Shades of summer ...

If you're a regular visitor to my blog, you'll have noticed that there's been a color overhaul. And the masthead is different. Some of the fonts and font colors, too.

I've gone popsicle colored, for summer! I needed something tropical and bright. After the weeks of dreary rain (which is fine in small doses but not for weeks, heavens no!) my soul craved some serious color saturation. Like that Canteloupe Kool-Aid background.

And those birds -- caiques painted by Catherine Klein -- aren't they something? I am a big fan of birds, probably because they're one of the only forms of wildlife you see living in the city. Not caiques, of course (at least not in my city), but the more garden variety types. Which are also a form of Nature's showing off, if you ask me.

I live right next to a major highway, but after dark when there are long stretches between the big trucks booming their way through the night on the empty road I can sometimes hear the birds in the tall trees. Talking with one another. Sometimes plaintive, usually cheerful, always interesting. I wonder what they are saying.

Whatever it is, if you listen very closely you can tell that they have a hundred different ways of saying it.