No, no. Be of good cheer.

If life teaches us anything, it teaches us to accept the aging process with quiet dignity and grace.

I came home last night to find sixty pink flamingos on my patio, courtesy of my sisters, who decided they wanted to mark the occasion with "something different," and this is what they came up with. (Memo to Ann and Jane: Mission accomplished. There are obviously a lot more of them that simply couldn't be fitted into the photo.) I had planned on keeping the day kind of low profile, but that's not really an option now. Neighbors are filing by and taking pictures out there like it's a Smithsonian exhibit.


Pardoe the parrot does not like the encroachment of the new flock. They are all arrayed facing my patio door, and on our/his side of the glass is the big tree perch where it is his pleasure to pass away the day watching the world go by -- not to be stared at by a phalanx of pink aliens. Tell you the truth, they kind of give me the heebie-jeebies myself. I don't know if real flamingos have such a sour expression on their faces, but I'm now becoming something of a lay expert on the plastic variety, and I can tell you this is a face not everyone would enjoy peering at them before breakfast.

And sixty of them magnifies the effect considerably. From the wrong angle, they look deeply annoyed and vaguely disappointed, as if they're expecting an apology. Perhaps it has to do with the absence of feet.

Still, I imagine I'll miss them (although Pardoe probably won't) when they're retrieved tomorrow. Once you've had sixty pink flamingos on your patio, you can never completely go back to the days when you didn't.

Quiet dignity and grace. . . . Quiet dignity and grace.