Nu baby. //
So… life, uh, found a way. We tried (admittedly have been a little distracted) to steal all of Grace’s eggs but she tricked us and hatched one! Just one. A heaping tablespoon of pale yellow fluff. Well, it’s just not possible to be sad about an itty bitty chick.
(I love Laura Dern in that clip.)
This one is light-colored, while the first clutch was all black. Already a tiny misfit.
The other chickens, teenagers now, are so far curious about the new baby. Grace pecks them if they get too close. (Very fierce.) They stay out of reach and crane their necks to watch it, (all of them at once, chickens are such gossips), while it hip-hops around mom’s feet.
We needed to rearrange the chicken living space to make it cozy for Grace and nu baby. So we took apart the old arrangement, but the chickens got a little upset about it. So there was some chaos theory with chickens flapping first up on the laundry line then up to the roof of the little limasan (our bedroom).
Chickens on the roof!
There was also a big storm that blew through when E was fixing chicken stuff and I was doing yoga. I was worried about the tiny puff-ball blowing away, but Grace disappeared the baby up into her feathers and hunkered under the downpour. She didn’t even move under the eaves of the house, to escape the rain, she just turned herself into a house. She is truly amazing.
When the rain cleared and the sun came out, nu baby came out too, peep-peeping again. Precious marshmallow. (They’re still a little clueless on day one.
To be honest, I’m worried about its chances of survival, being just one tiny peep in the midst of a boisterous flock of claw-talon-footed brothers and sisters. It will be a new test of Grace as a mother. InsyaAllah she will prevail.)
To relax from all that, I listened through Kendrick’s “beef” with Drake from last spring. They released 7 or 8 tracks taking shots at each other. All I can say about that is, hip-hop is amazing social media.
(Note. I think most of my pop culture “takes” will be a few years or decades late. “News” includes anything that happens in my lifetime, is how I see it, on my blog.)
Anyway, back to Kendrick “I said ‘we,’ it’s not just me, I’m what the culture feelin'" Lamar.
(euphoria, meet the grahams, Not Like Us)
Rap is an amazing rhetorical medium, but also, Kendrick has spoiled me for almost all other artists. Sometimes he makes it chill, sometimes angry, sometimes tragic or funny, (“some shit just cringeworthy”), but it’s always a contest, (for victory wreaths, and he didn’t come to the games to place second. He will sniff out and attack the evil (=the Drake fan?) in you. He makes music a war for the soul.
(And for his family, and for those disowned by other families, and ultimately for the soul.)
Alhamdulillahirabbilalamin. 🌖