Flamingos in the Snow

Where the hell are Flamingos actually from?

Because, if you grow up here on the Coast of Illinois, you tend to believe that Flamingos live (in order of importance):

1. In the freaky World's Fair Bird Cage at the Zoo
2. In the Backyards of South City
3. In Florida

I ponder this question as we enter into hour number 16 of a continuous, less than gentle snow. It is March 24. We have had 12 inches of snow. It is never going to stop and the flamingo on our deck is pissed. 

This is not what I signed up for when I agreed to be shipped here from Oriental Trading Company.

Really pissed.

Now would be a good time to ask why I have a plastic flamingo in my yard. They are so cliche...tacky...

Actually, I have two.

Which is better than FIFTY. Because that is the number of plastic yard flamingos a Friend/Doctor woke up to once upon a time when I worked in South City and he foolishly gave us FIFTY plastic flamingos to decorate a co-workers yard for HER birthday. 

Because, as they say, black and white captures the moment perfectly.

It is also better than TWELVE plastic flamingos which is the number I woke up to when we moved to our first house...which is still the house we live in...twenty six years later...but who's counting...

And this may have been the point when the neighbors began to question our addition to the neighborhood.

And let me tell you, it is not easy to stuff twelve plastic flamingos into a Chevette on their return trip to the Flamingo Storage Facility. Thank heaven for Hefty Garbage Bags and hatchbacks.

My current flamingos were a birthday gift from my husband, who was pretty regretful yet proud to present me with them. And compared to the Napoleon with Eye Makeup and Marc Antony in Beads in the garden the flamingos were actually...normal...

Except when it snows...continuously for eighteen hours now.

Flamingo questions his very existence.

But, that's life, here on the Coast of Illinois.