My Memorial Day Morning

Back to the single woman living alone and "you're-screwing-up-my-evening-now-scat." (YSUMENS) *see here
On Sunday afternoon there were several baby robins wandering around and about my yard. The birds were only able to fly about two feet off the ground and appeared merely days away from being able to care for themselves. Robins are extremely doting parents and they didn't seem to mind when I would pick up a baby and shuttle it back into the play area before it was hit by a passing car or mower. They were great parents--I know this because I had been watching their ritualistic feedings throughout the spring--granted, with voyeuristic binoculars in hand (my neighbors already think I'm eccentric. Big deal). The chicks would chirp from a low perch wherein the parents would bitch and moan at each other to get the babies fed. Mom and Dad yank the worm out, fly over and drop it in the kid's face.

Rinse and repeat.

So, on Sunday/Monday morning I went to bed at around 3 a.m. Just on the brink of slumber I hear a high octave chirp outside my bedroom window. Naturally, in classic "you're-screwing-up-my-evening-now-scat" form I ignored the chirps and figured I would let nature take its course. Very Darwin, very Survival of the Fittest.

Chirp. Ignore it.
Chirp. Ignore it.
and yet again, chirp. I ignore it.

By this time I'm not looking out the window out of sheer defiance, rather than fatigue.

Then I hear these frantic high-octave chick chirps and the parents throwing a complete shit fit in my driveway.

I AM IGNORING YOU!

sigh. I just want to sleep--

--in only a few hours my neighbor will wake to obsessively vacuum his car out, followed by his predictable 8 a.m. lawn maintenance. Seriously, would it kill the fucker to sleep in just once?

Still ignoring the chirps.

Then it came. The knock at my front door at 3:30 a.m.

Oh, now it's on!

I get up, bitch and moan my way across a pitch black house and open the door.


I look down to see this staring back at me:









Okay, not exactly that...more like this...




..and no, it wasn't Harold. He's much too metro to go outdoors at night. And by that I mean that he's a pussy in every sense of the word.



It was a baby robin scared out of its mind fluttering against my door with a big ol cat lickin his chops a foot away, ready to pounce.

Let me be clear: The bird knocked on my door.

I'm just sayin' I had already handled him most of the day and now he knew to knock.

He knocked, I'm just sayin'.

Long story short, the baby robin would never survive the night with that big bad lion out there, so we had a sleep over. I put him in a spare bird cage that I had and he slept in my bathroom. Occasionally I'd hear a chirp, but overall I think he slept quite well. Harold could care less, as his bawwwwls are far too hypnotic for him to pay any attention.

The next morning I got up and well,
as I said, my Memorial Day morning went something like this:


Breakfast






"Oliver"






Mumbling Co-dependent up the tree in her jammies.








Oliver happily back in his nest.








Oliver let out a chirp that sounded like a birdy version of thank you...

Or was it...

"You dumb bitch, this ain't my nest!"

jenji