We all know migratory birds accomplish amazing feats, but none are more incredible than this latest news about the Blackpoll Warbler.
That a fluffy bird “the size of a tennis ball” can make it from Massachusetts to Venezuela is inspiring – at least I hoped it would be for Trail Baboon’s Sing-Song Poet Laureate Schuyler Tyler Wyler.
When I asked him to pen a few lines about exhaustion and depleted things, he was already at work on it, having received word via social media that there was a bird story in the news.
The songbird’s strength is in his throat,
the better for to sing with.
He’s not designed to swim or float.
It’s music he takes wing with.
His scrawny stubs flap extra fast
when he flies o’er the ocean.
We don’t expect his trip to last
with such a frantic motion.
For three long days he pushes south.
Until the trip’s completed.
At last a sound escapes his beak.
“R my arms tired,” he tweeted.
What wears you out?
Trail Baboon 
life kinda does it. but its like democracy. the worst form of government except all the others.
life is exhausting but the alternative makes it my kind of exhausting. i pay money to go to a health club and go on an eliptical and lift weights. i feel dumb on days when it nice out to be on an eliptical inside looking out the window but of the 365 about 150 or so a re better in then out and at the times and in the sequence i enjoy the club works best. i need to get a program going like that for all the other things in my life too. i have a number of projects and ambitions in line that i pick away at and the process is all i know but it does leave you refreshingly exhausted on a regular basis. i have a list of priorities and an abc list of geting it done and like in a workout if it doenst push you to the point of sweating you are not doing it right.
im sure you are just catching me at a oment in time when i have 4 different major things going on but ill sleep a little less andget them all done… if it kills me
LikeLiked by 1 person
Trying to keep up with tim wears me out. Just thinking about it does,
LikeLiked by 4 people
Good morning. We have started doing more walking due to the warmer weather. I’m not in shape for walking after the winter months when I didn’t choose to do much walking. My legs are somewhat worn out from the walks we have started taking. It is good that my legs don’t have to carry me as far as the wings of the migratory birds carry them.
LikeLike
when i wake up and face a new day
i hope i have have something to say
lifes all too short
is my standard retort
and i go on about biz that way
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sometimes, I’ve no idea what I have to say, then I participate on the Trail and often find out that I have TOO much to say!
LikeLiked by 3 people
I am going in to work an hour early today to finish some things and so I can be done by 10, and then I am taking off from work until next Tuesday. I never seem to feel rested these days, so I guess everything is making me tired.
LikeLike
having to fight the same battle over and over and over.
Also having to do something over because I was told the wrong thing in the first place.
LikeLiked by 2 people
We have had tremendous winds here for the past several days. I find walking in these winds very tiring.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re not alone in that. We have that wind today. I try to avoid spending much time outdoors on days like these.
Jack Morris used to say that wind is a pitcher’s worst enemy. It’s stiffens the joints. He liked pitching in the Metrodome for that reason.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am happy to make up the balance. I love being out in a fierce wind.
LikeLike
The relative humidity was 13% yesterday, we are in a drought with Red flag warnings and extreme fire danger, the wind is blowing 40 mph with gusts up to 50 mph, and and some knucklehead was arrested in a small, nearby town for shooting off fireworks.
LikeLike
Grandchildren, particularly the 1 1/2+ year old twins.
Traveling.
Being around people a lot, especially when I have to interact with people who are not even close to being a kindred spirit.
And, like PJ, reading about tim’s agendas.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Politics. Not just the national stuff, which is exhausting, but corporate politics, cultural politics, sexual politics, you name it. Too much wrangling.
LikeLiked by 3 people
What exhausts me the most by far is dealing with strong emotions which go along with worrying about my kids or having done something wrong with another person. Cancer never really triggered strong emotions, but seeing the dream home one last time my son just finished building a few months before he and his wife split has had me in tears for days. I’m grieving HIS home, knowing what this represents to him: the loss of a lifelong dream. Feeling intense compassion and sorrow exhausts me.
LikeLike
Yes.
LikeLike
Micromanagement
LikeLiked by 4 people
from those who manage poorly, and insist on doing it at the microscopic level, dear Lord deliver us.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I want to hit the like button 5 times for your comment, mig.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The music on this construction site wears me out. They are playing death metal. I call it angry white boy music. It’s just growling.
LikeLike
the music is tough but then you see the people who listen to it and there is nobody home
LikeLike
I enjoy metallic but this carnifex is horrid
LikeLike
You’ve got to love a little bird carrying “tiny tracking devices that could be attached to the back of a blackpoll warbler like a backpack.” Wow!
Lots of things wear me out, but mainly the two new aerobics classes at the Y… I feel great afterwards, but in the middle of them I find myself looking a lot at the clock.
Also several folk dances, i.e. the fast version of Kyustendilska Ruchenitsa, a Bulgarian dance that was easy when I was 29…
LikeLike
everything is easy when youre 29
LikeLiked by 1 person
Be grateful, fellow Baboons, for whatever makes you tired. That makes sleep not only possible, but a pleasure. Because I only can limp about now, I walk very little. That means my nighttime sleep is usually three or four hours, and then I’m wide awake at 4 or 5 AM. Two hard-working Japanese folks live above me, which means I creep around for hours in the morning avoiding making a sound.
When Edith was here, I walked about 100 or 200 yards. That night I slept like a baby!
LikeLiked by 1 person
On the other hand, lack of sleep sometimesakes me too tired to sleep.
LikeLiked by 1 person
OT Liam story: Molly just told me a story. A man suffering from depression jumped off the Golden Gate. He was one of the lucky one percent of jumpers who survive the jump, but his back was broken, so he couldn’t swim. He kept sinking down into the depths. A dark object began circling him. The man thought, “How ironic. Now I suddenly want to live, but my fate might be to be eaten by a shark!”
As he sank below the waves again, something below him bumped him back to the surface. He gasped and filled his lungs with air. When he dropped again, he again was bumped back up. The dark thing in the water turned out to be a sea lion. It was intent on keeping him alive. The man did survive and went on to give TED Talks about his experience.
Liam’s response surprised me. “It is good it wasn’t a shark but a sea lion,” said Liam. “Sharks are fish and sea lions are mammals. A shark wouldn’t know the man needed to breath air.”
“Plus, a shark would’ve eaten him!”
LikeLiked by 3 people
Liam stories always perk me up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I feel tired when I look at the list of things I want/intend/have to do – it is a ponderous list, and I keep moving things back week after week. Sometimes I have moved a to-do so many times I think I just can’t stand to look at it anymore, so I make a point to get it done, even if it’s not the top priority on the list, just so I won’t have to look at it again.
LikeLiked by 5 people
That’s the trick to managing that list, Linda. Put things on there that you really don’t mind doing, and then do them. That way the list won’t get longer. Of course, it won’t get shorter either.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Even better, put finished things you never got around to putting on the list on the list and immediately cross them off!
Instant win!
LikeLike
1. Make list.
2….
LikeLike
2. Cross off #1.
3. Cross off #2.
4. Cross off #3….
LikeLiked by 2 people
This is something I do on a regular basis – even if I didn’t put it on the list doesn’t mean I didn’t do it! I have a long color-coded list for this week/weekend. I’m in pretty good shape!
LikeLike
do you know the franklin planner abc priority system. its great. now if id just practice what i preach
LikeLike
http://www.dkeener.com/keenstuff/priority.html
LikeLike
Looking around the house at all the cleaning and tidying I should be doing. I finally got the new curtains up, but there is still sorting and organizing to do.
And then there is the new “normal” at work where the majority of the day is spent in meetings or getting ready for meetings…which means I spend a lot of the day context switching. By the end of the day my brain can’t handle any more decisions or thinking.
LikeLike
Ach.
LikeLike