Unwed & childless

When you are see above on Mother's Day and someone has stolen your wallet, and the grandchildren are unavailable, sometimes you get lucky and your mother comes to you. And so it was that McMumsy and PolackPappy drove down from the woods and picked me up for a trip to the Mount Auburn cemetery to see some super-cute great horned owl babies and some super-dead famous peoples' graves and mausoleums, and also sniff lilacs and crabapple blossoms and generally revel in the beauty of nature.

There was an owl pellet under glass at the visitors center, where a guide helpfully traced the quickest route to the home of the producer of that pellet. As we were heading out the door, my parents ran into the people who'd been sitting behind them at church that morning, an entire state away. In another curious coincidence, the husband of the couple had worked at Audobon for many years and he had a more technical term for my rhymed "bird nerds": twitchers.

There were some serious twitchers by the owls nest, including an older lady with a well-stuffed, many-pocketed vest, but what's nice about weirdos who watch birds is that they're friendly and will gladly let you look through their fancy spotting scopes and answer your questions. Unlike people who own birds, who in my experience tend to be much more socially awkward weirdos.

There are great photos of the bird babies here. Also, check out what an optimist (as Pp rightly noted) Isabella Stewart Gardner was.

Pp and I climbed to the top of a tower and surveyed the city beyond. Later Mm showed up, despite her fear of heights, and pointed out the Mormon temple off in the distance. We McPolacks are quite fascinated by Mormons. I am not sure why, but it's always nice to have a variety of common interests.