The Things You Find When Packing 1

I should really be packing right now. We’re at that stage where not everything is packed, but a lot of it is, so you reach this false sense of security while also being stressed out by the mess. I look around and marvel that anyone ever actually moves all their stuff from one place to another.

We’ve been going through junk drawers and boxes of paper. This has unearthed a few gems.

In the junk drawer in the kitchen, I found this IOU that Tom made me for my birthday several years ago. We often joke that I can get fixated on something and feel that one thing will set off a string of events that will then lead to me being a capable, responsible person (moving, coincidentally, is one of these things, as well). In the case of this IOU, that thing was a filter that attaches to a ceiling fan. Tom, as you already know, has an excellent sense of humor and luckily I have one about myself:

Time has passed, and I never ended up with the ceiling fan thingy, and I can’t exactly remember how it would have led to never-ending happiness, but I’m sure my case was airtight and we’ll never know for sure if I was right because I didn’t get one.

I was going to share everything I’ve found so far, but if I don’t start packing again, my generous sister and brother-in-law, who are coming to help us move, are going to slaughter me with my still-unpacked knives.

So, more uncovered gems to come.

 

What did we do before cell phones? The 1977 JC Penny Catalog informs us.

Before cell phones, we had both hands free for the majority of the time. It’s funny how quickly we forget the times before cell phones – when you actually had to be at a place that had a phone to use it, and sometimes you even had to ask if you could use it.

But, I’m more concerned with our hands. Nowadays most people in public are using one or both of their hands to talk or play on their phone. What did we do with ourselves before that? I’ll tell you.

Men wore robes and coats every day, and always used the pockets.

Women, ever so lightly, ever so deftly, used one hand to caress their collars.

 

Updated: We Thought the Owl Covered in Blood May be Injured but it Turns Out He’s a Messy Eater

Spoiler alert: there is a picture of animal bones and a distant picture of a disembodied leg. These are owls we’re talking about.

We’ve had a couple of owls living on our little street (a cul de sac with just six houses). They’ve been hooting away during the day and night for several months. That’s not all they’ve been doing, either.

This morning Tom and our neighbors, David, Betsy, and Roger (Betsy and Roger are married) found a surprise in the middle of our cul-de-sac. I was sleeping at the time, as I’m not currently a responsible, contributing member of society. So, rather than re-hash all of this in my own words, particularly since I wasn’t there and don’t deserve to pretend to be, here’s the baby owl’s story as told through Facebook posts.

First, David posted a picture of the owl:

Tom posted a video of him:

And Betsy updated her status and explained what the owl-helpers told her:

And, of course I wanted to see owl pellets. So, I headed over to Betsy’s driveway, where she told her son he could “keep” them (the same place he found them). We all know owls are bad mother-shut-my-mouths, but as we looked at one pellet, then found another, and then another, we slowly realized we were standing below their nest, and let me tell you, I am glad I’m not a mouse. Or a bird. Or a chipmunk. Or a rabbit.

 

I said, “It’s a spine!” When we looked at the first owl pellet.
But it looks like it was actually a foot.
Betsy started yelling “IT’S A LEG! IT’S A LEG!” before I even saw it.

Seriously, y’all, they sit up in their nest of horror and drop animal body parts over the side.*

Betsy also told me that the raptor rescuer said that while the babe’s blood was from breakfast, he DID have fly eggs on him, which, if hatched could cause maggots, which would then have caused his death. So, he had several baths at the rescue place, and they will let him dry overnight and will bring him back tomorrow. Hopefully there won’t be any issue and he’ll be welcomed back with open wings and the slaughter can begin again (they eat up to 10 mice a day). So, yay for Betsy and the Chattahoochee Nature Center for preventing what sounds like a pretty horrible maggot-related death.

This is the picture Tom took of him when he first found him. Even as a relatively helpless birdie, he looks pretty intimidating – look at those talons!

*I’m kidding, owls! I love you. Please don’t hurt me.

Update: My title was a lie! This morning, the raptor lady came in to check on baby owl (I keep wanting to nickname him “bowel” but that’s not right), and he had blood on him again. After another thorough pat down, she discovered three puncture wounds on his inner thigh. So, he’ll stay with them while he’s on some antibiotics and will be returned after the wound is in the clear.

She thinks the cause of the injury was that his parents stepped on him. I would go over and lecture up at the nest about them needing to be more careful with their babies, but I’m afraid they’ll toss a squirrel head over the side at me and I know I wouldn’t recover from a trauma like that.

The theory is that the wound made him tip forward when he ate, so he would fall in his bloody food, which explains why he looked like Stephen King’s Carrie at the prom. That would also explain why he’s all hunched over in the scary pictures of him.

Update 7/24/12 – I’ve noticed this post has gotten some traffic lately. I feel like I should complete the story even though it’s a sad one. The baby owl passed away a few days after I posted this. I was so bummed about it I didn’t have the heart to write about it.

He died from rat poisoning. A rat must have ingested rat poisoning, and then the baby owl and the rest of his family probably caught and ate that rat. Most likely they all died as all owl sounds in the neighborhood ceased shortly after we found the baby.

Rat poison is serious, serious business. It doesn’t just kill rats – putting it out is a risk for many animals, including pets. The irony is that the rat poison killed one of nature’s best pest controls. Such a shame.

The American Doctor Who

If the U.S.A. had a Doctor Who, he couldn’t travel around in a police box all the time. He’d need a time machine that blended in better with the American landscape. Something that that can be plopped almost anywhere and no one would question it. On our walk this weekend, Tom and I found it:

Yes, there was “Dr. Poo” jokes, of course. And, I used the word “plopped” on purpose in the earlier sentence. Our Doctor Who would have an even harder time convincing people to accompany him, but can you deny that this must be his means of conveyance?

I googled “Doctor Who porta-potty” to see if there’s been anything else written about it, and I found this, which uses the more classy pun “Doctor Loo.” And poor Matt Smith. It’s bad enough having to use a porta-potty, much less having photographers waiting for you to emerge from one.

Maybe the “FARTIS” instead of the “TARDIS”? The FARTIS was unoccupied, so that means our Doctor and his companion were probably investigating the alien race that invented split-level houses, because that neighborhood is filled with them.

Patient zero just told herself waiting one more day to change the litter box won’t make a difference.

I’m about 3/4 through reading World War Z. I’m loving this book and I can’t wait to see how it’s adapted for the screen. It’s making me contemplate what kind of person or circumstance may cause the patient zero zombie when the zombie outbreak inevitably happens in real life. Theories:

  • Booger eater
  • Cleaning the Gutters – strange things amass in those gutters between cleanings
  • Kristen Stewart, she’s a heartbeat (or lack of) away from becoming a zombie
  • Silica gel pack ingestion
  • Any person on My Strange Addiction – you can’t eat ashes and pillow cushions and not be one bite away from a walker
  • Someone finally waits too long to change a litter box
  • Skinny jeans and jeggings constrict blood flow to the brain, killing all but the wanting-to-devour-live-humans part
  • There’s got to be a worse consequence for running with scissors than just a simple impalement
  • Strobe lights
  • Somebody’s gonna make a wish and it’s going to be misinterpreted by the genie. Something like, “I want to live forever because I love food and never want to stop eating it.”
  • Grapples, I don’t trust them
  • One time, at a flea market, there was a bunch of boxes filled with toys. I was sifting through it, and I found a rusty saw. I think if I had hit the rusty saw end first, and not the handle, I may have been patient zero
  • Mega jet lag
  • We run out of things to fry, and people are the only thing left to try
  • Coconut candy, obviously

What else? I know I’ve missed some.