The big happening in Row E today was a pair of baby birds, robins I think, that had fallen out of their nest. (Or were they pushed?).  They hopped all the way from one end of the row to the other, and back, squawking like mad all the way.

I passed them on my way to my garden this afternoon, and God forgive me, all I could think was: "now, there's a cliché." 

I mean, come on.  That's been done, like, a million times. 

Of course, when they reached the end of the row, a little crowd of passersby gathered.  All the girls went awwww! as they took out the iphones and started snapping. 

Then one of the elderly women from a few rows over spotted me in my garden and rushed up.

"What are we going to do?" she cried.  She was adorable in her little hand-stitched garden vest with little crocheted flowers and butterflies on it. 

I was like, "let me get my dipping sauce — looks like we're having wings for dinner tonight!"

But she was genuinely stricken, wringing her hands, the whole bit.

"The rats will get them!"

I was like, "What are you gonna do?  Rats will be rats.  They're too scrawny for a man-sized meal anyway."

Clearly, nature was taking its course.  These two were obviously nestlings, and it was time to shit or get off the pot.  I had no idea where the nest was, but clearly mama robin wanted to get on with her life.  And so did the more badass of the two fledglings, who kept turning to the other and flapping its wings, like, "come on!  Let's DO THIS!"  The other one just wasn't catching on.  He would kind of irritatedly ruffle his feathers, and hop away.

You can't really help someone who won't help himself, y'know?

It reminded me of what a cold-hearted bastard I am, though.  I mean, not for a minute did I contemplate — I don't know, women seem to think about doing crazy shit like scooping up baby birds and raising them in a shoebox in their apartment, or something.  I don't think men do.  I didn't. 

With all the squawking, I did think about scooping them up and relocating them to the compost so that I could have some peace and quiet.  But other than that:  it's Nature, baby.  And Nature knows best.

It wouldn't really impress me if someone decided to adopt them, either.  I had my first foray into seriously almost buying a piece of art over five hundred bucks a couple weeks ago.  This young woman from the Museum School who'd shown some very impressive pieces at Espresso Royale.  We agreed to meet, and she was a little late.  No biggie.  But she launches into this story about how she's been caring for this baby bird that fell out of its nest.  That's why she was late, she said.

I didn't end up buying anything from her.  It wasn't necessarily the baby bird thing.  It had more to do with cash flow, but if I had really been on the fence, the baby bird thing would not have done it for me.  I mean, you're already an artist.  It's enough.  You don't have to adopt baby birds that have fallen out of their nests.

I mean, how cliché.