TheBlog

I’ve lived a pretty long life.  However, very sadly, I have few true friends to show for it.  Why is that?  One reason is that my ‘best friend’ was usually the one I was dating at the time and when the relationship did not work out I would loose my friend.  I miss the people I used to know.  More importantly, I miss their friendship.  I wish things were different and that they could still be in my life.  But that was not to be the case.  I wonder if they think of me?

I watched the Michael Jackson memorial on a shoddy feed from work.  Flash was having problems and I didn’t feel like downloading the current version.  The mood was palpable as I mostly listened to the tribute streaming from my computer’s speakers.  As I listened, I was hit by extreme sadness….sadness that I perhaps have never really felt for someone I never really knew.   Just sad….sad stuff.
Listening to the memorial made my mind wander to not so long ago when I had to say goodbye to my own mother, taken tragically from the earth.  I began to reflect in my memories of her…thoughts of her skipping through my mind at random times throughout the day.
Later, leaving work in my car, I tuned to a local channel that was covering the tribute and memory of Michael Jackson.  His songs, causing that damn prickly-tear feeling behind my eyes and in my nose, streamed from the car’s stereo.  my thoughts focused on my own momma. 
I pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store and got out.  As I approached the store I caught a glimpse of her!  But then I realized it wasn’t her…it was only my own reflection caught on the store’s reflective glass doors as i walked by.
I miss her.

Recently, my brother Robert brought home a used 250cc Rebel motorcycle that someone gave him for free.  He had driven over two hours just to pick it up.  When Robert got to our house to show off his find, my husband Tony teased him about mice who find their way into the battery casing and set up shop and that he probably had a nest of them in his bike!  With that Robert took the casing off and discovered a raggedy nest containing four small birdie chicks.  They were shaken and scared and were chirping up a storm!

My brother called Aminal Control to come pick up the bird chicks in hopes that they would care for them, who in turn responded to the call, but when they saw the birds, decided to just place the nest, birds and all, in the low bushes in the front yard.   “Some other bird will take care of these little guys”, the agent said.  “But, isn’t it true that if humans touch or are near the nest, birds won’t respond to them because of that?”, I asked, not sure if this should be happening.  “Not true”, was the answer.  So, in the bushes the birds went.  They were still chirping.

About an hour later, I peeked out the kitchen window to see four tiny forms hopping along the side of our house, toword our front door.  I alerted Tony who proceeded to dig up worms from the back yard.  I got an old herbal supplement bottle that had an eye dropper in it and filled it with water.  We settled on the front porch and proceeded to feed each gaping bird beak with a worm followed by a water chaser.  Three of the birds hopped back down the side of the house and nested in the front bushes.  The fourth was not feeling so well and just remained where he was, so after about a half hour, I picked him up and placed him with the others.  I then went inside.

About an hour later, I went out to check on the birds.  They were not in the front!  I walked to the front of our house and just stood there and listened for a bit.  I started to hear some chirping across the street in the neighbors yard.  Going to investigate, I saw the birds!  They had somehow made it across the street and were just sitting in the yard.  I approached them and scooped them up and placed them in a cardboard box.  I took them to my back yard and let them out, setting the cardboard box with their nest in it in the flower bed.  There’s no street back here, I thought.  They’ll be safe.

I didn’t have a bird house, so I couldn’t house them.  I trusted the agent and thought that they would be fine outside.  The worst thing that will happen is one of the neighborhood cats would find them.  I shuddered at that.  After awhile, I lost track of the birds.  Maybe they went into the next door neighbor’s yard, under the privacy fence?

I didn’t know what to do.  I was saddened.  Why was I feeling like this?  Was it because when I was feeding them their worms they climbed up on me, happy like?  Was it because I was hormonal and just sensitive?  They were just birds!  Right?  Birds fall out of the nests all the time.  Birds are prolific and they are in abundance.  Birds poop on our cars.  But these were baby birds…with mottled fuzz sticking from between their feathers.  Without their mother, who was probably shocked as hell a two hours drive by car away.  They couldn’t fly, they just hopped around and chirped.  They broke my heart.