A 6-turkey day

I like to have some way to independently assess a day. Some way of saying, "hey! Today is a great day!" or "uf, what a day" that has absolutely nothing to do with what I did or what I have to do. It's best for this day-decider to happen in the morning, but it's not necessary. These things can be obvious, such as the song that's playing on the radio when your alarm goes off. Obviously a day that starts with a song you love is way better than one that starts with one you hate or, worse, a commercial or insipid morning-show dj talk. Yuck. However, insipid morning-show dj talk and commercials are so prevalent that too many days are fated to be bad, so I had to do away with this criterion. In fact, I've completely obliterated it by using my ipod as my alarm. Now every day starts with the Beatles; every day is a fantastic day.

Of course, that doesn't allow for enough variation. It doesn't allow for any variation (except for the days that my ipod forgets to go off, which sometimes happens). But there are other, more creative ways to rate a day. You'll have to admit that my systems are much more humane than chicken entrails and much more interesting than horoscopes. Back when I used to eat Cheerios for breakfast, I'd always pay attention to the shapes the Os made in the milk. If I scooped them up properly, I'd sometimes get a Cheerio smiley face in my spoon. That was always exciting. But I don't eat Cheerios anymore and granola doesn't make faces at me. In fact, I get no messages of any sort from my granola.

So I started looking for things on my commute to campus. When I was driving from Woodland, my day assessment depended on the number of mountains I could see. Sure, the Central Valley is virtually flat, but we aren't all that far away from mountainous splendor! On really good days I could see the Sierra Nevada to the east. This was most likely to happen in the winter, when a recent rainstorm had cleared the air and the snow on the peaks increased the mountain-to-sky contrast. On most days the Sierra weren't visible, but I could see the coast ranges to the west. That isn't too surprising. The coast ranges are only about 30 miles away. But on really gross days, the air quality was so bad I couldn't even see them! Ew!

Mountain-visibility was a good index, but since I've moved to Davis I haven't been able to use it since the stupid town of Davis blocks my view of the Sierra, regardless of particulate matter. So I've had to adapt my day-rating to my bike commute. This turned out to be pretty easy. I frequently see a group of bunny rabbits in a field I bike past. The number of bunnies I see is an excellent day metric! There are other things too. Like hot air balloons. Apparently hot air balloon rides appeal to tourists in Napa, and they can be seen from my side of town. If they're far away they just look grey, but sometimes they come pretty close and I can see the brightly colored patterns of the balloons.

I've been wanting to write this post for a while now, but I was really hoping to have a picture of the bunnies to include. So I've been taking my new camera to work with me lately in the hopes of seeing them. Naturally, I only see bunnies on the days that I forget my camera. Pooh! Yesterday would have been the perfect photo-op. There was a bunny right underneath a beautifully flowering tree. Of course, I had decided to leave my camera at home since I needed to get to campus in time for my office hours. Today I was ready and armed with my camera, but nary a bunny was to be seen. There were 2 hot air balloons though, the first I've noticed all year. And, on the way home, six turkeys! I'm not entirely sure what it means to be a six-turkey day... Do you have any idea? I think that turkeys must fall somewhere in between hot air balloons and bunnies.

But still, it's exciting to see the turkeys. I'm not used to seeing turkeys on this side of town. There's a group of them that lives over by the cemetery, but that's several miles from here. (What's a group of turkeys called anyway? Or a group of bunnies, for that matter?) I occasionally see them on my way to ballet. Once they went through the drive-thru at In-n-Out ahead of me. I wonder if any other In-n-Out ever gets turkeys through the drive-thru. It seems a quintessentially Davis thing.

I'm just a little worried about the bunnies. There used to be so many of them. Why aren't they coming around anymore? And why are there suddenly turkeys? I really hope that the bunnies haven't turned into turkeys!!