The sight of a Carolina wren hopping around the trees in front with a bit of bark in its beak, presumably prepatory to nest building, fills me with a deep and utterly irrational joy.

I see ‘em every day. You’d think I’d get used to it. But I still hop around like an idiot when I see a male cardinal in the bushes because it’s bright red and even though I live at what appears to be the crossroads for a mighty cardinal nation, it’s still exciting. Because it’s red!

Possibly there’s a genetic hardwiring at work here.

This uncomplicated joy is in particularly amusing contrast to the following highly technological, geeky, and rather esoteric joy of coming into the house from admiring the happy little wrens, and finding James laughing incredulously at something called “Beatallica” which involved an unholy melding of the Beatles and Metallica. The combo of “Enter Sandman” and “Taxman” was particularly brilliant and nearly made me spray Coke out of my nose. I don’t know how they’re making the lyrics work, because they do not even remotely scan to the space involved, and my attempts to duplicate fail miserably. But it was still damn funny.

Originally published at Tea with the Squash God. You can comment here or there.