Little Birds and a Cheese Danish

Welcome back, race fans.

“Dude, where have you been?”

We apologize for the interruption of our regularly scheduled blogcast. A few things have been happening around, or adjacent to, the old Box Bend/C21/Earth’s Pull ranch and elephant ear food truck. Just kidding about the food truck. Although that could be cool in a “Hey kids, are you hungry” sort-of-way.

First and foremost, one of our little crew (or “squad” if you’re a kid in some parts of the Midwest -like where our niece lives) has undergone a detachment from a major organ. We won’t go into too many gory details (like four new openings in his abdomen like some sort of surgical constellation playing out across a very, very pale sky), but we can offer two hints for the mildly morbid and/or constantly curious: First, in a bloated, unhealthy format, utilizing crappy lighting normally found only in surgical theaters, or on a Nokia flip-phone, this organ looks kind of like a cheese danish. Second, it rhymes with, “wall ladder.”

​Take your time. Sound it out. We’re confident that you’ll get it. You’re clever. And good looking. Obviously well read.

Second, we have been in the WWE-slash-funhouse-o-mirrors process of trying to get not one, but two new businesses off the ground. Our attention has been diverted. Fortunately, one of the two is actually off the ground. But the image/storyboard that comes to mind is one of nurturing a baby bird that has fallen out of the nest of one’s mellon. It lands on paper with a sickening smack and there is the precarious sense of life or death hanging in the balance as one nurtures and feeds it, holds it and soothes it, and occasionally plays obscure Heavy Metal for it at ear bleed volume. All babies need a jolt once in a while. But overall, these are dark, insular, and flightless days.

Then the day comes when you launch the little bugger. You’ve named it. You’ve claimed it. And you have jabbered on about it incessantly. You’ve fed it. You’ve read to it. You’ve even named it again -deciding that the first name was unworthy of something that can fly. But now, now is the time to see if the bird really can fly. Named or not. So with heart beating wildly, you throw it up in the air and watch in gobsmacked horror as the thing flaps wildly as it try’s to find purchase on invisible currents. It comes within millimeters if crashing into the dog feces splattered on the ground. It is wobbly and unsure. It has the flight pattern of a drunk pilot. It darts out into traffic as 18-wheelers and kids on cellphones careen by at breakneck speed. They’re doing 80 and this thing is doing 1. One mile per hour. You cover your eyes, but watch through splayed fingers. You have to pee and you have heartburn. It may be your gallbladder. Finally, the bird is across the street and out of sight. The bird is off on its own. Survival is dubious, but you spend countless hours looking for it, preparing for it, hoping for it, working on half-cooked schemes to make it soar. Oh little bird. Sweet, sweet little bird.

Fly, you bastard!

Meanwhile, the second baby bird not only falls out of the nest, but regurgitates all over your clean, shiny, moleskin notebook. This one has some issues unto itself. Possibly stomach related. You understand. The question isn’t one of flight or first launches. The question is one of survival past the paper stage, as well as the initial investment of time and money. It may need surgery in order to fly. The lab results are still out for analysis. But that’s true of all businesses-established or new. So you soldier on in a Florence or Fred Nightingale sort of way. You hope and pray. But if surgery is necessary, so be it. And you know the truth; not all birds live.

In the meantime, your contractor in your Bent Box business has experienced some bad truck ju-ju and your Main project is delayed while a medicine man disguised as a mechanic performs ancient and secret arts on the motor. But, in possibly good news, the little commercial project/land by the airport has closed. And a county far, far away has recognized the subdivision of yet another plot of land. This has now been recorded in heavy plat tomes.

So one does a happy dance to some heavy metal music-while stocking up on birdseed. This is the dance of all bird launchers. But it is only truly known by those that dare in the realm of flight.

And that’s about it for now. Nurturing on a personal, slightly north-of-the-border-way. And nurturing in a mental-cat-mouse-bird-Granny-and-Sylvester-throwback-flying-word-association-game-way.

But there is more to come soon, race fans, so please do stay tuned. In the meantime, we hope that you launch a few baby bird ideas yourself.

​And that you avoid the cheese danishes.