A Fowl Adventure

Day 37 was rough. I am the sort of gal that requires, at a minimum, 7 hours of sleep to function. I am also the kind of gal that regardless of what time I go to bed, my ass is up during the 5/6am hour…… and then that next day is just going to suck balls if it was a late night. I have a ‘just-in-case’ alarm set for 8 o’clock, that I have never in my life been asleep to actually wake up to. There must be something in the water/air here in Garden, MI that turns me into a social butterfly + night owl. A social owl? A night butterfly? Who knows? I blame Gatsby.
Let’s rewind to the afternoon of Day 36. I partook of trivia night at the golf course. I don’t want anyone to get too excited here; my team came in last place. The highlight of the evening was one of the patrons that had, we’ll say just a smidgey (or eighteen) too many brews, and vocally raped everyone (that would be me and Jack) that remained after trivia. It was all fun and games until she decided she wanted to take Gatsby home with her. Now, I can’t really blame her; he is pretty great. But drunk people do stupid things, and I’ll go ahead and say that anyone who fucks with my kid is going to get cut to ribbons. Don’t worry, it didn’t come to that; she was eventually coaxed into walking home. That was followed by a joyride to The Dock (the scene of the week prior’s social shenanigans) and several hours of some of the absolute best stargazing I’ve ever done (and I’ve stargazed in rural South Africa, which I didn’t think could be beat). I didn’t even attempt to do any photography; just enjoyed the glory of the Milky Way. I enjoyed it so much, bedtime wasn’t until almost 4am, and true to form, I was vertical well before 7. Rude. Thankfully, I didn’t have anything that needed to be done, and nowhere that I needed to go.
Now, I get made fun of not infrequently because I not only keep an old-fashioned budget book that I maintain by hand like an 85-year-old that doesn't understand QuickBooks (is that even a thing anymore, or have we progressed to some new budgeting software?), but because also like to keep a grandma’s sleep schedule as well, but in my defense, lack of sleep has a rather magical effect on me. It’s a dark magic, and it results in some exotic and wild variety of fatigue nausea, so I end up like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, projectile vomiting. Day 37 consisted of that, possibly exacerbated by my questionable decision to work out. I was about 2 KB swings into it when I decided that hinge patterns were not my friend and tossed my cookies. The rest of the day went by in haze, with me swanning about in the air-conditioned clubhouse. For a little extra charm, I somehow managed to drop a full pizza off of the tray and onto the burner of the pizza oven. I didn’t burn the joint down, so there’s that.
Day 38 has been a housekeeping day……laundry, gearage re-org, etc., along with a pedi, you know, so my feet will be clean for approximately 25 seconds, before I take my shoes off and continue to mosey about barefoot.
Because these have been a few blessedly slow and relaxing days without much drama or van malfunctions, I suppose it would be a good time for the bird story. If anyone has already heard me tell this story before, you could just skip to the end, but if you enjoyed the audio version, feel free to peruse it again, because I’m going to write it exactly the way I tell it. Buckle up, kids.
So it all started when I was about 5 years old. For a bit of a backstory, my parents weren’t quite right in the head. Not in a cute/charming/quirky kind of way, just straight up in the not right way. One day, they decided that we should get a pair of parakeets. So we got a pair of parakeets. Then, because they liked that pair so much, they got a couple more pairs. Fast-forward about a dozen and a half parakeets later, and they thought, ‘You know what? These parakeets have been so fun, we should get some finches to go with them.’ So we got a couple of finches. And then some more. Add a couple of parrots, quails, and a mentally-challenged cockatiel, and the parents decide that we can’t possibly have all of these cages growing like mold in the house. Black mold, not the good penicillin kind. So they decide that we should build a giant aviary for the birds to flap around in. Now, where in the house, you ask, would be the absolute BEST spot for an aviary? The kitchen, you say?? NAILED IT. In the kitchen. Where people prepare and eat their food. Yes, how hygienic. Let’s do THAT! So a couple of aviaries were erected in the kitchen, but that just wasn’t enough. Every morning, they’d open the aviary doors, so all of those mother fucking birds could FLAP THEIR FEATHERED ASSES AROUND THE HOUSE, SHITTING EVERYWHERE. Sometimes they would park it on your shoulder (or sometimes your head, if the force was with you that particular day) and shit down your back/in your hair. Good times. But wait, there’s more. At dinner, we would let the birds not only sit on our shoulder; not only feed the birds some dinner scraps. Oh no. My parents would CHEW their own food, then FEED IT TO THE SHOULDER BIRD. Like it was a baby fucking bird that needed our regurgitated dinner. Yes, I know; I, too, just vomited into my mouth. So now you understand my rather vehement aversion toward birds.
Tomorrow, we’re off to adventure at Fayette State Park, where I’ve been told there’s a very photogenic ghost town (aren’t they all?). Until then….Cheerio!