A Good Bird

****Dead Bird Warning: this post contains dead birds. My more sensitive readers may want to look away now. Please be aware, however, that the birds were long deceased through no fault of my own before I sat down to write and no birds were harmed during the making of this post. I agree, the warning might be a little over the top, but I have such delicate readers these days, and also, I am just now getting those PETA freaks off my back for the whole hamster ball thing.*****

Whew, that was EXHAUSTING. Seriously, I need some fortification before I can even get to the point of my post. But first, I know you all want to know the all-important status of the pool-soaked phone. Sadly, I have to report NO JOY. I did figure out how to get my messages using another phone, only to find out that my jury duty scheduled for tomorrow got cancelled. Too bad for me, I was looking forward to performing my civic duty lounging around the courthouse, watching people crazier than me go by. Naturally, the appeal dims somewhat if I don't have a device upon which I can gossip about the crazy people with all my friends. I can do that at work, of course, which is where I will now be spending my day instead.

I'm trying to be patient on the phone and let the rice work its magic for a while longer but I'm not sure how much longer I can go. I might have to hit the zombie store before bed tonight. Oh, geez, I just thought of something. If I recall correctly, I was going to use my shampoo/conditioner/deodorant money to fund the new phone. I'm not sure what else I can give up, plus I started using shampoo again. Dammit. Anyway, that is NOT what we're talking about today. No, we are talking about A Good Bird. Two good birds, to be precise. A blue jay and a sparrow, to be even more precise. And no, I do not want to argue about blue jays and steller's jays, DAD. They are blue in color, hence they are blue jays. The end.

Moving on, you might remember the rat wars at my house. Well, the rats are back, and the war has been raging on for the last week. In some ways, this is good, because it keeps Lloyd occupied, and you probably know he is very dangerous when he has too much time on his hands. Remember the earthquake exercise? Unfortunately, though, there were a couple of unanticipated bird trappings over the course of this new campaign, or as Lloyd likes to call them, 'acceptable collateral damage/civilian casualties'. This is not unprecedented; we had a near-miss last time when a particularly stupid jay got his noggin skinned when the trap snapped. He was fine, though, he just looked like he had a reverse mohawk for a few days. No such luck this time; the two good birds bought the farm.

When I came home from work, the boys showed me their handiwork: a bird cemetery in the back yard, dug right into the lawn. They did a nice job, don't you think? The birds' names are Shane and Ago (pronounced aggo, not like in 'a long time ago'). I especially like the dandelions and the silver colored shower curtain hanger on Ago's grave. And then, for good measure, they devised a fishing line barrier around the trap to keep any more birds from getting caught. That seems like a pretty good idea, because the trap is surrounded by bird seed. There have been no rat sightings for a couple of days, so maybe the cheese and rat poison savings will offset the cost of my new phone and I can keep my shampoo. That way, everyone wins. Well, except the rats and the two good birds, I guess. As I come to the end of this post, I am really regretting the promise I made to Ina because this would be an excellent spot for some good bird/rat eating jokes. Oh well, I always keep my promises, so have a good night, everyone!

Winter

I think summer might be over, you guys. At least at my house. We had to turn on the heat yesterday, but it doesn't do any good because no one around here knows how to close a door, as far as I can tell. So the net effect is that we're contributing to global warming twice: once when we consume the energy that runs the heater, and then again when the generated heat flows out into the great outdoors. And I'm STILL freezing. This is a serious affront to my love of efficiency, and something needs to be done. I have the perfect solution, too; I just can't decide if I should lock Lloyd and the boys OUTSIDE or INSIDE until next May.

That's not the only blow I'm suffering, either. Lloyd has convinced me to give up my beloved compost pile as we prepare for a possible move sometime in the not super distant future. Of course, we don't know where or when this will be but we DO know that not everyone adores a giant steaming pile of decomposing vegetation as much as I do, and that it's not something we are willing to box up and move. Too bad we no longer have access to those Korean movers; they would pack that stuff up in a jiffy and not even bat an eye. I can not even tell you how much I despise throwing away perfectly good carrot peelings, egg shells and coffee grounds. It offends my very soul, but I'm a practical girl, so what are you going to do, right?

AND, our fancy stainless steel fridge went kaput the other day, freezing everything solid. The motherboard went bad; since when does a refrigerator need a motherboard? It's not like I need it to navigate to Mars or perform laser surgery. My next one is going to be from 1972. Or maybe I'll just use Lloyd's giant white cooler. You know, the one that's big enough to fit my dead body in, if a few things are chopped off first. Or maybe we'll go without! Lots of people do, very successfully. You can read about it here. And here. Tempting, very tempting. As it is, I have to go throw out pounds and pounds of previously perfectly good food. AND I CAN'T EVEN PUT IT IN THE COMPOST! The rats are CURSING MY NAME right now.

In happier news, I am finally getting a good crop of tomatoes- I have been getting Romas for a week or two but now the regular rounds ones are getting ripe also. About time, it's the middle of freaking September for Pete's sake. Oops, I sound a little pinchy again, don't I? I think I should have called this 'The Winter of my Discontent'. But at least I have juicy, delicious tomatoes!

There is a reason for my discontent, naturally. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the death of my mother, so that is super sucky. I've really been quite cross and out of sorts, too. Even more than usual, I mean. Mostly I've been laying on the couch, lacking the energy to do anything except scream at whoever left the door open again or get another cookie, but I did attempt a bit of retail therapy. See my snappy red canvas bag? Note the wine bottle for scale. The purse is a sporty little number, and it was acquired for a mere $1.29 at the Goodwill tag sale last week. It's quite lovely and does cheer me a bit to look at it. Or maybe it's the wine bottle that lifts my spirits. Whatever works, I always say. So bottoms up! I also say that a lot, come to think of it. See you on the couch, friends, and have a good weekend.

So Not Kidding

I came home from work and Lloyd met me in the driveway with his keys in one hand and his ginormous bag of pilot crap in the other hand. He hopped in the car as fast as he could, calling over his shoulder, 'Don't be mad when you go in the house; I was really busy today and didn't have time to do anything and I won't be home until te......' And boy, he was SO NOT KIDDING. I would post pictures but I am genuinely afraid of CPS on this one. Here is a partial list of the carnage:

-huge half-gnawed hunks of cheese in multiple locations

-raw egg wrapped in dirty socks inside a graham cracker box stashed behind the recycling bin

-dirty breakfast and lunch dishes on the table

-at LEAST eight pairs of shoes and boots strewn around the living room plus a few singletons

-rat in the compost (outside; it wasn't quite THAT bad)

-two sets of pajamas, soccer clothes and wet, muddy pants on the couch

-box of raisins smashed into the carpet

-twin peaks of laundry blocking the hall, Mt. Dirty and Mt. Clean

I worked for a solid 2.5 hours, which is pretty much unprecedented, and there were still bits of string and chopped up bits of paper on the living room floor, a container of snails on the counter with the lids off and the snails among the missing, school books and supplies covering the dining room table and floor, and rubber bands shaped like fairies and numbers spread up and down the hall. Oh, and a puddle of pee on the back porch.

I don't care what time he gets home, I am meeting him in the driveway with a taser in one hand and a giant beer in the other, and I am so not kidding.

Rats

If you are my friend on Facebook, you probably already know all about the rat wars at my house. If you're not my Facebook friend, you totally should be, because I have a lot of really important stuff to say on there, as you can well imagine.

Now that the weather has warmed up a smidge and the compost is getting good and rotty, we have had a rat invasion in the back yard. They come through the fence from the sheep farm and burrow under the compost to plan their assault. Then they swarm over the back porch to eat the copious seeds that have fallen from the bird feeder. When Henry was alive, he probably kept them at bay, but now, sadly, we have to battle them without his assistance. Lloyd started sniping them with his pellet gun, but it was a little slow for his liking, and they don't make an automatic assault version. I told him I thought I could convert it with directions from the internet but he didn't like that idea for some reason and went with traps and poison. It's like he fancies himself some big gun expert or something and thinks I have no idea what I'm talking about. You can see one of his ginormous traps in the picture; this particular one set right in the path where their trail from the farm comes under our fence. I could get some stunning dead rat pictures, but I'll spare you. I'm tenderhearted that way, plus I'm getting a little afraid of those crazy PETA people after the whole hamster thing.

Naturally, success in rat-killing leads to a quandary: what to do with the carcasses? They are big, fat, glossy, generously-whiskered creatures and surely would be useful for many things. Seriously, they are the picture of robust, glowing health, except for being dead. One certainly doesn't want to just toss them in the trash; that would be VERY wasteful. But we have to get to them quickly, or the other rats will carry them away. I'm not even kidding. They disappear if you leave them out there; I bet there is a cadre of mortuary rats that pack the dead soldiers away on their shoulders to some kind of ghoulish body shop where they hack their bodies up to make paleolithic body armor and weapons out of bone, skin, sinew and tails.

They're smart, you know, and they learn from their mistakes. If Lloyd had any sense at all, he would let me do the conversion on that pellet gun so he can just mow them down and be done with it. This slow attrition method is risky, like tying Batman to a slowly submerging platform into a shark tank, then walking away, totally sure you've vanquished your enemy. We all know how that ends up, don't we?

In fact, now that I think about it, I'm getting a little concerned. Ever since I read 'Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh', I have been suspicious that rats are more than they appear to be. I bet they could climb right up on this keyboard and start blogging away. You'll know it's them when they start raising money for PETA and pushing for a revolution.