birdlady.
birdlady lives in my building. sHe is five feet tall. she is asian. she is abOut sixty.
…and she is
one
With the pigeons.
it Is quite the usual day when atwater's sidewalks are filled with congregations of pigeons. birdlady feeds them. i have seen her out there every day for the past two years that i have Lived on the corner of atwater and sherbrooke. she seems tO have a deep sense of obligation and servitude to these creatures. in her oVer-sized purse is a five-pound bag of birdseed.
the other day on atwater, i was walking with groceries in my hands when i saw a sight that almost made me drop everything. one hundred feet in front of mE, and about twenty feet above the intersection i saw about thirty Pigeons flying in rapid circle. talk about eerie. It reminded me of that alfred hitchcock movie "the birds" where seaGulls circled the skies, turned violent, upturned a small town and attacked some people. it was scary. so, fEaring for my life, i stood there. frozen. they flew in circles numerous times and suddenly i realized that birdlady was crOssing the intersection. the birds were following her! circling above her. connected to her. they knew her. and as soon as she stopped walking, the pigeoNs -seemingly- fell to the ground and flocked around her. what an amazing site! and sure enough, from her obese purse, was a bag of seed She poured onto the gravel.
the pigeons are one with birdlady.
and birdlady is one with them.
pigeons are the oddest creatures.
they are smarter than you think.
and if you do not believe that,
then you are just s q u a r e.
wisdom grows r o o t s.
By the way, as true as this narrative is, it is a riddle. the question is in the last bit and includes a sum of some sorts. . .
Posts
9 comments:
i think the answer is square root... did i win?
oh and about birdlady i've seen her too one day i was at the grocerie store buying pie for our saturday morning dawn breaker class at zi's and i was behind this lady that was buying bird food, i didn't think much of it. i paid and walked out, as i walked towards zi's app i saw the same lady not far in front of me... and as she walked pidgeons started to flock perching on all the trees more were gathering... i found this odd and did not understand... then she took the bag out and started poring the feed on the ground the birds fell to her feet eating, there were 100s maybe 1000s! it was a site to behold... scary...
-P
no. you're wrong. But square root is part of the question. 1000s? Pie...I'm so glad you've seen her. People think I'm nuts when I talk about her. She's a real live birdlady. no pun intended.
The capital letters form HOWILSOVEPITGEONS. Assuming that these are a mixed up message of some sort, I would say it was something like, "How pigeons solve it", in reference to the riddle. Although I don't know how.
As "square root" is actually part of the question, but the only application of a square root I see possible in the story is to calculate the distance from you to pigeons, as completing a right triangle. This is especially pertinent as in general storytelling you don't give vertical and horizontal distances. In which case we find that you are the square root of (100*100 + 20*20), or 101.98 ft. from the birds.
I still don't know how, or even if this relates to "How pigeons solve it". Nor do I know if there is any significance to the 5-lb bag, the 30 pigeons, or the "One with..." lines.
Great blog by the way. I'm enjoying all of it. Blog On!
"The Smoker":
You have brought something to my attention -which I am entirely at fault for. It is good you caught on to the capital letters. There were two mistakes on the original post itself. I have corrected these errors and apologize to you and to everyone else. I have gone through the corrected post several times and can assure you that it is error-free. (I can't believe I missed those two things! The details that truly matter)
Try again now. :-)
HOW I LOVE PIGEONS square roots.
Numbers used: five, sixty, one, five, hundred, twenty, thirty.
Shapes: a circle. of flipping pigeons.
Gosh Zina, these aren't even square numbers. Except that the square root of 100 is ten. In my attempt to find the square root of a pigeon, I have become more confused than when I started.
Riddles are hard when you don't even know the question. You enjoy being an enigma, don't you? My sexy enigma of a cousin.
Mo- if there is one person who I would expect to figure out the answer to this riddle it is you.
it's all about sums.
try again.
pigeons is part of the square of a root.
and to answer your question mo-money (mo-crazy), I rather like being an enigma :-) no one knows it better than you, "mo."
btw. if anyone needs a clue, I might consider answering any pesky cries for help.
Zina, I never knew you were so into mathematics. Pigeons is part of the square of a root? But the square of a root is the same number you started with. Square the square root of four and you get four.
5+60+1 = 66
2+5 = 7
100+20+30 = 150
1+1 = 2
Add them all together, you get 225. The square root of this is 15. So pigeons are somehow 15, am I right? Or 15 is how you love pigeons. Or you have secretly been a pigeon for 15 years.
Yeah and I saw Miss Congeniality 2. I think she is more like you, and I am more like her punk bodyguard.
Zina, you're not like other people. You're different...you're a FREAK! :)
Post a Comment