A Condo Decorates for the Holidays

After Thanksgiving, I asked our new condo manager if there would be any Christmas decorations hung along the street in front of our buildings.

To the north, our neighbors had strung colored lights that transformed the bushes between their two entrances into carousel horses that pranced with the breezes. White and red poinsettias filled urns beneath the columns at their gates.  We remained in darkness.

Along the street on the south side of our complex, strings of white lights wound upward around eight palm trees three stories high.  Under the fronds, the lights were strung tightly together, resembling a circular box encrusted in jewels.  The fronds burst from their box laden with lights. We remained in darkness.

"I don't know.  I'll have to check with the Buildings and Grounds Committee.  What's been done in the past?" the new manager said.

It wasn't his fault.  He was our second manager in eighteen months and didn't want to piss anyone off.  The manager who'd run the place since it had been built had retired after thirty-two years.  Under his watch the Christmas decorations - always the same - had gone up like clockwork:  white lights at the street, around the lamp posts, and on top of the guard house; wreaths on the doors of the buildings and on the columns at the entrance; garlands along the railings; and a decorated tree in the garage.  The green garlands had begun to turn brown and the tree had grown tired, but no-one complained.

"Mr. Thomas bought a lot of new decorations last year," I said, "but I don't know where they are."  Mr. Thomas had been hired next and fired after eighteen months. His decorations from Home Depot - purchased with funds from the annual budget - included three-foot nutcrackers, manger scenes, menorahs, and new garlands.

"I think they were disposed of," the new manager said.  In other words, the staff probably took them home.

"May I put something on the landing of my floor and in the garage and first floor lobbies? I've done that for twenty years."

"I'll go out on a limb and say I wouldn't want to disrupt a twenty-year tradition.  Go ahead."

I put out my bowls of glass balls and wrapped the front staircase in a garland of berries.  The outside remained in darkness.

A week later, the Building and Grounds Committee put up wreaths on the doors of the buildings and on the cement columns at the street entrance.  The outside remained in darkness.

One of the Board of Directors took matters into his own hands.  He purchased $500 worth of white lights, which the staff strung around the lamp posts and guard house.

A week later a menorah appeared on a table outside the manager's office.  A couple of days after that a decorated tree stood on the table.

It looked like the same disheveled tree we'd seen during the thirty-two years our first manager had reigned. Apparently it passed the Building and Grounds Committee's requirements.



Wishing all of my readers happy holidays with those you love and a healthy 2016!

For the Birds

Monk Parakeet
Photo courtesy of Christopher L. Wood

Let's talk birds. I never had one for a pet, but I know people who have loved them, cooed to them, stroked them, and paraded them.  I recently learned some things about them.

First, according to an article by Marc Morrone in the Providence Journal (May 17, '15, Sec. H2), there is no way a bird can have any idea of the sex of a human, as we are just too far removed from their species on the evolutionary scale.  That means that although you may think a parrot squawks at you because he is a male and you are a male threatening his space, it "just ain't so, Joe."

A bird may prefer the company of men to women and vice versa, but the choice is based on the bird's interpretation of human actions, voice, or appearance.  Not whether it shares the same estrogen or testosterone.  Sounds like a good plan for humans!

If you are searching for the sex of a bird, you needn't peek "down under."  There is a test to determine that, and it's not the kind you think.  Pluck a few feathers from its breast (male and female) and mail them to a laboratory.  You will be charged a fee, but the lab can extract the DNA and within a few days answer your crushing question.  An example of a lab is Research Associates Laboratory at vetdna.com. Wouldn't want to have two female birds in a cat fight in the cage as you sip your morning coffee, would you?

White-headed woodpecker
Photo courtesy of Dick Tipton

Ladder-backed woodpecker
Photo courtesy of Gerrit Vyn

Here is an interesting fact about woodpeckers.  Woodpeckers sing.  Not with their throats, but by pecking on a piece of metal or anything that makes a ringing sound. This is again according to Marc Morrone, not me.  The noise makes a sound that's bigger and stronger than other male woodpeckers, who use mere trees made of wood. The bigger the sound, the prettier the mate and the better the nesting area.

If you have a woodpecker that's disturbing you during mating season, you'd better determine first whether it's causing damage to the wooden frame of your home.  If not, get on a ladder and cover the woodpecker's favorite pecking area with cloth secured by duct tape. Or Marc suggests taping a few children's pinwheels with long ribbons to the spot the woodpecker loves.  As the wind blows, the pinwheel ribbons in the wind will chase him off. Either that, or they'll chase your neighbors off!