Lusty May

Happy May Day! I always think of the naughty rhyme about the First of May this time of year. Do you know it? :)

Speaking of naughty, yesterday I was chatting with John Gray and he happened to mention Marco. Since everyone loves a good Marco story, I thought I'd share a couple of snippets of our ensuing conversation. 

I'm sure I say this every year, but it seems to be taking Marco's spring hormones forever to subside. This nonsense has been going on since February!

Break, birthday, and a brat

It's Spring Break! I've been off since last Friday and don't go back to work until Monday. Easter was so late this year that it seemed like this break would never get here. For the teachers and kids, there's only about four weeks left in the school year. I work all summer (with the exception of a little over a week off around the 4th of July) but as soon as school's out I'll be on "summer hours" and I'm looking forward to that. District employees who work through the summer only have to work 9am-3pm, Monday through Thursday and Fridays off. How sweet is that?

Meanwhile, this week, it's vacation. A much-needed vacation.

Today is Administrative Professionals Day. Since we weren't going to be at school this week, the administration and staff surprised me, Robin (the receptionist) and Ms. Williamson (the data/records/attendance clerk) with all kinds of gifts on Thursday afternoon. We got flowers, chocolate covered strawberries, $50 Walmart gift cards, and a nice card signed by teachers and staff. It was all so thoughtful and lovely!

Pretty pink hydrangea plant!

The strawberries were absolutely delicious! 

Today is also St. George's day, which I picked as our George's birthday the first year we had him. He's 12 years old now! He's come a long, long way from the wild, slightly traumatized shelter pup we adopted back in 2013. He's mellowed into a gentle, sweet, loveable old fellow who's always happy. He's also really active and healthy for 12 years old which I'm so thankful for. 

Gregg has a special thing he does with George occasionally, just the two of them. He gets up very early and the two of them tiptoe out of the house, jump in the van, and go to the park down the road for an early morning ramble. This morning I woke up at daybreak when I heard George's harness click into place, and I knew they were headed to the park. It made me smile (then Poppy and I went back to sleep).

Later in the morning I went to Sam's, and I found some large, good quality dog beds on sale for a really good price. So Georgie got a new bed for his birthday! He's already taken a nap on it, so I guess he likes it.

We love him to bits. He's a very good boy!

Speaking of George and life with our pets, I'll leave you with one other thing that happened this week. 

Guess what I caught Marco doing a couple of days ago?

Creeping around on the floor eating dog food out of George's bowl!! That's what! 

Little a**hole. He drives me crazy.

Miscellany

Is it just me, or did January seem like the longest month ever? It seems like New Year's Day was months ago rather than mere weeks. 

Gregg finished his five rounds of radiation early in the month. It was much easier than he was afraid it would be and the few side effects he's had have been relatively minor. We won't know how successful it was until March, when he's scheduled for a CT scan and follow up appointments. I hope that will be the end of this situation. It's been a constant nagging worry for months now. 

Plenty of other things were hard to deal with in January, of course the biggest was the return of the Trump to the White House. It's less than two weeks into his term and it's been utter chaos and flagrant cruelty in a non-stop barrage of evil (and mostly illegal) executive orders. It's been really hard to try to put all that aside and carry on with normal life, but for the sake of my mental health I've had to try. I know most of you understand.

It's going to be a long four years, friends. 

But enough about that. It's a new month in a still new year, and today the sun is shining and I'm at home. George and Poppy are always thrilled when they realize it's a weekend morning and I'm not leaving for work. They wrestled and played on the rug in front of me while I had my morning coffee earlier. Marco was on one of his big perches nearby, squawking and flapping his wings and obviously wanting to jump into the middle of the dogs' play fighting and participate. We have to keep a close eye on him to prevent that, because he doesn't have enough common sense to realize how badly that could go! The dogs wouldn't intentionally hurt him, but they play really rough with each other and get really wound up and fierce. Any normal bird wouldn't want any part of two "fighting" dogs, but Marco thinks it looks like fun! 

Speaking of life with Marco...this morning, while taking a shower, Gregg noticed a section of paint chewed off a corner at one end of the shower curtain rod. That's classic Marco business right there. Sometimes he likes to perch on the curtain rod while I shower so that I can give him a quick shower, too.  This isn't the first time he's chewed paint off that spot. We just (re)painted the bathroom last summer and tried to be diligent in keeping him away from that particular corner. I have no idea when or how he got away with it this time, and Gregg is PISSED. We have some extra leftover paint, and can touch up the area without too much trouble, but he's still pretty mad about it. Since he retired last spring, he's at home a lot more and gets pretty tired of dealing with Marco's bad behaviors day in and day out. 

In the linen closet the other day, refusing to come out. Incidentally, one of the outer corners of this closet is where he chewed off the paint. He's a real asshole sometimes.

In other exciting news, I started some tomato seeds last week and they've begun to sprout! Plans for the 2025 garden are well underway. This afternoon I want to start pepper seeds (I should have done this already) and I need to place a seed order soon. I plan to make a second, smaller raised bed this year so I can grow some extra vegetables. I'm afraid that produce prices are going to skyrocket this summer, and the more I can grow for us, the better. I'd also like to plant a lot more zinnia varieties this year, both for the pollinators and for the simple joy of bouquets in the house. I love cut flowers, and zinnias are so easy and cheerful!

Do you have any gardening plans this year?

Are you as glad as me that January is finally over? 

What are you up to this first weekend in February?

Answers on a postcard, please.

Little jerk

 

Here's a recent photo of the Marcoman doing one of his favorite things: raiding the pantry! This time, at least, I got there before he had a chance to do any damage. 

I'm sure he's already plotting his next attempt.

Hobgoblin

So, that pretty bag of homemade granola I showed you yesterday? Somebody else thought it looked good, too.

I swear you can't turn your back for even one second in this house.

(We got to him in time to save the granola, but not before he chewed holes in the bag and got a little taste).

Morning brew

Nothing like a good hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning...and a friend to share it with. 

Happy Sunday, Friends!

Frustrations abounding

What a week it's been! I guess you could say it's not been the most auspicious start to a new year.

My car, which wouldn't crank on New Year's Eve, had to be towed half a mile to the Toyota dealership for repair. This couldn't happen until Monday because of the holiday, so I took a personal day off work (the first day after the break) to deal with it. We thought it seemed like a dead battery, but we own an electric charger, and it showed the battery as being fully functional. That wasn't the case, though. Apparently, a battery can be so dead that it won't show as being bad on a meter and it can't be jumped off. Or so says one of the mechanics, anyway. After the towing fee and a new battery, I was out $350--but at least I'm back on the road again. 

I decided last month that I was going to attempt to eat better, walk a whole lot more, and give up alcohol entirely from now until my birthday in late March. I know I need to take better care of my health, and I definitely need to lose weight, so (as is my wont when I make up my mind about something) I jumped in whole heartedly last Sunday. Well, I haven't missed the alcohol, but the sudden change in my eating habits has been difficult. I'm afraid of developing diabetes; my mom did about 10 years ago, and it's been hard on her. With that in mind, I decided to cut way back on empty carbs devoid of fiber, vitamins, and minerals. No chips, sweets, wine, sodas, or meals heavy on pasta, bread, or white rice. I'm not doing the super low carb/keto thing; I think those diets are dangerous and not for me, but I'm still eating way fewer carbs than ever before. The first few days have been rough. Mild depression/flat mood, difficulty falling and staying asleep, vivid (and unsettling) dreams, and worst of all...bouts of painful diarrhea the past three mornings. (Sorry if that's tmi). I've been eating well but the changes to my diet have been so drastic that I guess it's been a shock to my digestive system....and all my other systems, too. Today seems a little better, fingers crossed that my body is starting to adjust. I want to feel better, not worse!

I've been looking forward to telling you about this next thing. Everybody seems to love my bird Marco, and I'll admit he's a real character. Everyone loves a good Marco story! Well, here's one for you.

Thursday afternoon I was on my way home from my weekly allergy shot, and I got a text from Gregg. 

Let me show you that picture close up. 

I was horrified, because I knew that meant that Marco had somehow escaped his cage while we were at work.* That's only happened once before since we've had him, and he'd gone on a rampage. I knew it was going to be bad. 

He'd started in the pantry. He tore into the bag of walnuts (his favorite) and made a mess all over with them. He also chewed holes in the bread bag and an oatmeal cream pie wrapper. At some point he hurled the chewed-on oatmeal pie, a can of salt, and some spices to the floor.

If the damage had ended there, we'd have considered ourselves lucky, but no. He moved on to the dining room. That's where he really did some damage.

Behold my (former) best orchid, the one that had a long stalk of flowers getting ready to open.

That was heartbreaking. That orchid was my pride and joy.

For his final trick, Marco had flown over to a floor lamp and knocked the shade askew. That actually turned out to be a good thing, because when Gregg went over to straighten it, it shot sparks straight up in the air. It was an old lamp and there must have been a short in the wiring, because the shade getting knocked around couldn't have caused that. Thank goodness it didn't start a fire**, or electrocute Marco, or both. At least something good came of Marco's adventures, but despite that Gregg and I were both pretty pissed off in the moment. 

So that's how 2023 has started for me. 

*Just like last time, the latch on the front door of Marco's cage hadn't been firmly closed, and he was able to push the door right open.

**Our second recent brush with faulty wiring that could have started a fire (last month it was the pre-lit Christmas tree). Could this be a sign?

Time off

It's wonderful to be off work this week, and a much-needed break. Work continues to be a mostly unhappy place, although far more tolerable than it was at the beginning of this school year. We've just finished our first quarter, and in six months (when contracts for the next year have to be signed) there should be plenty of job openings in the district to apply for. I'm crossing my fingers that something comes open at this school because it's only about a mile from my house, it's a very nice new building/campus, they have a really good staff and principal, and it serves younger students, kindergarten through fifth grade. Marla's little girl, Carsen, will be starting kindergarten there next year in their Spanish immersion program. This would be the ideal transfer for me! But of course, there has to be an opening first. 

Even though I'm off this week, I've been busy. I've washed and vacuumed out my car, organized and cleaned my pantry, gave the refrigerator a major cleaning, and taken comforters and other large bedding to the laundromat for a good wash (things that wouldn't fit in my washer at home). 

Marco "helping" me clean the pantry. :)

The big chore of the week was finally chopping down the dead dogwood tree in our front yard. Gregg has a small chainsaw that we used to do the job.  I took a final picture of the tree before we got started.

It was bigger than it looks in this picture. We got it down and also cut up a bunch of firewood from it, to be used for a bonfire later on. Now that it's gone, our front yard looks strange every time we forget about it and glance outside. Hopefully the little crabapple tree will make it to next spring (despite the deer damage) and will begin to grow into the empty space. We've contrived a wire cage thing to go around it to give it a chance to grow out, so hopefully the deer won't be an issue anymore.

This morning I had to go to the dentist to get a crown re-done. I was dreading it, but it turned out to be much easier than I expected. Afterwards I drove down to the allergist's office to get my weekly allergy shot, so now that's out of the way, too. Tomorrow I'm going to see my parents. I haven't seen them in a long while and my dad's been back in the hospital. His health keeps deteriorating, and I need to go see him more often while I have the chance. After that, I plan to relax and enjoy my last few days off. 

These two love it when I'm at home all day!

Gnarly Toes

My bird Marco has grown some long, sharp, out of control dinosaur claws lately. They hurt when he flies to you and lands on bare skin, like around the neck and shoulder area. What's even worse is that the nails are so long that they're starting to interfere with his ability to perch easily. Something has to be done.

I've been afraid to trim his nails. The old man I got Marco from as a baby, a breeder with a lot of experience with several species of parrots, once told me a story about another parrot breeder he knew that made a bad mistake with his personal pet. Somehow the bird had a bleeding toe---I can't remember for sure if it was a toenail, but I think it was--and he wasn't as diligent as he should have been to make sure the bleeding had stopped. A tiny bit of blood kept slowly welling up all night, apparently, and the next morning the bird was dead. Moral of the story: birds don't have a whole lot of blood reserves, so any bleeding, no matter how seemingly slight, is a deadly serious matter.

Fast forward 14 years, and I'm terrified of trimming my bird's nails. I've developed a phobia that I'll cut too far and make him bleed, and aside from not wanting to hurt or traumatize him, bleeding in birds scares me.

Luckily, my plucky friend Martina is willing to do it for me! She a head technician at a veterinarian's office, has loads of experience with this kind of situation, and has all the tools to do a good job (mainly good cat-nail trimmers and styptic powder). All I'll have to do is hold Marco wrapped securely in a dishtowel while she starts the process of getting these gnarly dinosaur toenails under control! It's going to take a few weeks, and we'll have to start with just little bits to get the quick to recede, but I'm so grateful to have her help with it. I picked up a bottle of wine and some snacks to share after she's done tonight.

Wish us luck!

I've had better weeks.

Sunday afternoon was a day to remember. Marco got away from us, flew up into a tree, and refused to come back. We were scared that he was gone for good!

The way it happened was like this. Gregg was on the back porch working on some projects with Marco riding around on his shoulder. After a while, he forgot he was on there, and without thinking walked out the door to the backyard. Mistake. Marco immediately took off and ended up in a big tree on the edge of our yard. We spent an hour and a half trying to coax him down, to no avail. We offered him his favorite treat (walnuts), we called his pal Georgie to come out to stand with us under the tree, we pretended to start walking back to the house while cheerfully calling for him to come with us, we demanded he come down, we shouted. We even threw a rope over the branch underneath him and shook it to try to scare him down. Nothing worked. The little bastard crawled around on his branch, chewing on leaves and occasionally responding to us with "Hey baby!" "Whatcha doin'?" "Woooo!", and, infuriatingly, "C'mere! C'mere Marco!" I swear he even laughed a couple of times. It started to get dark and he seemed to be perfectly fine with the idea of sleeping up in the tree with his newfound freedom. 

Finally, out of sheer desperation I took a chance on a pretty extreme solution. I went and got the hose, turned the water all the way to the "on" position, set the flow setting on the nozzle to "jet", and I blasted his ass out of the tree with a mighty gush of water. He fluttered down to the ground at our feet, dripping and stunned, and we grabbed him up and took him inside. I couldn't believe it had actually worked. So Marco is still with us, safe and sound, and having learned nothing.

                                          The next day, stealing a sip of my wine.

The rest of this week so far hasn't been much better. Gregg had to visit a dermatologist recently and he found out he has another basal cell carcinoma on his face that must be removed. It's right beside his nose whereas the previous two were on his forehead. All those years of sun exposure on his fair skin are catching up with him. He's been pretty bummed about it. 

Work continues to be busy and stressful with Covid still spreading like crazy around here. Another friend of ours got sick this past week and felt like he had a horrible case of flu even though he's vaccinated and very careful. In fact, it's the friend that helped us get our vaccines relatively early on. He works in a hospital so I guess he's exposed to Covid more than most. At least since he was vaxxed he didn't get sick enough to end up in the hospital himself, though. Just last weekend, an unvaccinated young mother who teaches in the school district next to mine died from it. Her reason for not getting the shot was that she was breastfeeding her youngest child and was afraid it might hurt him. Now he and his three siblings are motherless and her family is begging the community to get the vaccine so no other family will have to go through the pain they're experiencing.  This teacher was healthy and active (she coached volleyball) and was only 28 years old. When are people going to wake up and take this virus seriously? How many more people need to die first? 

Speaking of illness, you might notice I'm posting this at an odd time of day for me. I'm at home taking a sick day. Last night out of nowhere I started feeling like I had the worst heartburn of my life. I was walking around, trying to get my stomach to settle down, and all of sudden I started throwing up violently. It was really strange and upsetting. I feel better today except for a bad headache, but decided to stay home just in case I have a stomach bug. I hope that's all it is. This Delta variant is known to have some unusual symptoms sometimes.

What a week so far, and it's only Thursday!

Mid-July harvest, and a garden pest.

My garden continues to flourish! The tomatoes are really starting to come ripe now, as you can see in the following photos. Tomorrow I'm thinking of making some homemade salsa to try to use up some of the extras, because we're about to be overwhelmed. We're also still getting loads of peppers, the occasional cucumber, and yesterday the very first cantaloupe!

Our counter runneth over.

A perfect Brandywine on the left, and the biggest tomato I've gotten so far this year on the right--a Red Beefsteak weighing in at just under a pound.

I love the gorgeous color on the Mr. Stripey. It's the big yellow one on the left with the pink blush. They look so pretty sliced, and the flavor is sweet and slightly fruity. We've had a nice assortment of varieties to try this year!

So I've had to deal with a few minor pests in my garden, small hornworms and some kind of little black worms that love to chew on unripe tomatoes and damage them. I've been able to keep both under control with close observation and hand picking, and I thought I'd make it through the season mostly unscathed. Well, lo and behold, the real pest and danger to my tomatoes lives inside the house:

I take all my tomatoes straight to the dining room table after I pick them for weighing and recording in my garden journal. Yesterday I turned my back for less than a minute and you can see for yourself what happened!

Sweet vs. Salty

Georgie P. Barlow is a total love bug these days. This was his disappointed face last weekend when he thought (mistakenly) that he heard his dad's car in the driveway.

George is so spoiled now that he's the only dog. He gets sweeter and more attached to us by the day.

Marco T. Barlow, on the other hand, doesn't give a flying f**k about any of the niceties of domestication. He wants what he wants, when he wants it, no exceptions. He does life his way. And if you don't like it, well, that's just too bad for you!

Here's the feathered terrorist defying me the other morning when I was attempting to catch him and put him in his cage for the day. He flew away from me every time I got close enough to try to make him climb onto my hand. He very nearly made me late for work with that foolishness! 

And before anyone feels sorry for him, being in a cage all day, please remember that he comes out first thing in the morning....showers with me.....perches on the sink and watches me blow dry my hair and apply makeup....prances around on the kitchen countertops while I cook breakfast.....and then eats his share of oatmeal or cheese toast or eggs while the rest of the family has breakfast...only then is he required to go into his cage because I have to leave for work. He comes out as soon as we get home, and now that the weather is warming up we've been taking him out to the screened porch in the afternoons to get some sunshine and fresh air. Marco lives the life of Riley. 

But does he appreciate it? Look at that defiant feathered face and tell me what you think!

I love both my boys to bits, though. Even when one of them drives me crazy on the regular.

Flowers and showers

In the comments on my last post, Steve asked me to show a picture of my blooming Christmas cactus. I had mentioned it but didn't share a photo at the time because I didn't have a good one. Here is a photo of of it alongside my blooming orchids. I'm also throwing in pictures of the two smaller orchids that I took yesterday.

Flowers really brighten up the house when the weather outside is cold and gray!

For the rest of you who love Marco stories and Marco pictures, I snapped some of him fresh from the shower the other day. He loves to shower with me and then he loves getting blow dried afterwards!

Working from home

 Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from someone in technology at the district office. He had instructions for me to download an app that re-routes phone calls to the school to my phone. So I'm officially working from home this morning. The school phone has been ringing off the hook since I logged in at 8:30. Since I have access to my work email, and more importantly, our Powerschool program on my home computer, I've been able to get a surprising amount of work done. I can check attendance (and put in excused absences), email teachers with parent questions, give out the number to tech support when the child's laptop is acting up, and for the most part do almost everything else I'd be doing on a normal day at work. It's pretty weird to be working from home, though. 

And this jerk isn't helping matters any:

He started screaming bloody murder when I was on the phone with a parent a little while ago! I had to apologize and explain that I was working from home and owned a parrot. The woman just laughed, but I was furious with Marco. Think about that the next time you think how "cute" and "sweet" he is! Thankfully he seems to have settled down and hasn't made a peep the last few time I took a call. His cage is in our office, which is where our desktop computer is set up, so I have no choice but to work in here with him. Looks like I have a little feathered a-hole as an office mate for the next few weeks at least!

Naughty

 If Santa has made his list this year, and checked it twice, I have a feeling that somebody I know is on the "naughty" list. 

This guy:

Marco T. Barlow

In fact, he told me so himself. In that last picture when he was on my shoulder (and being pretty sweet for once) I said, "Marco, you're a good boy!" and after a two second pause he said, "He's a BAAAAAAD bird!" 

Merry Christmas from the "BAAAAAAD BIRD" to all his fans out in blogland!

Unrepentant

I want to tell you about Marco's latest shenanigans. Yesterday morning there was an empty wine glass from the night before sitting on an end table in the den. Marco flew over there, marched up to the glass, and knocked it over before I could stop him. The glass cracked. And when I yelled at him, you know what he yelled back?

"GEORGIE!"

"No, that wasn't George, that was you, Marco..."

"GEORGIE!"

That crazy bird has now taken to blaming the dogs for his misbehavior! There was nothing to be done for the glass. It was one of a set my friend Marla had given me one year for my birthday, and it had my initials on it. I hated to lose it. Of course, Marco didn't give a damn.

Unrepentant

Rainy, dreary Sunday

The terrible thunderstorms forecast for last night never materialized, but the rain and unseasonably warm temperatures sure did. It's been gloomy, wet, and warm all day, a thoroughly yuck Sunday afternoon. I'm craving some real winter weather, not this weird pseudo-Spring that just feels off, not to mention all the budding that's started that's destined to be killed off by the next cold snap. I'm particularly worried about my neighbor's magnificent Tulip Magnolia tree. It already has swollen buds and it's much too early.

Sigh.

Maybe it's the weather, or post-holiday letdown, or the lack of light, but today has just been...dreary. Dull. Low energy, low mood, ennui. The only bright spots were sitting outside with Marco on the back porch (the one thing this unseasonably warm weather is good for!) and watching the bird feeders. The days are beginning to lengthen a little and our feeder activity is way, way up. I counted ten species of birds this morning, and Marco preened and chattered and watched.

Speaking of Marco, and speaking of speaking, I caught this clip of him saying "Hey sweet boy!" a little while ago. Don't be alarmed at his appearance; he had had a shower and was still wet.

It can never be but so dull with a parrot around. He was watching me chop onions and peppers for tonight's supper and started talking to get my attention. When I stirred the sauce after taking this video, he said, "MmmmMMM!!! Is it good?!?!!" Marco is the most encouraging chef's apprentice ever. :)

I'm off to finish our dinner now and to wait for Gregg to get home. Hopefully with a glass of wine, a nice meal, and some Netflix before bed I can redeem a little bit of this dreary day.

Good night, friends.

Tough guy

I'm amazed, year after year, at my parrot Marco's resilience. For a tiny little version of an Eclectus parrot, he's a tough guy. 

Did I ever tell you the story of Marco's beginnings? A parrot breeder friend of mine named Ben used to have a couple of breeding pairs of Eclectus. He went to clean nest boxes one day and found a (surprise) newly hatched chick that hadn't been taken care of by its parents. It looked dead. Ben went to find a receptacle to put the tiny body in, but lo and behold, when he picked it up, it squirmed in his hand. It was alive! Barely. The mother and father showed zero interest in it (who knows why) so he had to hand feed it from day 1. For those of you (probably most of you) unfamiliar with baby parrot handfeeding practice, let me just say that it's an intense, unrelenting, round-the-clock endeavor with a newly hatched baby. It was a tiny miracle it survived. Ben's wife Frankie, a devout Catholic, started calling him "Jude" after the patron saint of lost causes. The bird grew up to have a stunted size (just over half the size of a "normal" male Eclectus) and a chronically runny nose that no vets were able to diagnose.

That was, obviously, Marco. I renamed him a strong sounding name when Ben gave him to me. "Jude" sounded just too sad! Ben knew I was an experienced bird handler (from my aviary manager days) and would give the bird a good home. Plus, he was eager to get rid of a bird who looked sick, as he didn't want potential buyers seeing a bird with a runny nose. Since then, Marco has grown into an almost 13 year old bird with all the personality of a full size Eclectus, as my regular readers well know!

When Marco got sick last week, I was scared to death. As prey animals, they've evolved to  hide signs of illness until they just can't anymore. A sick or weak bird is a target for predators. By the time bird owners realize how sick their birds are, it's often too late. When I saw Marco acting quiet, listless, with little appetite and runny eyes, I remembered how a Quaker parrot we used to own (pre blog days) named Cheeko looked like that one day, and was dead on the bottom of his cage the next morning.

I'm happy to report, however, that once again Marco has beaten the odds and resisted getting sick! After a few days of giving him warmer house temperatures, steam baths, tempting foods, UV light via the back porch, he's back to his old rowdy self again. Bright eyed and bushy-tailed!

We were watching the suet feeder outside that window together. We added a cayenne-laced suet cake to deter the squirrels who had been raiding it, and it was hilarious to watch them take bites and almost fall off the branch when they got a taste of the pepper!!

In his cage tonight after a long day of hell-raising.

Thanks for all the good thoughts and well wishes for my little tough guy!

The devil in the pantry

Somebody kept flying into the pantry every time I opened the door to take out an ingredient for our dinner tonight. And refused (refused!) to come back out.

He was after the walnuts and prepared to fight me for them.

Defiant.

Wednesday...still waiting

I got off work two hours early today because of the approaching storm. School is canceled for tomorrow, and the district is taking a "wait and see" approach to Friday. I raced around when I got off, going by the bank, the grocery store for some last minute supplies, and the ABC store for a bottle of Kraken rum. If we lose power I'll drink rum and Coke for as long as the ice lasts!

Once I got home, I spent two hours cleaning and finishing up the laundry so that if we do lose power for a few days, the house will be tidy and all of our clothes will be clean. Speaking of which, I had so much help!

Supervising the laundry progress...one of his joys in life.

Something funny happened with Marco this morning. We had the bathroom window open a few inches, and a small bird (a Carolina Wren) flew into the house. It buzzed past my head and made it all the way down the hall, around the foyer, and into the dining room. Gregg and I managed to catch it when it flew between the blinds trying to get out of the living room window, and took it outside and let it go. A few minutes later, when I was applying my makeup with Marco on my shoulder (he loves supervising all personal grooming, too) I said to him, "Marco! There was a little wild bird in our house!" And I kid you not, he replied, "I know!" Crazy!!! That's one of the phrases he knows how to say, obviously, but his timing is just too perfect sometimes. That's a smart little parrot!

So we're still waiting on Dorian to pass through. Late tonight and tomorrow are supposed to be the worst of it, so I'll let you know how we fare. At least we'll have a little feathered comedian to keep us entertained if we lose power!