BETTER HOMES AND GULLS Driftwood walking staffs lose their novelty and I decide to try my hand at a project requiring hammer and nails, a saw, perhaps a few good screws. I decide to build a bird habitat. Not a bird house, understand - Moi's environmentally enhanced enterprise will be a diverse species sanctuary slash multi-level feeder slash protective cover with accompanying baths and open-air bar. I figure I'll draw from my years of experience in the theatre; I have, after all, braced a flat before and I'm certainly not unhandy at props and scene painting. It'll be a breeze. I shall build a tree. Yes, a tree. Trunk, braches, stems - but oh so much more! I will construct - from odds and ends which daily wash up on the beach - a veritable avian amusement park! Fowl Disneyworld. Here's what happens. A grackle starts hanging around the yard and, animal lover that I am or rather profess to be, I offer it slices of bread and raw peanuts. Which it accepts. Following day, the bird invites its little family to feast. And some sparrows appear. So I rush out and buy fifty-pounds of seed. (Which goes fast.) Redwing blackbirds show up, and a fish crow. Crushed raisins, five ten-pound bags. And of course you know I've always had gulls. One thing leads to another. I figure, I have those power tools now. Hmm. And a plethora of raw materials from collapsed beachhouses. Hmm. When I first describe my vision to Blanca she laughs. Laughs and laughs. She thinks I'm joking, takes a sip from her third Pina Colada; I whip out my schematics and hardware list. Well that brings an air of sobriety to the conversation let me tell you. In a matter of seconds her facial expression goes from happy to confused to disbelief to shock to panicky to absolute terror. It's an emotional rush. "I doan like dem nasty birds here," she says in her heavy Hispanic accent. "Dey shit too much an I tink I am stepping on it this morning." Blanca is my housekeeper slash temporary houseguest. You can read her complaints about my coarse treatment at Blanca's Beat. The woman makes me tired. "Jes so long you doan 'spect no manual labor outta me."  (Heaven forbid.) We start the inital ground work tomorrow. I feel certain that once Blanca gets into the swing of things, arms and legs buried in wood chips and rusty nails, the scent of turpentine and epoxy in the wind; she will come around. I'm so hoping, anyway.

I love the smell of polyurethene in the morning.