{"id":894,"date":"2013-10-22T18:21:27","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T01:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calirose.com\/blog\/?p=894"},"modified":"2013-10-22T18:21:27","modified_gmt":"2013-10-23T01:21:27","slug":"fly-fly-stay-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/fly-fly-stay-stay\/","title":{"rendered":"FLY FLY! STAY STAY!"},"content":{"rendered":"

During one of our many \u201dlet\u2019s-explore-LA\u201d driving trips, my parents and I inched past the backlot of MGM Studios. From the street it looked like a western scene with California chaparral hugging the ground and groves of eucalyptus and oak trees set against the mid-size urban mountains. In the midst of all this \u201cnature\u201d and m\u00e9lange of desert colors I saw a tall, long painted backdrop of a bright blue sky. \u201cMaybe they are filming a\u00a0western\u00a0<\/em>today,\u201d my father opined.<\/p>\n

It was very exciting for me to see this. Like being in Hollywood. Except we weren\u2019t in Hollywood. We were in Culver City. And little did I know that many years later I would actually live on this wedge of earth where they used to make movies.<\/p>\n

Way back when, when MGM needed to sell off some their assets, they also sold this land. To a developer. \u00a0Thankfully whomever \u201cdeveloped\u201d our collection of buildings had the foresight to VALUE green space. \u00a0AND old trees. \u00a0AND the lake. \u00a0Yes, we have a lake. \u00a0A big \u2018ol lake. \u00a0Supposedly Johnny Weissmuller swam in “our” lake when he filmed his Tarzan flicks and that “Old Man River” was really “our” lake in the movie Showboat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
MGM’s Backlot #3 (from MGM History)
http:\/\/mgmhistory.tripod.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\n

Well, speaking of the lake… Yesterday morning, I heard a ruckus of honking and hooting outside. This is not all that surprising really, because urban living is urban living and couldn\u2019t we all write a book about the sounds our neighbors make?<\/p>\n

But this was a little off the bell curve so I poked my head over the balcony railing to check it out. By then the cacophony had stopped and I didn\u2019t see what it was or where it was coming from. So I wrote the whole thing off to \u201cducks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mating.<\/p>\n

We share our MGM lake with a flotilla of ducks. This is their home too, year-round. It\u2019s really quite sweet until mating season. Let me tell you, duck mating season is not pretty, especially if you are a girl duck. There is nothing erotic or even joyful about the whole prolonged process. It\u2019s loud and mean spirited, at least from my anthropomorphic\u00a0point of view.<\/em>\u00a0Suffice it to say, if you happen to believe in reincarnation, just hope you don\u2019t come back as a lady duck.<\/p>\n

So I wrote off all the hooting and hollering to\u00a0them ducks<\/em>\u00a0and went on my way. Except word spread quickly, neighbor to neighbor, and people dropped what they were doing and charged to the lake. To see the most unexpected and elegant sight.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

Forty Canadian Geese had just arrived. With accompanying fanfare. Our lake is an official flyway for migrating birds so we might get one or two representatives of some exotic species dropping in for a few days, but never forty of them. All at once.<\/p>\n

Well this kind of event messes with the established hierarchy in the lake. The turtles poke their heads above water, twirl around and quickly disappear. I can only guess that the fish are also hugging the muddy bottom. The ducks are a flutter and heaving together at one end of the long lake as the geese settle in at the other and assess the territory as only wild things can. They quickly find food. Grass. And they are unusually fearless and friendly as humans approach with small children and cell phone cameras. They are big, like turkeys, and when they bob up and down in the water, en masse, somehow they all face the same direction. And shift direction. Together.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
All geese pictures by Christina E.W.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I think human beings do this too, although many would not cop to it.<\/p>\n

The folks around here say the geese are on their way to Mexico and taking a little siesta before they continue south. I wonder to myself why they don\u2019t just stay. It\u2019s okay. We\u2019re \u201csouth\u201d enough and have experience with that mating stuff around here and can live with it. As long as we can take pictures. And maybe there’s room in the Homeowners Association Landscaping Budget for extra grass…<\/p>\n

But Mother Nature always wins and these beautiful creatures are moved by some deep, primal force. So are we, but I think the distractions of life get in the way of\u00a0feeling<\/em>\u00a0that stuff. But watching this \u201cNational Geographic\u201d scene unfold, quite literally, in my communal backyard, is a reminder to me of the mysterious and grand \u201csomething\u201d that\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0moves us.<\/p>\n

And soon the geese will be gone.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a crazy coincidence but right now, today, I\u2019m reading a delicious novel by\u00a0Richard Ford<\/a>. It\u2019s called \u201cCanada.\u201d The second half of the book unfolds in the desolate plains of Saskatchewan during hunting season when Canadian geese fly through on their way to, say, Culver City\u2026<\/p>\n

And suddenly forty of them actually land HERE. In \u201creal life.\u201d Fiction meets non-fiction. Yeah, yeah. I guess it all depends on your\u00a0point of view\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Food and Beverage & Entertainment for our visiting geese.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During one of our many \u201dlet\u2019s-explore-LA\u201d driving trips, my parents and I inched past the backlot of MGM Studios. From the street it looked like a western scene with California chaparral hugging the ground and groves of eucalyptus and oak trees set against the mid-size urban mountains. In the midst of all this \u201cnature\u201d and m\u00e9lange of desert colors I saw a tall, long painted backdrop of a bright blue sky. \u201cMaybe they are filming a\u00a0western\u00a0today,\u201d my father opined. It … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentry"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"blog entry"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Cali Rose","author_link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/author\/crbauthor\/"},"comment_info":3,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"blog entry","slug":"blogentry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":138,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":138,"category_description":"","cat_name":"blog entry","category_nicename":"blogentry","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}