Things in my 'hood have been quiet. Too quiet. Summer's here in Miami, and anyone with any sense has fled the oppressive heat. Neighbor/friends have taken refuge in Maine, the Poconos, and North Carolina. Even our local Gladys Kravitch has put up her hurricane shutters and headed for her daughter's apartment in NYC.
The dog poop dustup seems to have settled. There have been no more threats of poisoning furry woodland creatures (along with pooping dogs), and the threatened streetfight between a Napoleonic attorney and a wise ass retired South American banker never took place. Sadly, the banker's beautiful chocolate Lab darted into Ludlam Drive and was killed...
So nothing much was happening...UNTIL! At the Association meeting in March, several of the sweet old ladies complained about peafowl. Peafowl is the gender neutral term for peacocks and their lady friends, the peahens.
Anyway, while Wifey and the Ds and I think that spotting these majestic blue birds is way cool, apparently the peafowl are prodigious poopers (wait! I've stumbled onto the working title for a great kids' book "Priscilla, the Prodigiously Pooping Peafowl") and heavy enough to damage pool screens and roofs, AND, make an awful racket.
Winston Churchill apparently delighted in telling ladies they "sang with the voice of a peacock." Since the birds are so beautiful, the recipients of Churchill's comments assumed he was complementing them. In fact, the peafowl "song" is an awful screech.
A year or so ago, a peahen sat on our dining room roof and squawked. Wifey was in bed convinced that I was outside making comical jungle sounds. She didn't believe it was actually a peahen until she got up and saw it.
So, the Association complained, and our great president Gloria took action. Gloria is one of my favorite neighbors. She's a most serious appearing woman, unfailingly pleasant, with big glasses. One look at her in school, and I'm sure anyone would have identified her as the girl you wanted to sit next to and copy exam answers. I know I would have.
Gloria put the matter to an email vote. About 40% of the neighbors voted, and voted overwhelmingly to remove the birds. Gloria then set about researching peafowl removal --talking to folks in Four Fillies Farm, and Snapper Creek Lakes. She was directed to a peafowl removal company, who trapped the birds and took them somewhere better suited for them (my friend Jorge thinks that place is a cockfighting arena, where the slow moving peafowl are practice targets for the gamecocks...)
So Gloria hired the company, which is not to be paid until the catch and remove 10 of the critters. Apparently, the peafowl proved more wiley than expected, and over the past few months, nothing happened.
And THEN: the techs got frustrated with trapping, and decided to shoot tranquilizer darts into their targets. On Monday, this was happening when Dawn happened upon the scene.
A word about Dawn. She's a pretty young mom, with 2 adorable kids, about 4 and 7. She runs --a LOT --and weighs, I guess, about 90 lbs. Her husband Steve is a retired military officer, now a corporate lawyer, and movie star handsome. He's not very tall, but built like the triathlete he is.
When HE runs down the street, with his adorable son in tow, the neighbor ladies say "Aw, how cute" but their thoughts are elsewhere...
Anyway, to call Dawn somewhat high strung is to call Shaquille O'Neal somewhat tall.
Dawn had, well, a reaction when she and her kids saw the birds getting darted. Apparently she threatened the trapper, and our off duty FHP Trooper Corporal Card came by.
Jim Card is our version of the wise, friendly, small town sherriff, a la Andy Taylor. He's head of FHP Traffic Homicide in his day job, and he has the mien of the guy who has seen just about every form of human stupidity and tragedy, and somehow keeps a sense of calm and humor. He once told me, in a somber moment, that he has probably called more family of deadly crashes to report on the awful loss of their relatives than anyone else in Florida. He can deal with high strung rich suburbanites and their problems...
As expected, Jim deftly diffused the crisis, and convinced Dawn to go into her house without turning the dart gun on the trapper.
And then Dawn fired off an emotional, heart wrenching email, about how her kids have been nightmare plagued and traumatized, and the barbaric darting of the peafowl must stop, and maybe the vote to remove them was rigged in the first place!
Poor Gloria. She volunteers as president, does an amazing job, and gets as thanks an accusation that she's a modern day Richard Nixon, and the architect of a vast, anti peafowl conspiracy!
The email floodgates opened. The Napoleonic lawyer, apparently also pro peafowl, announced that he was well armed (don't all little guys have guns?) and if the trappers trespassed on his property in pursuit of the birds, well, he couldn't tell what might happen.
Another neighbor, another young mom known for speeding through the 'hood in her mini van, probably being the truly most dangerous factor in our quiet hamlet, is very much in favor of continuing the roundup. She explained that she has a new roof and skylight, and the peafowl crap all over it, and are likely, with their bulk, loosening roof tiles, and besides, we voted fair and square and to go back after the fact sets a bad precendet for future issues...
I weighed in, too. As a lawyer, I mentioned the "L Word." No, not lesbian, which our neighborhood, as far as I know, is sadly deficient in, but rather LIABILITY.
I told Gloria that our Association might get sued by a neighbor, visitor, or even trapper, and now that we had notice, we ought to suspend operations.
Gloria agreed. She always makes the right call. So for now, the peafowl are free to keep pooping, heavily perching on screens and roofs, and screeching away. They are also free to amaze us as we take evening walks (pm thundersotrms permitting)with their shocking plumage and impossible colors.
So Lebron James was right. The NBA Finals are over, and we mere mortals now return to our sad, boring, little lives.
Until the next drama...
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