Dear Kid,

There is a bird outside our window. I’ve named him Rodney. Rodney is looking for female companionship (this being the season of love).

The problem is Rodney is desperate.

He sounds exhausted. He’s busy puffing up his chest feathers like he’s The Dude but in reality, Rodney is not the dude. I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but he is just trying too hard.

I want to say: Rodney, take a nap, get some rest, and think this thing through a little. But I haven’t said anything as I am not a well-known romance expert in the avian world.

My guess is that Rodney’s mother told him it was time to get a girl because she wanted grandbirdies and she wasn’t getting any younger thank you very much. I say this because it doesn’t really sound like Rodney’s heart is in the song.

(Tune in tomorrow for Part II)

Love, Mom

How do you say No Public Restrooms in Bird?

Dear Kid,

In case you missed it, Apple is looking at a new technology. Since that is not a very helpful sentence (seeing as how Apple is ALWAYS looking at new technology), allow me to be more specific. Apple is evaluating/inventing/refining/whatev Gaze Detection Technology. What does this mean? So glad you asked. (You always seem to know just the right thing to say when I’m putting words in your mouth.)

Basically, it means that when you look away from the screen, the computer pauses and waits for your attention to return. Kind of techno-egotistical if you ask me. I can just hear the robot voice, “I AM the center of attention and I can just wait here all day until you’re ready.”

More importantly, it means that when you look up at the ceiling in hope that the answer is magically written there you won’t miss anything important on your laptop.

In the biggest non-event in the technical world, Twitter had some down time on Monday and is now back up and happily running. The “duh” is implied.

There is a new Facebook app that let’s anyone co-sponsor a bill in the House. It’s called Cosponsor.gov and I’m pretty sure I don’t get it.

Did you know that Ben and Jerry’s has Cannoli flavored ice cream? According to their website it is Mascarpone Ice Cream with Fudge Covered Cannoli Pastry Shell Chunks & a Mascarpone Swirl. That may be the most beautiful thing I’ve heard all day.

It seems that one of the adult birds now raising a family in our garage took advantage of my open car window to pretend to be an Indy car racer. Why a bird would choose to sit in a 400 year old Camry rather than going (key word here) outside on a beautiful day is beyond me. But go it did. On the parking brake. I am not amused. I am also not interested in trying to teach a bird to be house broken. Garage broken? Car broken? Anyway, I am posting a No Public Restrooms  sign on my windows.

In other news, we are still waiting to hear the results of Pi’s soccer non-tryouts. She did well at the Tryouts Part I but was injured for Part II (I swear the only thing holding that child together is duct tape and will power), so we’ll have to see what the coaches do with her. Stay tuned.

Also, she’s leaving for camp on Tuesday, so now would be a Most Excellent Time to write her an actual letter so that it gets to her in the first couple of days. This reminder has been brought to you by your mother.

Love, Mom

This is not our garage door. You can tell because it is so flippin’ clean. On the other hand it is slightly open the way ours is.

Dear Kid,

Apparently, baby birds are the theme of the season. A bird built a nest in a plastic bag in our garage (which does not say much for the parent birds’ real estate hunting abilities) and we now have babies.

The good news is that they all appear to be staying in their nest, giving feeding and babysitting duties to the mama and papa birds and leaving me the heck out of it.

Except not entirely out of it. We have decided that it is one thing to lock the birds in (and all bird-eating critters out) during the night. But when we leave the house during the day, we are leaving the garage door open a good 8 ¾ inches to allow the parents to fly in and out bringing masticated worms and other goodies to the chirpies. (So maybe it is a brilliant avian real estate move.) I am now having to master an entirely new form of garage door closing (or almost closing) while we wait for the babies to graduate flight school and move out of their college apartment.

Speaking of graduation, in a tribute to Idiots in America, a fight broke out in Cleveland at a kindergarten graduation. Kindergarten. Over spilled punch. Just to be clear, it wasn’t the kindergarteners fighting, it was parents and “juvies.” The graduates must have been so proud of their families.

Sorry your folks aren’t crazy enough to make the national news fighting over juice.

Love, Mom

The Baby Bird–Much less cute in real life

Dear Kid,

What a day yesterday was!

After the parade (which—with the exception of the Santa Band whose members appear to be some of the happiest people in the entire state—unfortunately did not live up to expectations), I had a Very Definite Plan for how the day was going to go. As I mentioned, we are in the throes of the Great Pre-Graduation Clean and there is a lot to be done. Seriously, a lot. Also a Great Deal.

I had the day planned out in excruciating detail to be sure All Would Be Accomplished.

The Plan lasted approximately 97 seconds.

At first the schedule was upset by General Chaos and whatnot. Since this is SOP around here, I didn’t worry about it and figured I’d make up the time later on.

Unfortunately, the Universe did not pay attention to The Plan. The Universe poo-poo-ed the plan. It might be more accurate to say the Universe used the plan as its own personal poo repository.

Dad found a baby robin on the driveway. The term “baby robin” probably conjures up all sorts of adorable images and cheeping baby-ness. Nothing could be further from reality. We suspect the baby was all of a day or so old and had been ousted from its nest by its mother. (Note: even babies should be respectful of their mothers, O Best Beloved).  Far from adorable, the bird looked like a prehistoric mistake. A sickly prehistoric mistake. The type of animal you would look at and say “Only a mother could love” but you’d be wrong because the mother didn’t.

Out went The Plan and in came The Baby Bird (TBB).

Immediately prior to the entrance of TBB, Booker and I had been helping Pi study for finals. Booker’s main responsibility was to have his tummy scratched. When TBB came in, we abandoned the studying and the tummy scratching to look at the critter and stress about our lack of knowledge about how one cares for something that looks more like Watto than a robin.

Jealousy is not a pretty emotion for a puppy. Eventually, we let him sniff the bird, gave him a carrot, and all was right with the animal hierarchy.

Watto. Probable ancestor of TBB.

After a few fairly stressful moments minutes eons, we learned that one can feed recently hatched birds sugar water. We made a “nest” out of a washcloth, whipped up some sugar water, grabbed a dropper and proceeded to act like a gaggle of concerned bird parents. After four or five drops of the sugar water (pretty much lemonade without the lemons), TBB fell asleep.

There is great controversy on the web as to how often baby birds should be fed. The gamut goes from every 15 minutes to whenever they open their mouths (information that is exactly as helpful as it sounds).

Do you remember about my Plan for Cleaning Up? I double checked. Nowhere on the list had I included Worry About Baby Bird. Nonetheless, we proceeded to worry.

How many people does it take to worry appropriately about a displaced baby bird? Pretty much all of Facebook and everyone in the family.

We watched him sleep to be sure he kept breathing. We tried to nudge him awake to feed him. We changed the washcloth when it needed changing. Mostly, we worried.

We managed to feed the poor thing a few more drops here and there and even got an iota of puppy food into him. (Yes, it was a him. We voted. And yes, it was an iota. I measured.)

We built a slightly more substantial nest for him in a flower pot which we took to dinner, where we gave more people the opportunity to worry about him. And the opportunity to try to feed him and keep him warm.

After a fab cookout (who knew you could get so much wonderful food at the grocery store!), Pi and I returned home to study.

Somewhere in the middle of Indochina, we learned that TBB had died. He tried. We fought hard for him. But nature was against it from the start. (NOTE: Pretty much proof that Mom Knows Best.)

Booker is the big winner here as he will get to eat the puppy food we bought for the bird.

The house is still a Disaster Area, and I’m not sure how ready Pi is for finals.

I have got to do a better job of communicating my intentions to the Universe.

Love, Mom