Socks and Lady.

Socks, my Airfoil 5 from ITW, saw it's second and final flight this weekend.

She was a good one that tried hard to fly far. She suffered a setback, that one time, it's true, and was dismissively referred to as a "windsock", but yesterday, with the stronger breeze, she showed her true colors, pulling a 60 ft. tail of multi-colored flags all over the park.

Then some stupid little 4 year old crap head stepped on the line and in the process of freeing her foot, the father tied it in a knot. Not her foot, or her leg, which I would've preferred, but the line. I saw the knot go up as I was spooling out and knowing that an improperly tied knot weakens a line, I tried to bring her back; then I heard it coming from behind through the cruel branches of the trees at my back, a gust. Seconds later Socks was gone.

I tracked her all the way to the picnic field and there found her in the top of a 40 foot tree. I searched, in vain, for a way to get her down, but couldn't. All I could think was: If I was a Marine and that kite was a Marine, I wouldn't leave him up in that tree to die. But, for many reasons that are to varied and personal, neither me nor my kite are Marines, nor affiliated with any other military program. So I left Socks up there.

For now! Oh, Socks... you poor poor kite.

Next weekend I am going to go kite fishing. This is a new sport which involves using a fishing rod and a hook to pull a kite out of a tree, in a million pieces if necessary. I would just chainsaw the god damn tree if it weren't on park property and it weren't illegal to do so. (Stupid Laws, Arbocide?! ARBOCIDE?!)

In other news, Lady, my 6' Delta on her second flight, was fantastic in the wind and when it got real high, the string started to scream with, as Jeremy put it, the souls of a 1000 dead kites. Or was it 1000 dead children? I prefer to think of screaming dead kites, twisting in the vile branches of those innumerable green monsters by which we are inevitably surrounded.