A while back, I discovered an issue with my name at Goodreads. The curators or "librarians" there had identified two of me. One had the first name "J.D." and had written The Con. The other used my preferred "JD" and he was the author of the forthcoming Live Nude Aliens and Other Stories. They promptly addressed the problem. Since I had taken possession of the original author page, they found it easiest to just merge "JD" with the existing "J.D."
Amazon now has a similar issue. "JD" wrote The Con but, apparently, "Jd" is the author of the forthcoming collection. Amazon is taking longer to respond, beyond the bot that has informed me that I may be inquiring about two authors with similar names. I await the inevitable human who might clean up this mess, with two months before the next book release. Fortunately, the situation does not affect the ability for people to order either off Amazon.
The return of COVID restrictions has complicated our lives again. Wanting to clear my head, I went for a walk around four to the local park. In the 1870s a private company started excavating the land, seeking stones for building construction. In the 1930s it became city property and took on the status of an informal park and parking lot. It became a maintained park proper in 1958.
As a result of past excavations, the land sits flat between two levels. If you approach it from the south side (an alleyway between houses) or the east side (a dead end street), you approach at ground level. The park opens up at the end of each roadway. If you approach from the north or west sides, you walk along the top of a steep embankment with an unobstructed view of the park. With school delayed two days to reopening, those embankments were filled with kids and families on toboggan and sled and crazier conveyances. One toqued man and his child achieved maximum speed due, I suspect, to his weight and their excellent positioning, and crossed the midpoint of the park, further than I have seen anyone go. The stood up with a sense of triumph, the envy of the people who'd had to move out of their way.
So long as people are hurling themselves down dangerously steep snow-covered hills for fun, I know the pandemic has not broken us.
The animals who typically use the park in winter might be less impressed.
On my way back, and just around the corner from our house, I looked up to see what seemed large flapping wings high up a roadside tree. I picked up my pace, taking from pocket my cell and setting the camera to video.
A raptor was engaging something in the knothole of a tree. I managed to capture footage of the hawk (I originally identified it as a falcon after looking at pictures of various birds of prey that might be found locally. A friend tells me it's a red-tailed hawk) flying out with a squirrel in its claws. The prospective meal proved uncooperative and, frankly, heavier than I think the hawk had hoped, and the bird dropped the mammal before flying up and landing on a wire.
I think we have all felt like that squirrel.
The hawk stood, somewhat awkwardly. The squirrel took positions around the nearest tree. I had not intended to provide protection for my fellow mammal. Where I stood to get the best shot, however, proved a bit intimidating to the hawk. It looked down at me, like, "hey, dude! I can't swoop down with you there! You do understand I want to eat that guy, right? That’s my lunch!”1
I think we have all felt like that hawk.
I eventually moved across the street, but the squirrel had evidently found a new hiding spot. It was cold, and I returned to my house. Nature red in tooth and claw, on St. James Street.
1. Jet-Poop's version went: "Begone, unfeathered biped! I seek the tasty wiggling mammal! You are in my way, biped!"
Birds of prey can be annoying. Last summer, something very large dropped the remnants of a skunk into our back yard. We suspect an osprey, since we have them locally, they don't exclusively feed on fish, and I had seen one twice in our area. That is, I had seen something flying overhead, clearly a bird of prey, that was far too big to be hawk or falcon. Our feathered friend in my video could not have taken off with a full-ass skunk.
In any case, our back yard reeked. I easily disposed of the head and tufts of fur that remained, but we kept coming across skunk vertebrae for the next couple of weeks.