Prius Confusion

We decided to beat the heat in Palm Springs and head for Idyllwild, in the San Jacinto Mountains. Eighty-two degrees sounded much better to us than one hundred and three. One night turned into two, and we had to go to a market to get a few supplies.
Doug drove there, and I opted to wait in the car in the passenger seat with the air conditioning on, checking my phone for e-mails. I was pretty involved with what I was doing, when the driver's side door flew open, and a skinny old lady jumped into the seat and pressed the Power button! (Luckily this turned off the car.)
I thought, "Wow, she really thinks I'm wasting energy by leaving the motor running, and wants to take it into her own hands!" But then, I realized that she thought that this was her car. I nudged her, and said, "Ma'am! You're in the wrong car!" and tried to shove her again. She didn't even look at me or acknowledge that I was there. I repeated myself louder, as she pressed the Power button on again, with her foot on the brake pedal, and closed the driver's door.
I said, "No! You have to get out! This ISN'T your car!" Trying to shove her to no avail, since the door was shut. I pressed the button to OFF again, and she calmly said, "Don't worry, he's not coming yet." Her long, stringy hair covered the side of her face, and she still didn't look my way. She pushed the button ON again.
Just then, a young man came running out of the store with his groceries and saw me struggling with her. He opened her door and said, "Lillian! This isn't your car!", and to me, "She has dementia. I'm so sorry." She didn't believe him and resisted his pulling her out of our car. After our car door was closed, she kept holding on to the door handle, as he tried to cajole her away.
Finally, he led her to their silver Prius, parked next to mine, and got her to get in the passenger side. I'm thinking, "Ooh! So that's why....she really thought it was her car." But by the time he reached the driver's side, she had scrambled over the console and was trying to start up that car. (I was impressed. She's pretty spry, getting over that console. I would have a hard time doing that as gracefully as she did!) So he pried her out of the front seat and got her to sit in the back, where she complained and fussed with stuff that was on the seat, including a yellow fishing pole, which she jammed up into the ceiling. He got out and removed the fishing pole, etc., to the trunk area, but she was so agitated, that he tried to appease her with some pasta salad that he had bought.
Doug had come out around then, and the man told him, "I'm sorry", but he wasn't sure why. When he got in the car, he wondered why it smelled so bad, like pee, and then our phone rang with an important call, and I couldn't explain my experience till later.
As we drove away, she had convinced him to let her sit in front with him with her salad. I worried about the lady, but especially the man, a relative or caregiver. I can't imagine what he goes through every day. I wanted to tell him though, it's not unusual for a Prius owner to mistake another car for their own. When the door doesn't open for them, they just take a better look inside and realize their mistake. We've actually done it a few times ourselves....
Thoughts keep coming into my head too. What would have happened if he didn't come out of the store? Would she have backed on out and taken me for a wild ride? I try to imagine, how I could stop her. She evidently knew how to drive a Prius, since she automatically put her foot on the brake while pushing the Power button, so that Prius had been hers before she lost control of her life. I had the key in my purse, and I wonder if I would have thought to throw my purse or the keys out the window, and then turn off the car. Any ideas?

Living in an Aviary

When my family was young, we always had quite a menagerie. My daughter was usually the culprit when it came to adding on to our collection of critters. We prefer furry ones....dogs, cats and bunnies....or feathered ones, shying away from reptiles, especially snakes. At one point we considered having an aviary in our home, since we really didn't like the idea of keeping our birds cramped in cages. We fantasized about a room-sized aviary that we could walk into just off the dining room. It was only a dream and never came to be, and now that I think about it, it would be one huge place to keep up, it could be smelly...... and the birds would still actually be in a cage.

The last few years, since I love to watch birds in the wild so much, I've been feeding them in my yard wherever I'm living. There's never been much interest shown at my bird feeders, though, until this year. There's a huge, fat palm tree in our patio in Palm Springs, sometimes referred to as "the elephant in the room", and this year I took a notion to hang a cage that holds a brick of birdseed on it's stubby, toothy, chopped off frond. I added a sort of suet block as well, only it's made from peanuts and it doesn't melt all over the ground like the beef suet does in the desert heat. Soon after, I had quite an audience. Mostly the crowd consisted of red and orange house finches and white-crowned sparrows, with mourning doves foraging on the ground and hummingbirds sucking on their own feeder. 

On the colored brick wall, next to the Ficus hedge, I set a little ceramic bird feeder that I made years ago and a little flat dish which I keep loaded with already shelled sunflower seeds. It seemed logical that the birds would have an easier time without having to deal with shells, and there would be less mess for us to clean up. 

It's been delightful to watch the little finches work their way down through the bushes to the wall to poke their heads into the holes of the feeder to get the seeds. We must be on some sort of flyway, or at least the word has got out about our bird buffet. If I sit quietly and write, the birds ignore me and go about their business of feeding their families.

Sometimes as I'm writing out on the patio, I have to pause to witness an argument, or bird fight over exactly who's feeders these are. Mostly I just look up to appreciate how up close and personal I am to these beautiful creatures.

Most of them gather in our overgrown bougainvillea on our patio. There is always a cacophony of chirping and chortling and tweeting. There may even be a nest in there, but it's so dense that I can't tell. They joyfully whistle and chirp and call and then they suddenly stop as one. It's as if a grand maestro has raised his arms and said "Stop". There's a startling silence, it's quiet for awhile, until a soloist starts warbling once more.

Those warblers are so amazing! Their songs are so loud and carry such a long way, that I thought they must be pretty big birds. One day though, a bird the size of a hummingbird came down to check out a Lantana plant, and warbled while he was there. I looked him up on Merlin Bird ID on my phone, and found he was a Warbling Vireo. I played his powerful song from the phone and it matched the one that serenades me in the yard!                                       

Speaking of hummingbirds though, they are very curious little guys. I have my potter's wheel out on the patio, and sometimes I'll hear the thrum of their rapidly moving wings close by and look up to see one hovering in front of me and checking me out. One also darted under the awning when we were sitting out there having our first drink since arriving in Palm Springs. "Well Hello", I said, "Yes we are back, and I'll get right on filling your feeder!"

Just a little bit of trivia.... Did you know how hummingbirds hover? They move their wings in a figure 8 about 100 times a second!
Once this season I went to a nursery to buy plants, and one of the workers there asked if I had ever seen a baby hummingbird. She led me over to a lemon tree (that was for sale), and showed me the tiny nest that had four little brown things inside. I thought they looked like little brown capsules with a fuzzy mohawk all around the edge. Their tiny heads must have been tucked under and I just saw the body, since they have to eat somehow! I couldn't get close enough to see.

Anyway, here I am sitting in the most wonderful aviary one could ever want. Sometimes I'm reminded of Cinderella, and all her little bird friends. The Mourning Doves are coo-cooing, the Mockingbird is perched high on a treetop recounting everything that happened to him last night, with many choruses, the hummers are sipping at their nectar, and the finches are climbing through the bush. Even an occasional Verdin hops through with it's bright yellow head, scavenging some of the seeds others have dropped. It's a little bit of heaven for me.....and for them too. No cages are involved.