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October 10, 1999 |
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wigeons in the rain |
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October 10, 1999 43 ring billed gulls Turner Reservoir American League Division Series Today's Starting Pitcher: Kent Mercker Today's Reading: Danube by Claudio Magris
Copyright © 1999, Janet I. Egan |
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We had decided on the Rue for brunch instead of Andrea's because service at Andrea's has been sloppy lately. Nancy ordered a spinach omelet yesterday and they brought her a Spanish omelet. So we go into the Rue and they have no power. This must be related to the yellow trucks and guys in yellow hard hats. No power means no coffee but it doesn't mean no breakfast. My headache is still with me and is compounded by caffeine withdrawal. It's raining buckets. Orange juice and the scrambled tofu du jour don't really do it for the headache. We head out onto Wickenden Street to get some coffee at the Coffee Exchange and discover more "Emergency Zone No Parking" signs, yellow trucks, vans, and so on and no place to park. It's still raining buckets. We park on Thayer Street and get Peet's coffee at Au Bon Pain. That satisfies the caffeine withdrawal. Appropriately caffeinated, we browse the Brown Bookstore for what seems like ages. I steadfastly resist the Gary Wills biography of Saint Augustine, but do end up buying a couple of maps to replace ones that were in my car. I suppose it's not totally fair to try out the new binoculars in the pouring rain, but I have to know whether any of the winter contingent of ducks has arrived at the cove yet. The first trip to the cove results in my determining that I can't identify ducks all the way across by the golf course with binoculars in the rain. I knew this already. My old binoculars couldn't sort out the ducks that far away either. I drove up a side street looking for a gap between houses and trees with a closer view of that side of the water. Found such a place, pulled over, got out of the car, and counted 70 wigeons. I know there are more but I can't see them from there. We go off to East Providence reservoir in search of aggressive escaped domestic geese. Whatever that Augustinian cut bleeding wound I need to fill seems to require aggressive geese. There are aggressive mallards, vicious swans, and even three nasty coots but no geese. Wonder where they are? Anyway, it is raining way too hard to be doing this. After a late lunch or early dinner at Siam Square where they are unaccountably out of ginger tea and the only other party in the entire restaurant is a strange trio of people (1 male, 2 female) who don't seem to get along and keep arguing about whether they are going to "do a duck" and about the heat or lack of it in someplace or other (and they are seated right near us), we make a return trip past the cove and discover that as the tide has gone out the wigeons have come much closer to the accessible shore. I pull over and whip out the binoculars and the camera despite the rain. There are hordes of wigeons mixed in with greater yellowlegs and snowy egrets all really close to shore. The scene doesn't photograph well but it's spectacular. I wish I could show it to all the officials who think of the cove as a dumping ground. And now to watch the ball game... |
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Serious
looking men in yellow hard hats and slickers are looking up
at the power lines on Hope Street. Large yellow Narragansett
Electric trucks are blocking the street in front of Rue de
l'Espoir. Blue and white Bell Atlantic trucks and small
white Cox Cable vans are strung out along Wickenden Street.
There are "Emergency Zone No Parking" signs tacked up every
5 feet on telephone poles, trees, sign posts, curbs,
whatever. A guy with a clipboard stares up into the jungle
of wires over Hope Street. What can this mean?