Surprising Flying Objects

(SFOs)

It’s going to be a fairly short update today, as I’ve been cheating on the WanderFinder writing project to work on another writing project. Some of you might know the story of how I tried – and failed – to repatriate the remains of Justilian Gaspard, a disowned, gay high school classmate who died in Mexico. I’m giving it a go at writing out that story, so if you have a lucky pen or legal pad or other writing talisman, go ahead and give it a little pat for me if you don’t mind.

In the meantime, just a few updates from here.

***

First, I am absolutely gobsmacked to learn that spiders can fly on electrical currents. That’s right. You heard it here first (assuming you didn’t know it already).

I am very, very excited about this because even pre-pandemic, I was not loving air travel, and post-pandemic, the idea of returning to a world of cramped quarters with everybody touching each other and breathing the same air – bay-bee! It gives me more creeps than a thousand spiders flying across a hundred oceans.

I don’t know who’s in charge of the scientists of the world, but as soon as they feel like the scientists have got COVID pretty much squared away, I want them to assign a good number to figuring out how this electric-current process works so that we can start spider-porting ourselves across the world.

***

The second piece of news is that I went on a very slow (masked, distanced) promenade in the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens with my friend Diana, who is kind enough to humor me in these matters. I need her to humor me because, I have lupus, or something very like lupus, and sometimes it flares up and gives me problems. Right now, it’s giving me a little breathing difficulty – which is particularly fun during a respiratory pandemic – so I need to go slow. Like, slow loris slow. Three-toed sloth-slow (Three-toed sloths are, I think, slower than their two-toed bretheren. No doubt it’s figuring out what to do with that extra toe that slows them down.)

At any rate, Diana walked to the gardens, and I drove, and then, as I say, we took a promenade around the gardens. In summer, they’ll be an absolute hidden treasure of D.C., absolutely bursting with dragonflies and lotus flowers.

Source: Hannah, the WanderFinder

Right now, though, they are mostly muddy and flat.

No matter. We caught up with each other, watched the tide pour in from the Anacostia River, and saw some little sand pipers take a bath.

Diana started her walk back, and I walked to the parking lot, when I saw a large bird in the air. Following the bird, it seemed to land on – was that a broken light for the football field next door?

It was.

Source: Hannah, the WanderFinder

There were some middle schoolers (I think) practicing on the field, but as the light was a little distance from the field, I went over and then stood like a complete idiot, gazing stock-still at the base of one of their football lights. The osprey had flown away, so probably more than one person considered calling the cops on this mentally imbalanced person who kept taking pictures of a broken light pole, but thank goodness, the osprey came back, and it had a stick in its claws!

Source: Hannah, the WanderFinder

From behind me, I heard gasps. “An eagle!”

“That eagle’s got it’s nest up there!”

I fear, though, that I ventured too near its nest, and the osprey dropped the stick before arriving at the nest and flew away. Worried that I was overstaying everyone’s welcome, I left.

I am hoping to go back and perhaps try to acclimatize the bird (birds, actually – I saw two of them) to my presence, so if anyone has any advice on how to do that, please comment below, or write me at info@wanderfinder.com or @wanderfinder on Twitter. Thanks, and have a great week!