Flight plan

I wouldn't call this morning a total disaster. Information was imparted. Learning occurred. Birds were sighted. Other things were sighted as well, but let's not go there. 

My plan, I thought, was pretty good, but flaws appeared in the execution. Yesterday I heard that cedar waxwings have been hanging around a local wetland and I really wanted to stop by and see them before they move on, but I wasn't wearing appropriate shoes for tromping around a wetland. So early this morning I put on jeans and a T-shirt and hiking shoes and went straight to the wetland, taking along the camera and a change of clothes. My plan was simple: spend an hour or so stalking cedar waxwings at the wetland and then drive two blocks to the best coffee shop in town, where I would change clothes in the bathroom while awaiting my medium vanilla latte.

What went wrong? Just about everything. I saw and heard cedar waxwings (along with kingfishers, cardinals, woodpeckers, and some other birds I couldn't identify), but the cloud cover was so thick and the light so dim that I kept waiting and hoping for more light. My few photos look like gray blurs--and that was before the rain started falling.

I tried to stick it out but it occurred to me that while I could change out of wet clothes, I had neglected to pack a hair-dryer. So I packed up and went to the coffee shop, where I executed half of my plan without a glitch. The other half of the plan--the changing-clothes-in-the-bathroom part--was thwarted by the presence in the bathroom of a total stranger who had, sadly, neglected to lock the door. I wasn't interested in seeing any more of that particular gentlemen, so I took my vanilla latte and my bag of clothes and fled.

Arrived on campus with just enough time to change into dry teaching clothes (but not dry hair) and dash off to class insufficiently caffeinated, only to discover, in the middle of class, that the handout I needed for the second half of class was missing. There's nothing quite like standing in front of a room full of freshmen and realizing that you have no idea how you're going to fill the next 30 minutes.

But I survived that class and the next one, and now I'm looking at my blurry gray photos and trying not to think about my damp, dirty hiking clothes sitting in a bag next to my desk. The sky has cleared. The rain has stopped. Are the birds still there? 

There's only one way to find out.