bird buddies

"Please don't feed the birds."
--Sign in Steamers, Seattle seafood eatery -- I wondered why this sign was inside the restaurant, until I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a bird casually walking by my table.

blue plans for happiness

"We had collected in our years together a sizable library of books and a large set of record albums, neither of which were readily available in those days. Guests had brought us gifts discreetly, knowing our tastes ... We were very proud of our home: books in Hungarian, English, German, French, recordings of classical and jazz music ... We could never, and certainly not at this late date, hope to carry our treasures out of the country with us. Hungary was closing its every border, every gap in its skin, with terrible speed. We had to accept this fate, that our treasure would be stolen from us, and there was terrible regret over this. But my beautiful husband was clever to the very end. He had an idea, you see, because ... he saw me weeping -- it is ridiculous to say now -- over Alice in Wonderland. Not the Bible, not Petofi or Arany or Kis, not even Tolstoy. I could not bear to lose my Alice. He saw me on the floor, holding it like a baby ... he did not scold me for wasting time. He understood at once why I was crying, and he told me what we would do, and we did it. We spent one long night making a catalog of our literature and music. Of our life and pleasures. We took turns with the pen. One of us recited; one of us wrote. You must think of this beautiful scene ... There are tanks rolling up the streets of your home. Where you grew up ... And behind a blackened window, by candlelight, my husband and I scribble and whisper ... We knew there was a risk, of course, we were not fools, we were merely excited and sure that this was worth it and that we would survive and have this tale to tell later, elsewhere, to very impressed admirers like you and that we would have the pleasure of rebuilding this collection ... We were laughing because we were escaping with the blue plans, the design for our happiness, and if they exploded our building, if they burned our books, if they melted our records with their flame-shooters, if they fouled my piano, they will still not hurt us.
--Prague, Arthur Phillips