Dodo II: Birds of no feathers

Sometime between ye olde days of yore and the olden days, Paris was a walled city. At various intervals along the wall, there were openings, called doors, or "portes." The wall is long gone, but now the places the "portes" once were are popular transportation points, and most metro lines have at least one terminus at a "porte." PORTE example (har har), my station is Porte d'Orléans. Paris snobs, quit your snobbing. I never would have chosen to live so... un-centrally, but as previously explained, I had little to no choice. And there are pros and cons to living on the edge of a city like Paris.

On the positive side, I am far away from the touristic poles; my experience here is not and will not be Paris à l'Américaine. Call me a hypocrite or a traitor, but we people can be just infuriating, especially in groups of 15+. It's not even high season yet, but there have been multiple incidents on crowded trains where I've heard an accent like mine, a decibel or two above the surrounding noise, squealing something like: "OMIGOD, WAIT!!! WE SHOULDN'T EVEN BE ON THIS TRAIN YOU GUYS!!!! O wait. Yea. This is the right one. Ugh! Everyone is looking at us again you guys!! OMIGOD WAS THAT OUR STOP????"

I don't have to deal with my annoying compatriots clogging my busses, metro trains (at least where I get on), markets, or sidewalks. But as the lack of tourists implies, there is nothing worth touring in my neighborhood. It is all frenchies or people in the process of becoming frenchies, with the exception of my Irish apartmentmate. But even he is spending 4 years here for university, which is long enough to want to live in an area like this.

When I first got here, I noticed a pigeon would land regularly on the balcony of the room next to mine. It'd hang out for 5 minutes, 10 minutes each visit. A few days later, I saw the nest it had built in the planter box, and a few days after that, 2 eggs appeared.

Wikipedia told me that pigeons normally lay 2 eggs at a time, and that each day the father comes to warm the eggs from about 10 am to 5 pm to give the mother a break, before they switch back and the mom takes over the graveyard shift. Lo and behold, I saw mom and pop switch places one day.

They are such brave little birds to have even attempted procreating in the first place, considering all the preparation needed for incubating and hatching in such an urban setting. Until now I had never considered (city) pigeons to be such noble creatures. It's hard out here for a pige (please tell me you got that). Mama Pige would sit there, defiantly blinking at me, moving off her nest only under the most dire of circumstances (e.g. landlady opening window to water plants). We would sit together for hours, me inside with my laptop and her outside with her eggs. At least I had internet connection in that room - she just sat there. I wondered if she was thinking about her little egglets, hoping they would hatch as healthy little pigies, or if she was getting hungry, or if she was wondering what her hubby was up to out late at night.
I thought that was what love looks like, a little mama pigeon planted on top of 2 perfect eggs.

Today both eggs hatched. Mama P. is still siting on the babies, and it's a good thing because they aren't flying away to loftier heights any time soon. They are two little pink blobs with yellow fuzz, one hundred percent vulnerable until they sprout some feathers.

I feel like Mama and Papa Pige understand the benefits of living at Porte d'Orléans. They probably decided to settle here as a compromise between raising Pige 1 and Pige 2 in the city vs. in the suburbs. It's no less urban, but tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the center. Plus I bet there's some kind of Pigeon zoning deal for the periphery so they can pick the best schools for little Pige 1 and 2. We're all doing the best we can.