Brokeback Mountain comes out today, and I’ll be getting it in the mail from Netflix when the mail comes later. I am VERY EXCITED to know that I’ll be watching it tonight.
Of course, the fact that I’m this excited pretty much guarantees that it’s going to suck.
* * *
“What,” Fred said from his spot in front of his computer, “Is that NOISE?”
“I don’t know,” I said absentmindedly from my spot in front of my computer.
“It almost sounds like a weed whacker,” he said.
“Yeah, but it sounds like it’s coming from inside the house.”
“The CALL is coming from
INSIDE THE HOUSE!” Fred said, and then got up to see what the noise was.
“Oh shit,” he said a second later.
“What?”
“He’s got a bird!” Fred said, and then I heard the noise of a cat thumping up the stairs with Fred running close behind.
I got up and went to the bottom of the stairs. From the top of the stairs, I heard the sound of Fred yelling at Mister Boogers, then running back and forth, and I yelled up helpful things like “Is it a baby?” and “Is it a cardinal?”, and Fred answered my questions in the affirmative as he chased the now-free bird.
Eventually, he came downstairs with the bird in his hands.
“How am I supposed to let him go?” he asked.
I went into the living room, calling “Just open the door and open your hands, and he’ll fly away!” I resisted the urge to break into song (
He’ll fly away, Oh Glory/ He’ll fly away; (in the morning)/ When he dies, Hallelujah, by and by/ he’ll fly away (he’ll fly away). I’d just reached out to open the back door when I heard Fred swear again.
“What?” I said.
“He got away!” Fred said, and I could hear the sound of a pissed-off baby cardinal squawking and taking flight, then hitting the wall. Then taking flight and hitting the wall. Then taking flight and hitting the wall.
I went into the dining room to see Fred trying to chase down the cardinal and hold Mister Boogers back at the same time. And I knew I had two choices – I could try to help, in which case Fred would bitch at me for getting in the way, or I could stand back and observe, in which case Fred would bitch at me for not helping.
“Could you give me some HELP here?” he snapped, pushing Mister Boogers back for the tenth time. “I need some gloves or something!”
I went into the kitchen and got gloves from under the sink, handed them to Fred, and then picked Mister Boogers up and held onto him so he couldn’t go after the bird again.
“Brrrrrrrrrrp!” Mister Boogers said with great displeasure.
Fred finally got hold of the bird and I went into the living room and opened the back door for him.
(That sounds kind of dirty, doesn’t it?)
Fred stepped outside, opened his hands… and the bird just sat there. Apparently he’d stunned his tiny brain and was in a state of shock. He just sat in Fred’s hand for the longest time, and after a few minutes, Fred started petting him, and I’ll be damned if the bird didn’t seem to kind of like it.
Around Fred’s feet, the cats swarmed, looking up and trying to figure out what exactly The Daddy was holding in his hand that smelled so damn good.
We eventually shooed the cats inside and shut the cat door. They watched us unhappily from the other side of the windows as we stood and looked at the bird. Fred finally walked over to the bird feeder and set the bird in the feeder. The bird sat there and regarded Fred with some confusion. Fred took off his gloves and held out his hand to see if the bird would hop back on his hand.
The bird did.
The bird went back into the feeder for a while, and then Fred tried to get it to hop on his hand and stand on one finger, but apparently the bird had other plans. It took off and flew for a short distance, then landed on the ground and happily hopped around, occasionally peeping. We decided to leave him alone for a little while, and about half an hour later, we looked out to find him gone. Fred walked around the yard to make sure he wasn’t hopping around anywhere, didn’t see him, and we opened the cat door back up so the cats could go outside and perhaps bring us another bird.
A bird in the house is a definite sign that spring is here.
* * *
So remember last week when I had a temper tantrum about how it was going to be just too fucking expensive to carpet the living room and how much I hated the Berber carpet and how I hate everything, WAHHHHHHHHHH?
Turns out Fred – who majored in MATH in college – figured it out wrong, and it ended up that it was going to be much less than we’d originally thought. So he called the carpet store and made an appointment to have a guy come out and do an estimate for us, and – just for shits and giggles – we had him give us an estimate on replacing the carpet on the stairs as well (of course, I’d much prefer to have the stairs hardwooded, but that’d just be too damn much money to spend on a house we’ll be selling in a year), and when the cost of carpeting the stairs and the living room was added together, it ended up being something we could live with.
So they’re coming next Monday to carpet the living room AND the stairs, and I’ve already told the spud that I will beat her six ways to Sunday if she EVER tromps on the newly carpeted stairs with her shoes on, because I’ll be damned, after living with those ugly stains on the carpeted stairs (said stains were actually caused by people who looked through the house when it was up for sale before we bought it), if she’s going to stain up the new carpet.
AND not only are we getting new carpet in the living room and on the stairs, but Fred’s going to paint the living room next Sunday – the same color it is now, only all the ugly stains and dings will gone – and I am VERY MUCH excited.
Yeah, I need a life. Shaddup.
Someone mentioned in my comments last week that I should think about getting an area rug for the living room and leaving the Berber carpet, since it would add to the resale value of the house. I would actually consider that, except that the Berber carpet is so stained and ugly (the cats have pulled up loops of the carpet in a couple of places) that there’s no way it would add to the resale value. Between Fred and the cats, iced tea has stained the carpet by his couch so badly that it’ll never come out.
* * *
Tommy in the back yard.
Pissy Boog.
Miz Poo whines annoyingly.
Oh, how the Sug cracks me up.
(
Fred took most – if not all – of the pictures in today’s entry.)
All of today’s uploaded pictures are
here.
* * *
Previously
2005: E’gar comes home.
2004: No entry.
2003: “Hi. What R U doing to loose weight and how much weight have U lost?”
2002: Burned fucking beans.
2001: No entry.
2000: Diane Sawyer is so uncomfortable around kids, it’s laughable. ]]>