STUPID NATURE

From what I hear on the TeeVee, there's some fancypants video game that all the kids are playing these days called "Angry Birds". I'm not sure what it is, exactly, since I am not allowed to use anything electronic without adult supervision, and I don't own one of those cell phone gizmos.

Anywhoo, on Friday afternoon I was in the kitchen minding my own business (OK, if you must know, I was making Rice Krispie Treats), when I heard a very loud BANG coming from the general direction of the back patio window.

A bird had apparently decided to conduct a suicide mission, had flown directly into said back patio window, and was laying deader than a doornail in the pee snow that Stewey created that very morning during his constitutional.

I kept checking on the bird to see if it was moving, and since it wasn't and since I am also a nutjob of the highest order, I decided to take the snow shovel and gently lift the carcass out of the pee snow and give it a proper burial under a nice tree in a meadow. (Or, failing that, I figured I'd scoop it up and fling it into the middle of the big ass field behind the house and be done with it.)

As almost everybody on the planet (except me, apparently) knows, when birds fly into stuff they stun themselves senseless and fall to the ground in a lifeless heap so that they can get their wits about them. (Much like I used to do in my 20's after a night of drinking Long Island iced teas.)

But I digress.

The very moment I got the shovel under that bird, it decided to come back to life and FLY FLY AWAY as I screamed bloody murder and then wondered how long it would be before the neighborhood association served me with eviction papers.

Damn birds.

So as I was standing out there in the back forty trying not to have a heart attack, I catch something moving out of the corner of my eye. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a 42 pound meatball wearing feathers, perched about thirty feet up in a tree. Wanna know how BIG this damn thing was? Let's just say that if it would have turned around, I would have pondered the fact that it had the strength capability of carrying me (and my little dog too) several thousand feet up into the air before dropping us off the edge of a cliff to our early (and somewhat disappointing) demise(es).I know, I know, this fantastic photo makes it look like it's just a bird in a tree. But can I just point out that I used the magnify thingie on the camera and that the branch upon which that thing is sitting is about three stories up in the freakin air?!!

I emailed my friend Kavanaugh under the guise that he knows a lot about birds and would probably be able to tell me what the heck this thing is, but the truth of the matter is that my friend Kavanaugh is a police officer and has a weapon that I am sure he uses with deadly accuracy. Or, if he wasn't willing to come over here and shoot the damn thing in the head (which I want to be very clear he would in NO WAY ever consider), I guess I was hoping that he would instead bring his bagpipes and scare the living beejeesus out of this and and every other living creature within an eight mile radius of Chez Spinster.

Fast forward to last night when I was in the kitchen again (OK. So. I have a Rice Krispie addiction problem), when I spy SOMETHING moving the bushes immediately adjacent to the patio. (What IS it about this darn patio?)

Stewey fired off a few snaps with his cell phone camera, but didn't manage to focus them very well:
So now we know that the sounds I hear while fretting in the big girl sleigh bed at night are not, in fact, thieves and vagabonds trying to break into the house. They are (instead) the din of Happy Hour at what constitutes a TGI Friday's for the Marlin Perkins set.

I hate nature.

I did get quite a bit done on the Plum Street piece this weekend, and I also started a counted canvas piece from Threedles yesterday, but all of this nature photography has depleted the battery on the camera. As soon as it recharges, I'll post some updates.

Happy Monday! Hope your weekend was a bit more....civilized.