I Am Abbreviating Etc. Again

Not a single sentence comes to mind.

Outside, a crow appears to stagger up the road, probably looking for worms unfortunate enough to have been stranded on the moist pavement. A red-bellied wooodpecker has taken up local residence - I saw it drilling B.'s towering ancient pine trees a few days back. This morning it sounds like it's on the dogwood, a stone's throw north and west. In the fifties, cardinals did not exist in New England.

A pair of hens in Chesterfield, close to the road, making me wonder was the tom hiding. The geese back, as well. Last night T. talked about the forty pheasants that he's raising - "just to play with 'em" - also guinea hens, and mutant pheasants ("we'll see what they turn out like - I don't know.") Sophia took home a gorgeous white pigeon which, because it was so late, slept in her room.

The presence of so much authority in town over the past couple days - helicopters, multiple cruisers, K9 units, quads etc. - has been disconcerting. Presumably it is just a missing person (as first reported in the store) but the rumors do fly. The elementary school is in lockdown and the kids aren't allowed out. They're looking for a kid's bicycle. I heard A. tell a plainclothes state cop yesterday - she chased him out to his car - that she had a vision of where the person they were looking for was. "By a stream," she said. The cop looked at her (jeans under a skirt, cowboy boots and a fur-lined coat) and said, "by a stream?"

It appears that I am abbreviating etc. again. Why. Well, I like the way it looks. Oh and I suppose at some level, some deep down level, I have this feeling - make of it what you will - that I no longer need to be formally elaborate. Breeziness will do just fine, thanks.