Last call!

Here we are, late in the evening of the last night of my thirties.  When I wake up (hopefully not before 6am like I have the past several days), I'll be 40.  Egads.  I wish I could come up with something pithy or reflective or remotely meaningful to share.  I mean, I spent a bit of time reflecting on the past decade as I went about my errands and housework today.  There certainly were some big highlights - becoming a mom; becoming an aunt (several times over); milestone wedding anniversaries (10th and 15th); the passing of my last remaining living grandparent; selling our first house, buying our second and moving; rejoining the workforce after spending most of the decade as a stay-at-home mom; heck, even being on Jeopardy - but right now?  There's just one thing that is on my mind, and it is this:


I am fairly certain that we have a yeti living in our basement.  I have proof.  Proof in the vast expanses of greyish fur that amass in the collection canister of my vacuum cleaner every time I use it, like earlier this afternoon.  I mean, it just seems obvious that such insane amounts of what is clearly animal fur would come from a gigantic, highly hirsute source like this:

than from something that's smaller than a breadbox (though admittedly pretty fuzzy) like this:

Yep, that's all I've got for this evening, my yeti-in-the-cellar theory.  Clearly, old age has already begun fading away what few brain cells I have left.  (Also, it's 10pm and I spiked my milk with mudslide mix at dinner, so there's that.  Living la vida loca, for sure.)  Before I toddle off to bed, I'd like to make one last plea:


Won't you please, pretty please, with sugar and sprinkles and a cherry on top, please help me make my fortieth birthday wish come true?  You can read about it here.  (I know I've been asking with every post lately, but the good news is that tomorrow is the last day I can bug you about it...)  If you would please join me in doing 40 Good Things and leave me a comment letting me know what you did, I'll be the happiest 40 year old birthday girl ever tomorrow!  Thanks!

Off to the Great Fishbowl in the Sky

It is with a surprisingly heavy heart that I report the passing of Swimmy, Kiddo's pet goldfish.  Swimmy's life came to an end at approximately 4:45 this afternoon.  I can be that specific because we'd spent the day on Piscine Death Watch, keeping vigil over the tank in Kiddo's room.

I'd noticed Swimmy seemed a bit off a few days ago when I was in Kiddo's room putting away laundry.  You see, Swimmy's typical response to catching sight of any movement in the room was to begin swimming frantically back and forth at the top of the tank in a bid to get fed (or, more accurately, fed again as Swimmy was indeed fed first thing every morning).  The other morning, however, Swimmy ignored me, choosing to stare morosely at the bottom, back corner of the tank.  I waved my hand in front of Swimmy's face, which would ordinarily elicit a response, but nothing.  I mentioned this to Hubby but he said he wasn't worried because Swimmy had been swimming and splashing (did you know goldfish like to jump? True story!) as per usual when he was reading to Kiddo at bedtime.

When we got home from church this morning, Kiddo went up to her room to change and immediately came back downstairs to get us.  "Something's wrong with Swimmy!!!" Uh oh.  Sure enough, Swimmy was sideways and sort of hovering near the top of the tank.  Swimmy did not look good.  Kiddo was really upset, to say the least, and asked us if we could take Swimmy to the vet, which, um, no.  Hubby did a 25% water change, removed all the decorative plants and vacuumed the gravel in the tank, which turned up a lot of uneaten fish flakes and led us to the conclusion that Swimmy had not been eating for at least a few days.  Double uh oh.  Hubby helped Kiddo add a dose of Stress Coat to the tank water, and then we waited and watched.  I was hoping for a miracle but not holding my breath.

Since it seemed a foregone conclusion that Swimmy was not long for this world (and sure enough, the end came within hours), we were faced with helping Kiddo through one of life's Big Lessons.  You see, we have been very fortunate in our family not to have experienced much death in recent years.  Since Kiddo was born in 2003, our only losses have been her great-grandmother (my grandmother), who died when Kiddo was 18 months old, and our old cat, Katie, who died when Kiddo was just two and a half.  She has no memories of those experiences, so in fact this pet goldfish (of no great significance in the grand scheme of things) was about to be her first true personal experience with death.

And this is why I am sad.  Not because I will particularly miss the fish.  I'm not especially fond of fish as pets (and after all, Swimmy did try to kill me) or really any pet smaller than, say, a guinea pig (and Hubby has put his foot down that we will emphatically *not* ever be getting a guinea pig).  I prefer pets with which one can interact, ideally a cat or dog.  No, I'm sad not because of Swimmy's passing, but because of Kiddo's devastation.  I know it's the circle of life and all that, and it is a lesson she needs to learn (and she did understand the concept of death in theory prior to today), but man, it is just so hard to have to witness her heartbreak and grief, even over something as inconsequential as a goldfish.

Kiddo opted for a ground burial over an aquatic burial (which is a good thing considering Swimmy's size - I feared a burial at sea would wind up with a plumber's bill for a backed up sewage line due to his rather impressive corpse) and so Hubby dutifully dug a hole in the front garden, right by the house.  Kiddo wrote a small memorial (and the tear splotches on the paper broke my heart anew):

and we tucked it into the grave with Swimmy.  Once Hubby had finished filling the grave back in, we placed a special stone on top of it, given to us by Kiddo's beloved kindergarten teacher -

because it seemed fitting.  I told Kiddo that we can buy a plant to put there too, once the planting season starts.  She likes the idea of Swimmy having flowers.

And there you have it.  Swimmy, the ginormous, carnival fish who scared large dogs and Mommies alike.  From humble beginnings

to more elaborate digs

and with a brief moment of international fame when Swimmy was a finalist in a photo competition and thus was featured on the Simon's Cat website:

Swimmy made my kid happy for four years of her childhood, and that means a lot, even if Swimmy was just a fish.

(I should note that Kiddo is already asking for another goldfish.  I mean, what she really wants is a dog, but unless the Invisible Fence Fairy pays a visit to our back yard and makes it possible to be able to let a dog out to do his/her business without requiring a human to get dressed, leash the dog up and take it out for a walk every single time it has to go, a puppy isn't happening this year.  So, we've talked about it and have agreed we'll get another fish soon...)

The itsy-bitsy freak out

The other day, I had just finished my morning ablutions and had stepped in front of the mirror to comb my hair when I suddenly felt the sensation of a spider crawling across my foot.  You know how you get that sensation sometimes?  Like a bug or something small crawling across your skin?  Well, I looked down, as you would in such a case, fully expecting to either see (a) nothing or (b) an abandoned hair - either from my own head or perhaps the cat - that had fallen onto my foot and was giving me that ticklish sensation.

Horrifyingly, what I saw was in fact option (c) - an actual spider running across my bare foot.  Well, running is too speedy a term.  What he was doing was more of a mosey or an amble as he certainly was feeling no urgency in crossing the terrain.  I promptly did what any human being in her right mind would do.  I freaked the heck out.  I began vigorously shaking my foot while hopping up and down on my other leg in an attempt to fling the spider off of me, all the while shrieking like an extra in a B horror movie.  The spider, far from being dissuaded in his attempt to stay on my skin, decided that rather than hopping off the crazy, damp, shrieking, jiggling, madly leaping about the (very small) master bathroom chick, he'd head due north right up my leg.  All my evasive actions succeeded in doing was getting him to pick up his pace from a mosey to a sprint.

Fortunately for me, I did not drop into a dead faint at the sight of this ferocious beast coming straight for my throat as fast as his eight hairy legs could carry him.  I somehow managed to keep presence of mind enough to grab a wad of toilet paper (while still screaming a bit and jumping around, I confess) and execute a combination swipe-squish maneuver that removed him both from my thigh and this world.

Now, I have a strict No Squishing policy when it comes to creepy-crawlies.  Not to say I'm one of those insane do-gooders who gently scoop any and all such home invaders into a cup and set them free back in the great outdoors, because if it isn't a ladybug, butterfly or cricket, that's pretty much not happening.  Nope, if I see a spider, beetle or any other EW EW ICK LOOK AT THAT HORRIBLE THING type creature inside my house, I'm all for killing it.  I just can't kill it in a way that will leave a smear or worse behind.  Just the thought of that makes me a little queasy.  This must be related to my innate dread and hatred for pumpkin guts, but I have never wanted to dwell on the topic long enough to work it out.

Anyhow, my preferred method of killing things that go BOO! in my bathroom is to render them immobile by whatever means are handy and then picking up the paralyzed and/or dead creepy-crawlie and disposing of it in either the garbage can or toilet.  (This is my preferred method for the rest of the house, too, actually.)  If I'm in the bathroom, hairspray usually is the weapon of choice, and if I'm not near a can of something or if I'm in a room with carpeting, I'll opt to Dustbuster the critter into the next world.  (Okay, my most preferred method is to call Hubby and get him to eradicate the creepy-crawlie, but Hubby is gone for pretty much the whole day so I have to have a back-up method handy for those times when it's just me and the bugs.)

The other morning, though, with Certain Death lunging ever closer to my jugular (he had FANGS, I'm telling you.  FANGS and an evil and bloodthirsty gleam in his beady eyes), I didn't have time to run into Kiddo's bathroom and retrieve my hairspray, so I had to squish the horrible creature with my bare hands.  Well, my bare hands and a wad of toilet paper about three inches thick.  Terror overrode my gag reflex as I crumpled the TP for all I was worth, suddenly finding Hulk-like strength in my hand, and then I promptly dropped the corpse in his Charmin shroud into the bowl and sent him to his watery grave.  And then I waited for the tank to refill and flushed again.  And again.  Just to be sure, you know.

*shudder*

Sorry Charlotte, but unless you can write out George Clooney's cell phone number in a web on my bathroom mirror, you and all your brethren are destined to meet the same fate should you dare enter this coward's domain.  So do me a favor and spread the word to all your creepy-crawlie pals, okay?

Alllllllllllllllmost........

Almost unfurled...

Almost open...

Almost there...

Almost the very first bloom of Spring...

Why if anything drips on us from the ceiling of the new house, I will FREAK

Hubby was terrible thoughtful enough to share the following news item with me. Before I give you the link, I must warn you it is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard, ever. And I grew up on a working farm with livestock and have been raising a small human for the past six years, so I know all about disgusting. This, though? Takes the cake. The really, really, really disgusting cake.

Okay, now that you're duly warned, click here if you dare... and if you're REALLY brave, click on the video clip in the story that was aired on the local news affiliate. It features some amazingly awful awesome sound effects. I was giggling throughout, which is kinda hard to do with a dropped jaw. Seriously, while this was a totally horrific thing for this poor woman to have gone through, it is one of those things that you laugh at even while you're getting utterly squicked out. (Or maybe that's just Hubby and me. We laughed as we got squicked out, anyhow.)

The good news is that Hubby shared this news item with our insurance agent before sharing it with me, so he was able to reassure me via the response he got from our agent that should we find ourselves in a similar situation when we move into our new home, with similar..... liquids dripping onto us or our belongings from the ceiling, we will be covered. Whew.

I'd still freak the heck out, though. I want to take a shower just from thinking about it!! *shudder*

Paging the Tooth Fairy...

Look what happened at school today!!



Kiddo reports that one of the aides pulled the dangling tooth out after lunch (I did give her apple slices, so she was eating crunchy, tooth-loosening things today) and that the nurse then wiped the blood away and gave her one of those tiny, plastic tooth treasure chests to save the tooth in - the same exact one that I used to get whenever I had a tooth pulled as a kid. (For the record: I had thirty-three teeth pulled, not counting my wisdom teeth. I mean baby and adult teeth that weren't left to fall out on their own. Somehow, wisdom teeth just don't seem to count in that regard...) Kiddo reports that it "didn't really hurt" - her exact words - and that she was happy to have it out.

So, paging the Tooth Fairy, we need you to make your debut appearance here tonight!

Funny that something as small as this



can move me to tears, but it did. My little kid is growing up so darn fast! *sniff sniff*

Forsooth! No, actually, forTOOTH!

Kiddo has gone to the dentist faithfully every six months for years now. (Thankfully, she also is cavity-free, woo-hoo!) At her last visit, Kiddo was quite concerned about the possibility of having a loose tooth. Her best friend, who is a few months older, had a wiggly tooth that fell out a few weeks after our trip to the dentist, and more have fallen out since then. The dentist looked at her x-rays (done last November) and informed us that (1) Kiddo isn't likely to have any loose teeth until she is closer to seven years old, based upon the way her adult teeth were progressing in their development, and (2) that she is definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY going to be a candidate for braces when those adult teeth do start appearing.

Somewhat mollified by the fact that we'd have some time before we had to deal with reality (2) since reality (1) was purportedly far off in the future, I have spent the past six months peering admiringly into the mouths of Kiddo's friends and other friends' kids, complimenting the wiggliness of their loose teeth and oohing and aahing over the gaps that were subsequently appearing in their smiles.

Which is why the sight of this:


shocked me into speechlessness (and let's face it, I am very, very rarely at any loss for words) earlier this afternoon. I don't know how long that tooth has been loose, and Kiddo seemed to be as surprised as I was by the discovery. Hubby was the one who noticed, as we were having lunch today (Kiddo had a half day so we drove over to the side of town where Hubby works and met him for lunch as a treat) and Kiddo opened her mouth to take a bite of her fruit salad. He actually saw this:


more than he noticed the actual tooth in front of it being loose all on its own. As soon as I returned from liberally ketchup-ing Kiddo's hot dog, he pointed it out, that monstrosity of an adult tooth crowding on up into view. I was, to say the least, very surprised by the sight.

Yeah, more like totally gobsmacked. My first thought was "Oh, Kiddo bonked herself in the mouth at some point and *knocked* the tooth loose... surely that can't be an adult tooth right there...." but no, there it was, a legitimately loose tooth.

Now, I suffered through over a decade of major orthodontia myself as a child (having that second set of adult teeth, as I did), and I am therefore a relatively experienced judge of impending dental wonkiness. This, my friends, with the ginormous adult tooth jutting up completely behind instead of under the baby tooth? A wonkiness red alert! So, while prediction #1 may've failed, I am fairly certain that the dentist's second prediction is soon going to come true in a big, expensive way. Good thing we've added Kiddo to the dental insurance!! She has her 6 month check up in a few weeks (ironically, we usually go within a week of Halloween - last year we went November 1st, of all the days to go to the dentist!) and I can't wait to hear what the dentist has to say about the newest state of her mouth.

In the meantime, the most pressing matters here at the house are WHEN will the tooth actually fall out and WHAT will the tooth fairy bring her? (Grandpa in NJ thought it was hilarious to tell Kiddo that the TF brings kids $100 for their first tooth. Mommy then told Grandpa that the TF also bills the grandparents for that service. Thanks a lot, Dad.) Kiddo, having just finished reading Ramona the Pest in which Ramona loses her first tooth and gets a whopping dime from the TF, has much more reasonably low expectations. Okay, we might cough up a dollar or perhaps a small toy type thing instead, but she's not getting any major cash, as much as my dad claims inflation. (Kiddo is now reading the first of the Paddington books, and professing, as Hubby and I both did at the same juncture in our lives, an overwhelming passion for marmalade.) I just really hope the tooth doesn't fall out at school, because that could be a major disaster. (DC - if you're reading this, be prepared! I'll letcha know if the tooth's still hanging in there come Monday morning...) I just hope it doesn't come out in her sleep (I remember wiggling my loose teeth with my tongue in bed at night) and then disappear, either down her gullet or into the cosmos. That baby tooth is miiiighty tiny! As a child, I once lost a tooth while spending the weekend at my grandparents' house. I saved it in a baggie to take home and leave under the pillow for the TF, rightly guessing that she wouldn't know to come to Nana and Pop's, and my grandmother had the audacity, when she came upon the baggie with my tooth tucked carefully into my suitcase, to throw it out!!! I was beyond distraught, and called my parents hysterically crying about how Nana threw my tooth out in the garbage. (Nana just didn't get what all the fuss was about. I don't think my dad and aunt ever were visited by the Tooth Fairy as kids...) Fortunately, Mom explained a loophole through which we could write the TF a letter explaining the lost tooth, and the TF came through - I had a quarter waiting under my pillow that next morning after arriving home. (Took me a loooong time to forgive Nana for that egregious crime, though...) While I'm sure Kiddo would understand such an explanation, I'd hate to have to give it to her for the very first lost tooth!

I ought to confess, I got a little choked up over this unexpected development. I mean, yeah, it could partly be due to PMS, but this is such incontrovertible evidence that Kiddo is getting BIG, and I wasn't expecting this for another year or two at least, so *sniff sniff* it got to me. (Kiddo is not quite yet five and a half...)

So, that's the latest development here in our corner of the world. After lunch (which she spent mainly looking at her tooth in the compact mirror I carry in my purse), Kiddo called all the relatives and friends to share the news, then put on her lion costume and we hit the pumpkin patch for our annual Halloween pictures. They're ridiculously adorable, if I do say so myself, so if anyone wants to see 'em, let me know and I'll hook you up. As always, I'm not posting them here because of the internet weirdos and all that, blah blah blah.

Boo hiss, Branta canadensis

Branta canadensis is the bane of my existence these days. What is that, you ask? (What, no ornithologists read my blog?) Here's a hint:


The above pictures were taken earlier this summer, back when the Canada goose population in our neighborhood was just beginning to burgeon with goslings. (Now that it's fall, my burning bushes are starting to burn and my lilies are pretty much done...) I know that many suburban areas are dealing with the annoyances of vast populations of Canada geese. In our area, there are three small ponds within a quarter mile, including one smack dab behind our property. This means that we don't just have flocks of geese, but hordes of them. It is a veritable plague of geese in our neighborhood. Every morning, the kiddo and I must tread carefully on our way to the corner, lest we step in a Canada Goose Land Mine. The sidewalks, streets and unfenced yards are strewn with goose droppings. The geese have also been known to hold up traffic by sauntering across the street, single file, hissing and flapping their wings at the cars they are blocking.

Now, I try to shrug off the holding up traffic; I realize that the adults lose their flight feathers during gosling season (though it seems they could do us the courtesy of hurrying it along when crossing the road - they are positively meandering and don't give a hoot - or a honk). I even try to frame the fecal extravaganza in positive terms - all that poop must make great fertilizer for the lawn (at least in our front yard; they don't go in our back yard thanks to the fence. Geese like to have a large, clear sightline in order to land, so the fence keeps them out quite handily.)

The reason I'm so anti-Branta canadensis comes from one, simple thing. These birds are LOUD. Not just the honking, though that woke Hubby and me up again well before our alarm clock this morning, but also from when they make a water landing. Graceful, these birds are not! Now, we have a few gray and white herons that visit our pond regularly - gawky birds with massive, pterodactyl-like wingspans. The herons' wings are so large that you can hear them beating the air, helicopter-rotor-like, when they fly over, whump whump whump. But when they touch down in the pond, there's nary a splish. Not so much the geese. They sound like someone is gluing large cats to frozen turkeys, then tossing them into the pond from a great height. THUNKsplashsplashsplashsplash, and of course HONKING all the while. The noise is quite disconcerting and loud enough to rouse one from a deep sleep. It sounds like someone is fighting a sea monster there in our back yard.



or

? Hard to say...........

"Well, Heather," you say, "at least the geese are migratory. Won't they be gone soon?" Nope. Can't even cling to that hope. These geese are here until well after the pond's frozen over solid. (That is an even more disturbing sound than the water landing - a mess of geese all trying to land in the same, small spot of unfrozen water.)

So, this is why I'm grumpy this morning, because we were once again woken up before 5am by the clamoring ruckus of the Canada geese. Mother Nature is one evil witch sometimes, let me tell you!

Miscellany: Sweet 16, The Silence of the Voles, Google hilarity

Sixteen years ago tonight was my first date with Hubby! He picked me up at my apartment in his teeny-tiny Ford Festiva and we went to Pizzeria Uno for dinner, then to see Last of the Mohicans (its opening night). After the movie, we went to Friendly's for dessert, where I was impressed by Hubby managing to put away an entire Jim Dandy sundae -



- that's FIVE scoops of ice cream, y'all! (I should point out Hubby was only a 19 year old college student at the time, and hasn't eaten a sundae half as large in over a decade...) We sat and talked 'til the restaurant closed. Then, we headed back to my apartment where Hubby came up (oh hush now, I'm not like that on a first date) and we watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, because I was horrified that Hubby had never seen it. (That's a movie that we still quote to each other on practically a daily basis, and it's a good thing Hubby liked it as much as I do, as that was part of my future-husband-material litmus test.) After that, we talked some more and he left my apartment around 4:15 in the morning. And that was the Great Beginning, sixteen years ago today...

***

So, yesterday I mowed the lawn. It was far overdue for a mowing, and the back yard was especially jungle-y. When I got to the back, I dragged Kiddo's playhouse up onto the deck, as is customary, and shook my head when I saw the obvious signs that some of our community of voles had set up an outpost - vacation home perhaps? - underneath the playhouse - vole poop, little trails, two voles scurrying away and under the fence, etc. We never put any rat poison underneath the deck this summer, where their primary metropolis exists, and I've seen evidence as always that they were utilizing both my food garden and planting beds as their own personal salad bar, so I wasn't surprised to see that they'd been under the playhouse. I began the mowing, iPod on and my Aerosmith playlist cranked up so I could hear it over our loud, old, gas-powered push mower. As I was going over the area where the playhouse had been, I mowed over a largish tuft of dead grass that I had figured was the voles' vacation bed. Coincidentally, as the front edge of the mower hit this tuft, the song I'd been listening to ended and there was a moment of silence just long enough for me to hear some hideous squeaking as the mower blades momentarily caught on something in the grass. I immediately stopped the engine, but it was too late - what I'd just run over with the Grassy Blades of Death was not an abandoned pile of grass for bedding, but a nest containing several small and now quite diced and dead baby voles.

I felt just horrible about it, as I hadn't intended to slaughter an entire nest of helpless babies, rodents or otherwise. I fetched a shovel from the garage, scooped up the gooey, gory remains and carried them ceremoniously down to the pond, where I gave them a burial at sea. (I figured the fish or herons or other pond-area wildlife would appreciate some Vole Tartar.) I mean, as much as I hate the stupid voles and do intentionally try to off them in their adult form (via the rat poison under the deck), I didn't mean to kill a whole passel of babies. To paraphrase Hannibal Lecter, now it will be some time before the voles stop screaming............... It also will be some time before I offhandedly mow any lumps of grass, as well. I imagine those baby voles are now sitting up there in animal heaven, alongside the squirrel I ran over when I was 17 and the bird that flew into my car earlier this summer, leaving grisly bits embedded in the front grill, and they're all waiting for their turn to cast their judgement upon me, the careless machinery operator who sent them to their doom...

***

So, from time to time I read posts other folks have written about the weird Google searches that brought people to their blog. Well, I certainly have my fair share of those too, and now's as good a time as any to share them with you. Here goes with a sampling from the past week's searches:

goldfish getting fat

Perhaps installing a tiny treadmill in the tank would help?

coke-bottle glasses thick

Yep, that's me. I could start fires in seconds by holding my glasses up to the sun. Seriously.

kids gotta pee

Yes, they do. True story.

how to make a loud burp without soda

I'm a bit sad that I didn't have any actual answers for this person on my blog...

the mom haircut
and
Mrs. Brady hair

These both appeared several times from different places. Who knew so many folks out there are interested in either mom hair or the mother of all moms, Mrs. Brady's hair?

neti pot hurt eardrum

Well, I told you I don't ever want to use one of those things, and here's just one more reason why.

why is my child barfing all over the bed

Um, I'm not sure, but sorry - perhaps a throw-up bucket would be a good idea?

funk

In which regard: bringing it, smelling it, or listening to it?

How to look like Angelina Jolie

Sorry, I certainly can't help you there. Getting Brad Pitt as arm candy might help, though.

apple bread more with less

This one just doesn't make sense. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

food getting stuck in teeth all the time

Have you tried flossing?

moms in jeopardy

I don't know what you were looking for, but I was on Jeopardy and I am now a mom...

How to remove very big splinter from childs skin without screaming

Well, I certainly would also love the answer to that one!

Boobs in a swimming pool

Yes, there frequently are.

Now, I have had many search hits every week for things like "naked locker room" or "embarrassing public nudity" thanks to some of my older posts, but I'm guessing that the people doing those searches aren't getting the results they were hoping for when they stumble upon my little blog. Hee!

Okay, I could keep rambling on, but I have a list of errands to do and I'm burning daylight here. Hope everyone is having a great day out there in the blogosphere!

Baby birdie and busted AC update

The presumptive sparrow baby is no longer in the nest, so I guess I was right on his status, sadly enough. (Special thanks to Mama Finch for disposing of the corpse someplace out of sight and not just kicking it to the floor of the porch for me to find.) There is a newly hatched baby finch alongside the one that hatched yesterday, so total nest count at this point is two baby finches and three eggs yet to hatch.

Also, the problem with the Sienna's AC seems to be actually related to the work they did on it the last time. Then, they'd said the problem was one of two things (or possibly both) and at their suggestion, we had them do the lesser of the two fixes and hoped that would take care of it. Since it was the larger, more complicated and expensive issue, they are going to credit the work they did last time towards this fix, which knocks a good bit off of the still-costly bill, but they think this will take care of it once and for all. (As it should since we've now replaced just about the entire AC system...) The bad news is that they don't have the part they need on hand so we'll have to do the complicated Drop Off the Van routine again either on Friday or Saturday. The mechanic did say that he thinks we should have a few more good, problem-free years at least left on the van, given the state of everything else in it and the shape it's in, now that the AC issue will be resolved. Hope he's right!!

Eggstra, Eggstra! Read all about it!

(Wow, the eggciting terms just keep on coming. Hee!)

First, the good news - another baby birdie has hatched in the nest! The new finch baby is a lot smaller than the presumptive sparrow, as one might expect given the difference in egg sizes.



Now, the bad news - it doesn't appear that the baby sparrow has survived. It looked quite still and as though it was not breathing when I took the baskets down as they were being blown almost perpendicular in yesterday's thunderstorms. (I continue to try to disturb the nest as little as possible, so I do not touch the actual nest and am going only on brief, visual observation here.) Mama finch is still tending to/sitting on the nest, so I don't think it is a case of abandonment. Hubby speculates that perhaps once the baby finch appeared, Mama figured out the first baby was not one of hers and stopped caring for it. Who knows? (Probably some ornithologist, but we're certainly not bird experts.) All I know is, I hope that I am wrong and the sparrow chick is still alive, but if it is dead, I hope Mama finch removes it from the nest and not just to the porch floor, as happened last year. (Ick.) So, that's two eggs down, four to go!

(Side note: it cooled down during the storm front yesterday, which enabled me to turn off the central air and open the windows to air out the house. Papa Finch was most displeased with his apparently new found awareness of our cat, who had immediately planted herself in an opened upstairs window - not the window nearest the petunia baskets, mind you. He perched on the roof about 3 feet away from where she was sunning herself and minding her own business and cheeped at her quite angrily. She looked at me with this "Huh?!? What did I do?" expression and after a few more minutes of him cheeping, she hopped down out of the windowsill and stalked off into the back of the house, away from Papa finch. After she left the window, he stopped cheeping and flew away.)