If any of us remind him of this he loses it. When he’s not watching TV, he’s in the backyard practicing Karate, which he's terrible at.
On top of all this, neither of them pays rent. **sigh**
I can’t wait for all this to be over. Except I’m starting to think it won’t ever be over. It’s just going to change.
Bird of the Week
I escaped this pressure cooker to go out in search of a Virginia Rail that had been spotted at one of my favorite birding spots. I got to Bullfrog pond just before dawn, at about 7 am (I’d already been awake for nearly two hours with my roommate so no big deal). A bevy of red winged blackbirds and a plague of greater tailed grackles called to each other while I searched the reeds for something novel in this time of endless repetition.
I didn’t find the bird I was looking for.
But as I was searching I spotted a sora. I had seen one once before, so wasn’t too excited at first, but as I saw this tiny bird walk across mud and algae, I couldn’t help but fall in love with its tiny striped back and bright yellow bill. I never realized how tiny this bird really was. Smaller than a robin for sure. Smaller than a sparrow. Really, I’d say that I could fit one of these in my shirt pocket. In fact, I put out a thimble, and it hopped right in it was so tiny. I held it on the tip of my finger where it stretched and explored.
What a day!