As The Crow Flies

For people who love documentaries and all those movies that you could only see if you lived in a big city with an art house, Netflix has been a boon. They have everything. I live out in the middle of nowhere and my movies have a one day turn around. Netflix lets you rent, watch and return DVDs from home – Try free for 2 weeks Here is a list of my favorite documentaries:

• American Movie (1999) About a guy with no talent or skill but a passion for making movies and a contempt for those who don’t.
• Aileen Wuornos: Selling of a Serial Killer (1992) She worked as a prostitute and killed the men that raped her. Her advisers are a barefooted, singing lawyer and a religious woman that adopts her. Both of them sell her out and she ends up on death row.
• Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003) The story continues.
• Born Into Brothels (2004) Film maker teaches the children that live in a red light district of India how to photograph.
• Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
• Country Boys (2-Disc Series) (2002) Follows the lives of 2 Appalachian teens that go to a special school.
• The Cruise (1998)
• Crumb (1994)
• Daughter from Danang: American Experience (2002) Woman who was born to a Vietnamese woman and an American solider leaves Vietnam and is adopted by a Texan when she is eight. She is completely americanized including a Texas accent when she returns to visit her family in Vietnam.
• The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)
• Devil’s Playground (2002) When Amish kids turn 16 they drink, have sex, and shoot drugs until they decide to become Amish or not.
• The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000)
• First Person: The Complete Series (3-Disc Series) (2000) EarlMorris films people, interrogation style, with his special built camera.
• Grey Gardens (1975) Two eccentric former socialites, who are related to Jackie O, live in their decaying mansion full of cats and raccoons.
• Hands on a Hard Body (1998) Documentary about a contest in the south where people stand around with their hand on a Nissan pickup for days until the last one drops.
• Hell House (2001) Christians set up a “house of horrors” about what will happen to you if you have sex.
• Jesus Camp (2006) Training children to roll around on the floor, talk in tongues, be annoying to non-christians, and praise Bush.
• Jupiter’s Wife (1995) Homeless woman that lives in Central Park.
• Marjoe (1972) Rolling on floor, talking in tongues, child preacher grows up and doesn’t believe anymore yet keeps preaching for the cash.
• My Flesh and Blood (2003) Single woman adopts all these sweet kids with disabilities and one little hellion that makes everyone miserable.
• Sister Helen (2002) Loud, alcoholic nun runs a halfway house for drug addicts and alcoholics.
• Sound and Fury (2000) Deaf parents are given the choice to let their deaf children hear via the cochlear implant but they want their children to remain deaf.
• Spellbound (2002) Spelling bee and the kids that compete in them. Suspenseful.
• Stevie (2003) Filmmaker goes back to visit the boy that he was a “big brother” to many years before. Finds a man that is more troubled then the boy he once tried to help.
• Vernon, Florida (1981) Small town Floridians are interviewed. Ha!
• When We Were Kings (1996) I don’t like boxing but this story of the Zaire match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman is so well told it’s like you are hearing a folk tale.
• Word Wars (2004) The rough world of the professional scrabble player.
• Wordplay (2006) The not so rough world of the crossword puzzle addict.

The first time I noticed a Gray Jay, was when I moved to North Central Washington. They came right up to me–like I was in a Disney movie. I mentioned to someone that these birds don’t seem to have any fear of people, and they nodded and said “Yeah, they’ll take food right out of your hand.”

One morning, high up a pass in the North Cascades, I woke up on a wide section of trail that I had decided was as far as I could go the night before. Lying in my bag, looking out at the glorious view and the morning sun, I reach into my food sack and pulled out a bar for breakfast. As I unwrapped it, a Gray Jay lighted by me. Even though I don’t approve of feeding animals, I held a piece of my bar between my fingers; it hopped on over and took it. Then two others showed up. One landed on my pack that was laying next to me; we finished off the bar together. When the bar was gone, so were they.

I would really like a pet for the winter but I know as soon as spring comes a pet will tie me down. My son suggested I try to make friends with a wild bird.

I worry about putting out a feeder because I don’t want to attract rodents and bears. But maybe I’ll buy some feed and see how it goes. One website has this to say about Gray Jays: “Trusting and easily tamed, the Gray Jay is good company for people in lonely places.”

In the spring I put out eggs for the ravens. They swoop my cabin when they want one. But they are stealthy, once I put the eggs out. We are a long way from becoming friends but a gray jay is your friend right away.

When I came home, this year, there was a Grey jay coming around to my cabin but I didn’t feed it so it left. Maybe it will give me a second chance.

Whoa! As I was writing this, I put out a little bread on my picnic table that sits on my porch. Now a Raven is swooping around my cabin, yelling. If it takes the bread, that will be as close as it has ever come to my cabin. Those ravens always know what is going on.