Bird Calls: It's that Social Networking Time Again

It seems to be my saving grace - this social networking thing. Or perhaps I'm aiming for a balance? In the last two years, I have switched to a virtually online lifestyle which is weird for me. For eighteen years I lived in a kibbutz tunnel - a unique lifestyle that complemented my New York City ghostly past. I'd arrive to the kibbutz in our little green Volkswagen at precisely 2:20 pm from teaching at the local Regional High School and check up on the local kibbutz news via a specially hooked up TV channel and then pick up my son from the local babyhouse that was just a two second bike ride away.

Again, social networking spaces I've once felt limiting have fulfilled a deep social need - this time a global one. And now I find that we are yet in another disastrous era when Israeli ground forces are now entering Gaza - I find myself twittering once again. I remember the days when I pushed myself to discuss the media in front of my students without knowing what tomorrow will bring. For the past few weeks, I've been facebooking and twittering as if I'm en route tomorrow to Israel to visit our kibbutz home. But I stay in front of our computer waiting for a miracle to happen. But it doesn't work this way. Like a ghost, I slip in and out of kibbutz and Pittsburgh tunnels - to walk to the kolbo (Hebrew for a kibbutz supermarket - relatively small in size) and say 'hi' to folks I see twice sometimes more daily and open our mailbox (in this case, inbox) and read all the local news from the bulletin board.

Those bird calls are back again - social networking makes it makes me ironically feel safer under a virtual shell. Yet how much more isolated am I or how really connected am I? I guess the choice of where to live and feel connected is always, inevitably.. mine. (I'm lucky to have a supporting husband though..)

So back to real bird calls. Taking it "bird by bird," Ivry and I took our usual two buses that took us to the Aviary where we claimed our own "bird spaces." And like I predicted, Ivry took to the rainforest exhibit where birds swooped to the crunching of our apples. Their benevolent faces held much more promise than simply a flutter and screech. They wanted to feel exclusively part of our territories and for a moment, I thought they would perch on our shoulders - not an uncommonly noticeable sight but terribly crucial for these strikingly beautiful birds to feel important with us!

They stuck around enough for me to enjoy their exotic markings and colors and to take some wonderful pictures

I've stuck in some extra pictures of Ivry's fourth birthday celebration and a bonus picture of today's bird Bingo he received for his Hanukkah/birthday present, which we haven't played with at all until today. After our trip today, he wanted to return it back to the store. Yikes!