There was one other thing I didn’t mention yesterday on the very remote possibility I’d be spoiling the surprise. In the late morning, we picked Richard and Kim up at the airport, got to share hugs and tell him happy birthday in person, and took them out to lunch at the place of his choosing. Pizz’a Chicago.  (I can just see all the locals suddenly smiling. Good place.  And the one place where even Michelle can safely eat pizza, which she loves, if we’re careful.)

Birthday cake at home.  Then we dropped them off at Kim’s aunt and uncle’s house a few blocks away, where they were getting ready to surprise her grandparents, who also live in town: it was their 60th anniversary.  They were expecting a small celebration. Ain’t gonna happen.

Her grandfather was in Stanford Hospital the same time I was, and Kim’s mother would visit me after visiting her dad in cardiac.  Sometimes life teaches you not to take things for granted; sixty years together? Hey! Everybody! Let’s ALL celebrate–to life! And so their children and grandchildren showed up.

On the falcon front, Esteban Colbert (aka Papa bird) sat on a ledge on City Hall motionless for four hours yesterday, while his adult-sized chicks, who have not yet learned how to hunt–fledge first, one thing at a time–got hungrier and hungrier.  It has been reported that one parent will fly at a group of pigeons lined up across a lightpost, and as they skitter away, the other will snatch one from behind.  When you’re flying at 200+ miles per hour, you want a cushion of air under your prey, not a metal post.

But this time EC was, from his son’s point of view, sitting on his duff. So Veer flew right at him and then pushed him off that ledge!  His Pigeon English conveyed the message loud and clear: feed me!

Later, Veer was seen chasing after one himself.  You can just picture his father smirking–nothing like a little motivation to get a kid to do some work that he’s new at and uncertain about.  (A one-on-one parent/child hunting lesson happened as I was typing this. Squab-on-the-wing. Tastes like chicken.)

We’d have offered up a slice if pepperoni/veggie had been their thing.