The Week in Birds

Okay; so, for this week, I'm going to see if I can turn every single thing that happened into something bird-relat—WAIT, HANNAH; WHAT ARE YOU DOING? PIZZA IS NOT A BIRD!

Mother's Day

So, yeah; 10 May was Mother's Day, and we all headed over to my parents to gorge ourselves on pizza.

Little did we know that Ron was going to flip his John Deere hat around and unlock his hip-hop alter ego...

Liv and Hannah were so inspired that they immediately wanted to rush out and buy grills. Not the kind for cooking burgers: The metal and diamonds scraping against your teeth, and we'll call it 'fashionable' kind... because, as everyone knows, anyone who's anyone in the hip-hop world has a big fancy grill...

Hannah's smiling because she knows that the only thing worth more than gold is pizza—which meant that she and Liv had everything they'd need for their new grills right there in front of them.

Okay, you two: Let's see what you got...

Riley was a little miffed that Amazon didn't have the limited-edition vinyl of Chop-Shop Pop's latest album in stock, and so she'll have to order it from a third-party seller and wait 5-9 business days for delivery instead of getting Prime two-day shipping...

Meanwhile, Taylor had reached out to let Athennia know to be on the lookout for a little something in the mail as well—which arrived the day before Mother's Day...

Now, anyway, on to those aforementioned birds...

Fly Like an Eagle...

Kitten spotted this winner on Rt. 422 while driving home from work on Monday 11 May...

Red Robin

On Tuesday 12 May, my mom and I had lunch at Red Robin by the Oxford Valley Mall.

That probably wouldn't normally be worth mentioning; but we've committed to this whole bird theme now.

So, yeah.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that our lunch out-bopped the buzzard and the oriole; but it was enjoyable.

A Bird in the Oven

Wednesday night, I was closing out the bedtime routing: playing with Odin in the living room while waiting for Kitten to finish brushing her teeth so I could get in the bathroom to brush mine.

All of a sudden I heard a loud CRASH around the corner in the kitchen—almost as though someone had dropped a baking sheet on the floor from waist height.

I went to investigate...

Nothing.

You'd think the source of a noise that severe would be relatively readily apparent; but not a single thing was out of place, and I didn't have the faintest idea of what it could have been. I assumed that maybe some time earlier Kitten had put away a heavy pan or something, and perhaps it had just now shifted and rattled against the other things in the cabinet.

Whatever. Off to bed.

...Except, the next morning when I came out to grab breakfast and make my coffee, I could have sworn that one the birds that nest under the gutter right outside our window sounded like its cheeping was coming from inside the apartment.

Weird.

Whatever. Off to code.

I thought nothing of it again until Kitten, the Molerat, and I sat down for dinner Thursday evening... and we collectively heard a bird tweeting from what distinctly sounded like the inside of the wall behind our oven.

Naturally, we called the emergency maintenance number...

...and, naturally, Leon assured us that this was not an "emergency" emergency; but he and Ralph would come out "sometime tomorrow" (which is code for "the very end of the day, if at all").

I did not hear any cheeping from inside the wall when I came out for breakfast on Friday morning; but Leon and Ralph finally came out around 3:00 P.M. and yanked our oven out of the wall...

And, sure enough, there was a dead baby bird in the back corner.

It must have somehow found a way from the gutter, under the roof, and into the attic. And then the crash that I'd heard three nights prior was literally the bird falling from the attic, through the hollow space in the wall, and perhaps landing on the top of our oven.

In other news, the street behind us finally got repaved on Friday after being all torn up and then promptly neglected for 10 days...

I sent Joe this picture (left, with right provided for added clarity) to see what he might do with it; and he didn't disappoint...

...And it has—at least so far...

Moreover, I've decided that street-paving is like curling in reverse:

In curling, the zamboni first comes along to smooth out the playing surface. Then the thrower casts a stone, and the sweepers furiously sweep in front of the stone's path.

Paving is the opposite: The thrower dumps his stones first. Then the sweepers follow in tow and furiously sweep behind the stone's path. And finally, the zamboni comes along to smooth everything out at the very end.

Observe...

Meanwhile, I didn't want to interrupt the bird-in-the-oven story or the crucial street-paving analysis; but back on the 14^th, I caught this gem on our security camera: Hoodrat was waiting for an Uber who didn't seem to know quite where he was supposed to be collecting her...

So, she did the YMCA for him!

Granted, this was of course the lesser-known extended version of the song—which goes little something like this...

And finally, I had breakfast with my mom at Cafe Ferraro on 19 May—which is decidedly not bird-related at all; and so I've got nothing. <shrug>

You know what? That's fair.

But the only way you'd know that is that you read the entire thing anyway, sucker.

And also, think of all the random little tidbits of wisdom you're taking away: Grills and hip-hop culture. Street-paving. Dancing.

You were like the Karate Kid, and I was Miyagi—surreptitiously teaching you all of these things in such an oblique manner that you didn't even realize it. But the muscle memory is all there now; it's just up to you to go apply it.

Maybe you have been the bird the entire time.

Now go ahead, little bird. Fly free!