« Shorter Star Wars Script | Main | Like Clockwork »
June 22, 2005
Meet Lloyd
A quick timetable of last night.
1:20 AM. Home from work. I had to park several blocks away from my building - way out of my parking comfort zone - and am looking forward to crawling into bed.
1:25 AM. Open my door. Hear an unexpected rustling from over the right of my two windows. Oh crap.
1:27 AM. Ascertain that there is, in fact, a bird in my room. My screen has been loose from the left window for a while; I guess some wind blew it open a little bit and in came the bird (I suspect a chickadee). I dub him "Lloyd", because it's more monosyllabic and easier to yell than "you stupid bird." The thought of calling him "my little chickadee" never enters my mind.
1:33 AM. Both windows are now wide open, permitting Lloyd a quick way out. If he'd only look down. But no, he continues to hang around at the top of the window.
1:39 AM. Back from a field trip to the kitchen, where I learn that there's no bread or anything that might conceivably lure Lloyd down to the windowsill and let him escape. Now I'm really ruing my decision to throw out the last bit of rice that came with my (excellent) General Gau's dinner special from Jade Garden. Doesn't rice make birds explode?
1:54 AM. Winded from a merry chase around the room. I tried pinning him with the aforementioned window screen; I threw socks and...well, let's just stick with socks...at him to try to get him down to open-window-level. After a couple near-misses and a couple cameo Lloyd appearances in my closet, he perches once again near the top of the right window.
2:03 AM. Moved some of the furniture around to try to funnel him towards the window. Learned to my chagrin that I didn't, in fact, clean up every shard of glass from that glass that broke last week. Yowza.
2:10 AM. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
2:12 AM. Fire up the Internet. Search for "bird trapped". Finally find a page that recommends turning out all the lights and opening a door. With two cats doubtless lurking right outside my door, I decide not to provoke a bloodbath. Though I'm tempted.
2:17 AM. IE goes haywire, trying to "Detect Proxy Server" for a long long time. I decide then and there to become a loyal Firefox user, which I know will delight some of my core readership.
2:34 AM. After a few (if I dare say so myself) valiant efforts to lead Lloyd to the bottom of the windows, I grimly resign myself to having a houseguest for the night. Lloyd seems to be sitting contentedly on the curtain rod, so I shove aside my fear of having my eyeballs pecked out during the night. (This, by the way, is a legitimate fear of mine, and has been for some time. I have honestly had premonitions of losing an eye to a bird or a wayward umbrella.)
2:40 AM. A little too wired to fall asleep, I throw in my Deep Impact DVD for a bit. I figure a few minutes of planetwide cataclysm might put my situation in perspective.
6:12 AM. The sun hits my window. Lloyd goes, to put it mildly, berserk. Now I'm wide awake and marvelling at the perceptiveness of whoever coined the term "birdbrain".
6:17 AM. Screw it. We've reached endgame, and I'd really like to salvage that magic hour of sleep between 6:30 and 7:30. I open the right window from the top (which alert readers might have noted I didn't do earlier in the saga).
6:29 AM. I didn't actually see it...but Lloyd is gone. Off to fulfill his stupid little bird destiny. And ain't no way I can get back to sleep now. Let me see how many of my passwords (which I had saved in IE) I can remember to enter in Firefox. Not many.
8:00 AM. Time to get ready for work!
Filed Under: My (ahem) Life | Permanent Link, Comments (6) | Linking Blogs
Comments
I hate to laugh at your pain but good grief that was funny! And three cheers for switching to Firefox. I'm glad something finally inspired you to do that. LOL
Posted by: Sooz | June 22, 2005 03:15 PM
The rice-makes-birds-explode thing specifically refers to uncooked rice. The idea is that it eats so much that the liquid in its stomach causes the rice to expand so much it reverse-squishes the poor thing. If it's been cooked, there's no problem.
Incidentally, birds cannot taste spiciness (that is, they don't find it to be hot), so Lloyd might well enjoy the General's chicken.
Posted by: Yxylu | June 22, 2005 05:16 PM
I believe Firefox has an option at install to import favorites and saved passwords from IE. Firefox is far superior. I suggest getting extensions for tabbed browsing (called, appropriately, Tabbrowser) and Foxy Tunes so you can operate your media player from the tray in your status bar. Google prievew is also helpful, it shows thumbnail shots of whole pages next to the results of a Google search.
Posted by: Tim | June 22, 2005 07:12 PM
Yx - thanks for the always-informative weird animal info. Is it OK to call you at 3 in the morning if I'm ever confronted with a crazed badger and have to decide which flavor Pop-Tart to placate it with? ;)
Tim - I didn't find that (luckily, there's only one password I'm stumped on) but I'm so loving the other plugins I've gotten. Now if only the "Is Abe Vigoda Still Alive" plugin would work...
Posted by: michael | June 22, 2005 10:01 PM
I guess you're free to call me. Keep in mind, for that specific instance, you can check out www.whatbadgerseat.com and get a more comprehensive answer.
-Y
Posted by: Yxylu | June 23, 2005 08:59 AM
hilarious xD I just found a baby bird :( it was like dying. I saved it.
Posted by: Phunkie | July 18, 2007 09:32 AM
