Stop and Smell the Cranberries (AT LEAST EAT 'EM)

Yesterday, November the 23rd, was Eat a Cranberry Day. This is not a major holiday in the scheme of things, but as an urban gardener, I had every inclination to write about it here on Blogger, and to illustrate my post with photo-ops of a cranberry vine which grows in my urban (NYC) garden.  

However, I became distracted, and did not utter one word about this unusual holiday, and, so without further ado, dear reader, with the photo-ops posted above this entry (taken in my garden), I wish you a happy belated Eat a Cranberry Day.

And I hope that if you did not indulge in this taste treat (which a couple of my visiting birds are doing as seen in the images below) as of now, that you will do so.

A LONE MOURNING DOVE DOES'NT NEED HOLIDAYS RE: EXCUSE TO EAT A CRANBERRY!

A LONE BLUE JAY BURIES PEANUTS IN THE CRANBERRY VINE" HOME
(He/She likes the salt and sweet combo.)

Again I apologize for belated eat-a-cranberry wishes, but to tell you the truth, it slipped my mind. This is probably due to the fact that I am finding it increasingly harder to live in the moment, be it to report on eating cranberries or tend to certain matters at hand.

I seem to spend time analyzing my bygone years, and moreover, all around me I feel bombarded with media information that refers to this non-existent place that we call the past.

For instance the last couple of days, the media has been focused on going over and over, and over the assassination of president John F. Kennedy which happened fifty years ago this past Friday. This was a pivotal event in the United States of America; however, radio broadcasts, magazines, newspapers and the Internet are all cashing in on analyzing and re-analyzing this horrific event.

And I imagine the same is true with television. I don't own a T.V. set (my choice), but I imagine the coverage in that medium is as non-stop as it was when I was growing up, and first heard the news of the assassination — as well as heard about the subsequent events that followed (such as the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald) — via a black and white T.V. that was constantly playing (blaring) in our home. 

At this point, I don't need to continue to see the 1963 images of the grieving Kennedys to remember, for the looks on their faces are always with me; even the expression of the then little Caroline Kennedy (who is close to my age), stays in my mind and heart.

Yet on this solemn 50th anniversary week, when folks are focusing on what they were doing on November 22nd 1963 (or if they weren't born yet, focusing on what their parents told them about November 22nd 1963), "little" Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is in Japan wearing a string of pearls; with her husband at her side as she accepts a position to be the United States's ambassador to Japan.

It's been said that Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg feels "the assassination of her father is a part of history, and not a part of her father's legacy," a legacy, I assume, she feels she can carry on as an ambassador, as opposed to thinking and re-thinking what would/might have happened if only . . . 

Nonetheless while she is in Japan — living in the moment with her husband, and accepting a new position — I have been lured by the media and preoccupied with the past, as if today, November 24th 2013 — two days after the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination — IS November 24th 1963, the date when Oswald was shot.

But of course it is not November the 24th of 1963. It is November the 24th 2013. And I am not a young child watching or listening to "history in the making" when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot. Rather, as I compose this blog entry, an array of birds are visiting my garden. And they are living in the moment, as they sing and observe the flora still thriving here, while availing themselves of food in my urban (NYC) garden. 

They have been doing these "tasks" at my place for quite some time, including the past few days (as seen in the pictures below) when I have found it hard to move away from the Kennedy coverage by the media. 

MOURNING DOVE LEERS AT HIS/HER PEERS

MALE HOUSE FINCH SAVORS A BITE

BALTIMORE ORIOLE PLAYS PEEK-A-BOO FROM BEHIND A FEEDER

Could it be that my visiting birds are trying to teach me the true meaning of the scripture "Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap . . . " ?