"Standing" on the Corner Watching All the Gulls Go By . . .

Do you know what the animal-world collective noun is for a group of flamingos? "Stand." A stand of flamingos. (One amateur on-line neologist suggests "flamboyance"--a flamboyance of flamingos. Gotta admit: it has a nice ring to it.) So if a flock of those birds were to appear suddenly in your yard, would you say that you'd been "stood" up? That's what we were last night:

Hey, these guys weren't in our yard last night when we went to bed!

On my way out the door this morning to go to work, I discovered a stand of flamingos standing in our front yard--we'd been pinked! (Faithful readers will recall what that means.) We had to pay $20 to the hoodlums responsible for those shenanigans in order to have the stand removed and stood in somebody else's yard (are any Dickinson relatives reading this and just now figuring out where their own set of pink avian yard ornaments came from?!). But the $20 goes directly to the American Cancer Society, so it's for a good cause.

Also to help that cause, our family will join those same hoodlums on their team in the annual Relay for Life, held this upcoming Friday in Whitney Stadium at Dickinson State University. We will be walking not only in memory of our moms and other loved ones now gone who had cancer but also in honor of friends and family who have survived cancer . . . or who are currently battling it. Please add my friend Jarri to your prayers for that reason.

And my friend Ruth, also a cancer survivor, offers you this means to help in the battle. Pink birds on the lawn are a fun way to get our attention, but ultimately we need to find a cure for cancer to stop this loss of loved ones to the disease in its many forms.

Hillary and Abigail mimic the one-legged posturing of the pink plastic pests (Suzanna was still asleep). I pray that in their lifetime cancer is wiped out.