I was driving to one of my favorite places to find birds in Morris County, New Jersey, near where I live, when I heard a strange noise and wondered what was happened to my engine.
When I stopped at an intersection, I realized it was not my engine, but an invasion.
Specifically, a cicada invasion.
You know the routine. It’s been the same since we were children. The middle of summer is defined by the whir of cicadas by day, and crickets by night. Both insects are doing the same thing – the males are calling out their availability to mate with females.
This, however, is another type of cicada. This one has the science fiction name of Brood II.
These cicadas will hang around for a few weeks calling, mating and creating new cicadas, then dying – their young not appearing for another 17 years as fully-formed teenagers itching to call and mate.
So far, this plague has not made it to my backyard – yet. Plague isn’t too strong a word either. Cicada, according to the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, is a Latin word for locust. Unlike the locust, the cicada won’t ruin crops, and it won’t bite you. But it is an ugly insect, and it makes quite a din when you have a couple of thousand going once the soil gets warm enough, as it recently did.
When I got to my birding location the cicadas were flying everywhere. The noise forced me to listen very hard to hear the catbirds, yellow warblers, house wrens and Baltimore orioles, among others. But with the exception of a few blue-gray gnatcatchers, none of the birds appeared to be going after the cicadas. Perhaps they had only just arrived this June day and the birds were too busy singing to protect their breeding territories. As I said, the usual New Jersey cicada feast starts in July when baby birds need to be fed.
Or perhaps the birds were overwhelmed by the sheer number of them.
I don’t know. But I do know I was more than a little annoyed at having to work harder than usual to hear anything over the din. I had been in the mountains of neighboring Sussex County the previous day, and had heard over 50 types of birds, and not one cicada, for which I was now grateful.
Trying to identify 50 bird calls is hard enough when they’re all going at once. Trying to identify 50 bird calls with an extra layer of cicada whirring is torture.
At some point I would hope the birds realize the early insect bonanza they have, and start eating. Birds aren’t stupid, or they wouldn’t have lasted so long.
But for this birder, the end of Brood II can’t come soon enough.
Can the Brakes be Applied on Silly Business Names?
05 Wednesday Jun 2013
Part of the pan*o*rama of silly signage on our roadsides. Photos by Bob Smith.
Why do people think it’s useful to name their businesses using puns and wordplay? It doesn’t make them memorable; it makes them silly. And I happen upon them so often. Last Sunday, as I drove through a semi-rural area of Passaic County, New Jersey, I came across a spate of silly-named businesses. First there was BRAKE*O*RAMA. As we all know from reading Wikipedia, “Rama,” is the seventh avatar of the god Vishnu in Hinduism, considered by some to be the supreme being. So it makes perfect sense to have a car repair shop named after him.
That same god has also inspired a floor covering store in Neptune, New Jersey called RUGARAMA, and a chain of door and window stores called WINDOWRAMA. Years ago there was even a beauty shop in Asbury Park named OH!HARRIET’S GLAMOUR-RAMA. I think Rama as a business-naming convention is on the wane, having been supplanted in recent years by the ubiquitous DEPOT.
But it survives in Haskell, New Jersey (named after the first avatar of teenage wiseguys from the ’60s – Eddie Haskell). Then there was FABRICADABRA, an apparently magical fabric and interior decorating store. 
It had an ugly, bulbous, green awning, and didn’t look magical at all. A block away from that was THE MEATING PLACE, a butcher shop that I suppose might also be the local pickup bar. I was late for a meating (I was en route to a barbeque, after all), so I couldn’t stop to get a photo of that.
Finally there was PASTABILITYS, featuring a concrete bunker facade, and the chance for al-fresco dining on plastic seats in the parking lot. The possibilities seemed – well, frankly, limited. But the name? Totally unique. And silly.
When My Spouse Cheats, It’s “On” Video
04 Tuesday Jun 2013
Tags
Darling, I have a confession. Me and the DVR are dating. By Julie Seyler.
Modern video technology has revolutionized the way we watch television. The digital video recorder (DVR) has made it so easy to record television that many people no longer watch anything “live.” It’s easier to watch later (even just 20 minutes later), and then zip through the commercials.
This has had two unanticipated social repercussions. First, since most people do not watch television when it is broadcast, it’s no longer possible to have water-cooler discussions at work of the previous night’s programs because many people have not yet watched them. And a related phenomenon is the new form of marital infidelity called “video cheating.”
What is video cheating and how serious a problem is it? Video cheating is watching a show alone rather than waiting to watch it later with your significant other. How serious a problem is it? Oh, it’s very serious. It’s a sign of pure selfishness, like finishing the last of the chocolate ice cream without offering to share it.
Back before video recording, we all had to watch the shows live or not at all. We all found out together who shot JR. You either were in front of a television set on Tuesday, August 29, 1967, or you missed the series finale of “The Fugitive,” and probably still don’t know the fate of the one-armed man. The VCR brought some freedom from the network schedule, but the DVR made recoding shows to watch later (so-called “time shifting”) a way of life. And so today, we rarely ever watch live television except for sports and news.
But with great power over the television viewing experience came great responsibility. The shows you formerly watched together with your spouse now could be watched without him or her. This led to a silent pact wherein each partner agreed to wait for the other before viewing so that the former live TV sharing experience could be replicated. While the rest of the world was on week five of “Mad Men,” in our house, we could be on week four, or even week three. But as long as we watched it together, it didn’t matter.
Breaking the pact could be as simple as watching the show live while your spouse is out. The absent spouse comes home, and the following scene is played out:
Spouse 1: “You missed a great episode of ‘Burn Notice.’”
Spouse 2 (voice rising): “What do you mean I missed it? We’re supposed to watch that together. Why didn’t you wait for me?”
Spouse 1 (apologetic): “I’m sorry, the DVR changed the channel I was watching and started recording ‘Burn Notice.’ What did you want me to do, shut off the TV?”
Spouse 2 (outraged): “Yes!!! That’s OUR show. You can’t watch it without me. What’s wrong with you?”
(Spouse 2 storms out of the room to pout.)
Video cheating – it’s a terrible thing that technology has wrought. And don’t get me started about spouses hijacking the Netflix queue and refusing a friend request from their spouse on Facebook. It’s a miracle the divorce rate isn’t 80%.
Going Dutch in Pennsylvania
03 Monday Jun 2013
Posted in Travel
Route 340, Lancaster County, Pa.
This past Memorial Day weekend, Steve and I took a trip to Lancaster Pa., aka Pennsylvania Dutch Country, where some of the Amish still dress in traditional garb and wield horse-driven carriages down Route 30:
Amish Carriage.
One friend immediately replied, “BORRRING!” Another waxed passionately on the merits of a local restaurant called, “Good ‘n Plenty.” We envisioned quaint colonial towns, and restaurants brimming with local farm fresh produce. What we did experience was not boring, but neither could it be called dynamic. Rather, our three-day sojourn in Lancaster can be viewed through two separate lenses: On one side of the frame is an image of the canned string beans served at Good ‘n Plenty – limp and dull. But what one sees through the other lens, is best summed up by the landscape – flat, but filled with a quiet lushness, and richness of color that screams beauty.
Saturday, the day we arrived, we spent trolling Route 340 in Intercourse. It is a town inundated with front yard garage sales, standard souvenir shops selling mass-produced chochcalas, and boutiques decked with only the finest handmade quilts and textiles.
(The area is also dotted with lots of poetically phallic silos):
Landscape. Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
My first reaction to the boutiques was anticipation – I love to shop when I visit a new place. But by the time I stepped into the third quilt shop, I was a little numb. So it was definitely time for a beer. We stopped at a local brewery called the Rumspringa, enjoyed a couple of stouts, bought souvenir glasses, and headed into Lancaster, the capital of the United States for one day in 1781, and now known as the oldest inland city in the United States. Not a whole lot going on in downtown Lancaster on a Saturday in May. But there were lots and lots of brick buildings that were quite lovely when seen basking in the late afternoon sun:
Sunset light in Lancaster, Pa.
A local recommended dinner at a restaurant called The Belvedere Inn. It was good. The chef came out to chat with us, so we asked him for suggestions for Sunday, as we were a little lost on a game plan for the next day. He thought Muddy Run State Park, where we could rent row boats, and tour the reservoir might be interesting. So on Sunday morning, after a hearty breakfast, and a tour of the farm we were staying at, we headed off to sing, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
Rowing on the reservoir.
I want a tractor.
Then it was time for another brewery – this time Stoudt’s in Adamstown. Adamstown, like Lambertville, N.J., and Hudson, N.Y., is renowned as one of the premier antique shopping meccas in the Eastern United States. We walked through one of the markets filled with old lamps, tables, headboards, china, flatware, paintings, but weren’t really in the mood to peruse, so we headed back into Lancaster. Sunday afternoon was more dead than Saturday, so we wandered through the cemetery of the St. James Episcopal Church:
The next day we decided to visit Longwood Gardens on our way back home. In 1906, Pierre S. DuPont, a scion of the DuPont family, purchased a modest farm for the sole purpose of conserving, and protecting the surrounding woodlands. Ultimately, it morphed into a public garden. It was spectacular:
The Water Garden.
Cricket on white flower.
All in all, the weekend was mighty fine. But we probably won’t ever go back to Lancaster, Pa. Except with a U-Haul for antiques.
The Saturday Blog: Abut
01 Saturday Jun 2013
Posted in Art
Abut(t). Photo by Julie Seyler.
Sometimes, the journey may be ass-backwards, but there is always a way.
The Write Side of 59 