Not to turn in another article while doing so anyway but at about 8:00 pm my wife and I figured out that the weird noise coming from her car engine, which was driving our cats crazy, was a bird she had “hit” either today or yesterday, (time in our house these last few days is not something we’ve been keeping track of all that well), and which had somehow stashed itself into some kind of compartment.
We get it unstuck but it can’t fly. Couldn’t walk all that well but as I found out it could bite the shit out of your fingers. So after we get it settled away from our cats I get on the interwebs and start looking for songbird rescue groups in CT. I get some woman on the phone who says she can’t take any more birds, and that the picture I sent her looks like a dying bird to her, but if I’m willing to try she’ll walk me through what she would do.
So what am I going to say to that?
Off to the store I go for unflavored pedia-lyte and blueberries. The idea is to feed the bird, (a female Northern Cardinal as my new best friend tells me from the picture I texted her), a few drops of pedia-lyte every 15 minutes and then see if it will eat a mashed up blueberry. If the bird makes it to tomorrow, which I’m told isn’t likely, there’s an animal hospital on the way to my office that will take in song birds without an appointment. Left unsaid is my guess that they probably feed them to raptors but whatever.
When I get back it looks like the bird is dead, but it turns out it’s just stuck its head through one of the air holes and is quite alive. My wife gets the pedia-lyte into the side of her beak, (apparently it’s important to sort of dribble it through the side instead of firing it right down their throats), and the thing perks up and wants more. I say no, because the expert said to do it every 15 minutes. We wait.
15 minutes later we go to feed the bird again. It’s not near an air hole so, as instructed, I pick it up and kind of hold it’s head up. The beak opens, we get a couple of drops in the side, bird freaks the fuck out. It’s trying to fly but can’t. We try again, I try to give the bird a little more room, it responds by trying harder to fly. Might have gotten two drops in.
Plan B. I put the bird down and get its head to the air hole. It won’t open its beak this time. Because it fucking died you see.
This day can go fuck itself in the ass with a red hot poker.
Adam Wainwright died? Yes!
Don’t even joke about that, you bastard!!!!
/sticks extra pin in in Anthony Rizzo voodoo doll
May your shitfest be in the rearview mirrors for a few more miles down the road of life, my friend.
And if it is not, know there is a band of weirdos out in the ether who hope good things outnumber the bad.
I haven’t been on here in a few and when I logged-in I was greeted with this and “I buried my dog today”*, to which got a big NOPE. So I clicked here hoping it would be less sucky, and apparently not by much.
*From our discussions at KSK and Fantasy, I know how devoted this group is to their dogs/cats, so while I know this comment should go on that article, I emotionally can’t even handle reading that article (got misty eyed just typing its title), and I want to give a HUGE heartfelt hug to you and my deepest sympathies.
And now today starts off with a Johnny Sugar post. Can it get any worse? I submit that it cannot.
I don’t like to pile on Johnny Sugar – I feel bad by this point – but every single activity suggested by kommenters was better than any of the suggestions in the original post.
I find myself on KSK less and less these days and I’m not gonna lie, writers like Johnny Sugar are a big reason for that.
Jesus. Take the rest of the night off.
Seriously.
I just finished up the second ep of True Detective. I feel like I should rewatch it because I’m not sure if what I saw actually happened.
Also give me some Lottery numbers Horatio ‘cuz I feel your string of bad luck is about to end.
I had started to watch that just before the thing with the bird happened. Needless to say I never finished it and just watched baseball while drinking beer and swearing to myself.
“And now there’s a beach ball on the field. And the ballboys are discussing which one of them is going to go get it.”
Yeah, so much for this season not being the creep show last season was. That was freaky as fuck. The opening monologue with Vince Vaughn was intense and it just rolled on from there.
Jesus, I need a shower.
Sun for two weeks in Portland? Now you’re just making shit up man.
Portland usually has a fantastic summer, actually–sunny, dry heat, but not too hot. June, actually, is often cloudy and cooler. This year, June’s been extraordinarily sunny and hot. It’s fucked everything up. All of our usual produce grew and ripened all at once, so cherries, strawberries, peaches, raspberries… all the good stuff that’s usually spread out over the entire summer hit the markets all within the same two week period, months early, and was all small and done before anyone really got to enjoy them. Now we’re under a burn ban and most of Oregon and Washington is about to burn up from wildfires. I even broke down and bought a window AC unit–normally not necessary, but my apartment wouldn’t cool below 80 degrees at night even with all the windows open, and fuck that. I was lucky to find one of the last units in town, actually; I hate to say this, but thank you, Best Buy.
Anyhow, it’s total bullshit, and if we’re going to be constantly above 90 degrees throughout July, then there’s no way I’m doing my usual Bike MS ride during the first week in August. There’s a harvest century late September that I’ve always wanted to do, so I might just aim for that.
Holy shit, I’m watching American Ninja Warrior, and there’s this douchebag lift bro yinzer up first and I can’t wait to see him fall in the water. HA HA, he just fell off the log grip, the second obstacle. I love this show.
Every once in a while, they put together a package of an inspirational contestant that went through some hardship and tried real hard to make the show and then that person fails in the first obstacle. Cracks me up every time.
A couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend came back to her house and found a crow in the yard that wouldn’t fly away. It looked possibly injured, but she called some local animal hotline thing and they said it was probably a fledgling and would be able to fly away in a while. When I saw it, it sure looked like an injured crow to me.
I named it Samwell.
She kept her dogs away from it, and it appeared that other crows were coming by and dropping it berries and stuff. Still, the one time I saw it, late at night, it didn’t seem to want to run away and just looked in poor shape. I was wondering where it was getting water from. The animal folks told my girlfriend to stay away and not try and feed it, so it wasn’t getting anything from us, unfortunately.
Sure enough, the dogs get let out in the morning and there’s a dead crow in the yard. I’m tasked with getting it from the yard and into the garbage bin. I grab a shovel, head on over, bow my head, and say “And now his watch has ended.” before putting it into a bag and taking it into the garbage.
Nature sucks. Sorry about your day. I’m drinking a beer in you and your dog’s honor right now, and also to help deal with the destructive sun ray that’s been pointed at Portland for the last week, and will stay that way for at least another week.
ENOUGH WITH THE DEAD ANIMALS PEOPLE, I may have to resort to meth with all this internet sadness