Crazy Stuff Happens While You Post

Well it's official. We're pregnant. And by 'we' and 'pregnant' I of course mean, the freaking bird laid eggs and we will officially be having 2 little baby robins here shortly. I wanted to take a picture like that last one to show you these eggs. I took that first picture by nudging the screen in my bedroom window out of the way, using the zoom on the camera, leaning out, and click. So to get a picture of the eggs I tried to do the same thing.

SUPER FAIL.

Well super fail only because I had to try a second time. I got a perfectly fine picture which you can see. No you can't fully see both eggs but hey, I never claimed to be Ansel Adams here. Last night I decided I had to get a better picture.

Naturally I decided this at 11 o'clock at night. Therefore, naturally, I knocked the screen out of the window at 11 o'clock at night. Did that happen any one of the numerous times I did this during the day when it would have been super easy to walk downstairs and carry it back upstairs and fix? Nope. Only in the middle of the night when it's super weird (and scary, there are birds living there) to be climbing through the bushes and when creating a racket putting the screen back is not good. So now my screen is sitting quietly on the back porch. It should be noted I did retrieve and put it there last night. This is my real house, not Beta Kappa Phi. (Is that a real thing? If so, I mean no ill will I'm just stringing together the 3 Greek letters I know.) You can't just leave a screen laying in the lawn like a bunch of animals.

UPDATE: In the time it took me to write this post not only did I put the screen back in but, a third egg got laid, and a HUGE (seriously, HUGE) bird came and cracked all the eggs open! No more baby birds chirping! All that being said, no I'm not just sitting at my window watching what happens, I'm just peeking out the window every time I stand up. Or whenever I hear a chorus of birds in the tree. Or just every couple of minutes because it feels super dramatic now.

Yeah I know, I might have a problem...

For the Birds

I have a bird thing. I hate, hate, hate them. It all started at Sea World when I was 5 which is a story I may or may not have shared so if I haven't here's the really watered down version: dolphin feeding, fish, seagulls, terror. After that, there were the birds that nested in the vent above the stove in our house in Pittsburgh. Little pieces of their nest would sometimes fall through onto the stove. Ewww.

After that there was college, better known as The 724. At The 724 some birds nested in the vent of our 2nd floor bathroom. My bedroom was right above that 2nd floor bathroom. Which meant every morning, like 6am morning, momma bird would come back to throw up food into her babies mouths. And if you've ever heard what baby birds sound like while they're waiting for food, you know what I'm talking about: It. Is. Painstaking. For hours you would be kept awake listening to those stupid little birds chirp. Eventually we had to get the landlord involved. The not watered down version of this story would probably make people really uncomfortable (and possibly get other people in trouble) so let's just say, it got taken care of.

Next, there has been the ongoing issue of the robins and the windows. (When I say ongoing I mean like 2 years ongoing.) For the last 2 years, every spring, robins start crashing into our windows. I mean, full force, flying as hard as they can into our windows. They bounce off, since, you know, you can't fly through glass, and just kind looked confused for a minute. They then proceed to do this over and over and over and over, without ever getting smart enough to realize what they're doing is really freaking stupid. Some Internet research led us to figure out the birds seem to think it is another bird facing off with them so they fly into the window to start battle. They are too dumb to realize that it's just their reflection so: They just. Don't. Stop.

Want to know what the solution to that little problem is? Printing out giant pictures of owls and other big scary birds and taping them to your windows. Because while robins are not smart enough to not run into windows over and over again they are smart enough to avoid printouts of paper owls.

There was a blue jay in the tree outside my window yesterday. It caught my eye because it was a blue jay. I'm used to stupid robins running into my windows. I walked over to the window in time to see a robin chasing it out of the tree. You get three guesses why this robin was so concerned. The beginnings of a nest are in this tree.

What's going to happen to that nest? I don't know yet. But I'm fairly certain the answer starts with the word: DESTROY.

And The Second Picture

Because apparently I'm computer illiterate.

And because you had to see the close up.

Everywhere I Go. Everywhere.

Denver is a fantastic city. In fact, I'll go so far as to say Colorado is generally awesome. Tons to do, tons to see, so much outdoorsy-ness. In my case, too much outdoorsy-ness. (Should I try to submit that word to Webster's? I'm thinking maybe.)

Fox and coyote in Buffalo are scary but they are nothing compared to the wildlife spotted on my vacation. I do not know what those things are but they were terrifying. On a drive from Red Rocks (amazing even if there isn't a musical act there) to Lookout Mountain (which I don't have a good picture of because I let my camera die and is also why the pictures (and by pictures I mean picture because Kristen can't figure out how get two photos on one post without the formatting being wacky) of creatures are not of the highest quality) the ride suddenly came to a dead stop. It took a minute to figure it out but all of a sudden we realize there are literally THIRTY of these deer/elk/moose/goat hybrids trying to cross the road. Anything that cannot be positively identified is the enemy. (I still don't know what these things are even though I know I read about them at the Science Museum the next day. Note to self: pay more attention when learning things.) I could swear they were looking at me, waiting to charge. I was 100% sure they wanted to eat me.

As it turned out all hundred million of them just crossed the road and went along their way. I suppose this is not surprising as I'm always convinced all kinds of animals are going to attack me and they never do. But the minute I let my guard down I'm totally going to be someones lunch. It. Is. Coming.

Realizing How Damaging My 5th Year On The Planet Was...

Getting my haircut really makes me crazy. I will only get it done by my girl, at my salon, etc. (A parent induced, Supercut haircut at the age of 5 scarred me for life. This was the same year those same parents took me to Sea World and thrust my extreme fear of birds upon me. Thanks Mom and Dad!) So I got my hair cut the other day and, as usual, I now feel like I have been violated. Even the slightest bit being cut off makes me feel like the oxygen is being sucked out the room. (In case you're wondering, my hair is maybe a half an inch shorter. Maybe.)

(If you're wondering if I know that this makes me crazy; yes, I do. I've been well aware for years.)

So a half an inch and one new make-my-hair-less-frizzy product later and I was on my way. Turns out this product is awesome and does make my hair significantly less frizzy. Unfortunately this product is whack and sort of highlights my grey hairs which I did not get dyed this week because I thought I could make it to my next cut without a color.

So 2 things:

1. This is seriously what being a girl is like.
2. Invest in Sharpie's stock because I will be buying them out of black and brown markers to tide me over until my next cut and color. (Yes, this is seriously my solution to stray grey hair.)

(Yes I know this may also make me crazy but this is really one of those 'don't knock it 'til you try it' situations if you ask me.)

Murphy's Law, Or Something Like It...

I got my car washed today. Those of you familiar with the CRV know she gets pretty dirty and I generally wash her myself. Which of course means I wash my car about twice a year. Today, I finally took myself and the CRV on the adventure known as going through a car wash. I wasn't sure this was a fact until I actually got there but, I have definitely never ridden through a car wash before. It felt like Apocalypse Now in there. I was the worst person possible to be handling things like put the car in neutral! Hands off the wheel! Turn on your music so you aren't just hearing all those things (what are those things?) smack your car over and over again!

Anyway, I lived to tell the tale of the car wash so that's great. This was definitely a 'my car is covered in wintery grossness already, it would be nice to take a layer gross off' kind of wash. I had no expectations that my car would sparkle for days. Though the wash was very nice.

In an interesting plot twist I got home to my garage door being broken. It is currently stuck about 6 inches off the ground on its right side but is all the way to the ground on the left. Which means I had to park my very clean car in the driveway. The driveway that is out of doors. Where it rained for the better part of the evening.

I am now not only somewhat upset about my very clean car but I fear I will wake up to critters in the garage. Any number of things could squeeze through this opening and attack. Thus I will be up all night, worrying about the rabies.

It's Like I'm Watching Animal Planet 24 Hours a Day

I have bad luck with animals. Household pets are not so bad but anything that comes from the outdoors I don't get along with very well. I pulled a blanket out from under my bed yesterday that has holes in it from being eaten through by a mouse. (The blanket has been super washed since this happened and it was like over a year ago so I figure it's safe now.) There have been deer tracks through our lawn (through the lawn, in the landscaping, they may as well pull up a chair on the deck and have a margarita) lately and I'm terrified of coming home some night, parking my car, getting out to get in the house and being face to face with effing rabid Bambi ready to eat my face off. This has yet to happen but I know it will based on today's little visitor.

I was driving down Heim Rd. in Getzville this evening when I saw a cat scampering across the road. Slowing down so I would not hit said cat I made a shocking discovery. What I thought was a poor little lost cat was actually a fox. A fox. A little red fox with a little black tail and pointy little teeth. Now Heim Rd. isn't exactly a freeway but it's also not surrounded by a national park. There are literally houses up and down every square inch of the street. There's a freaking middle school on it for God's sake. What is a fox doing just running around, across the street, from house to house like this is Animal Kingdom?

If anyone has an answer to this other than, "You're encroaching on their land and they have no place left to go so they just scamper around willy-nilly," I'd love to hear it.

Fun fact: If you Google Image search just the word 'fox' you'll mostly just end up with pictures of Megan Fox. In her underwear. Which would be great. If I were a 14 year old boy.