Friday Night Dueling

Flynn and I have reached a point where badminton is like dueling with swords. Just like with swords, you can attack high or low, left, right, or midline, in almost infinite combination. Some shots are like thrusts, while others are ripostes. You can play a defensive game and wait for your opponent to make a mistake, or you can play offensively and try to maneuver them into position for a kill. It's an amazingly apt metaphor for actual combat.

We usually play a best of three, just like in handball. It's grueling - neither of us are in fantastic shape - and we both leave the court dripping with sweat. During a good game you must exercise your quickness, aggression, patience, politeness, honesty, strategy, trickery, and numerous other skills. You have to control your breathing, hide your fatigue, read your opponent's face and body language, try not to lose the shuttle in the lights, and be ready to run from net to back line and every corner of the court, over and over in each rally. There are towering lobs that fall on the back line from 40 feet up, tiny little hairpin drops that travel less than a foot and clear the net by two inches, and overhand jump-smashes that move too quickly to be seen.

Badminton is threatening to replace handball as my favorite game. (GASP!)

Despite the geeky swordplay comparison that makes my old SCA heart throb, the best part is the way the local Flock has taken to it. At first it was just me and Flynn - in fact, I never would have gotten addicted if Flynn hadn't agreed to come with me to that first club meeting - but now G-Fresh, Fleur, Beckers, Lil' Tattooed Girl, Indian Princess and Vanilla Fresh are all regulars for Friday night badminton. Those of you who are really old school readers of this blog will remember a time when the Flock got up early on Sundays to go throw boomerangs - we used to call it "Sunday Mass." Badminton has kind of taken the place of that form of worship; at least until it warms up a lot more.

Fleur took a bunch of pics tonight while we were playing. Maybe she'll post some on her blog...

New Babies

Over on the Flock Hall 2.0 blog, I asked everyone to introduce themselves - and they have, for the most part. The human and nonhuman members of the family that we had when we signed the lease have been introduced - but we have recently acquired a new member, and we are going to get another in the near future...

Much like she was taken in and adopted herself, Squid has adopted a pygmy hedgehog. He came with the name "Kitsch" but I think Squidly has other names in mind. I'm sure she will do an intro post for him on Flock Hall 2.0 very soon (hint hint).

I am also getting another baby - a Greater Vasa parrot hen - toward the end of July, assuming the landlord doesn't object (he better not object; I'm having some plumbing and carpentry improvements done to the house out of my own pocket!). Because they are somewhat rare as pets, I've posted these pics of Vasas so you can get an idea of what they look like:



She was born on April 20th (hee hee; 4-20) and she is just about weaned now. As soon as she arrives and gets settled into her new home, I'll take some pics of her and post them.