The Birds! The Birds!

A small brown bird, what I believe to be a House Wren, made its way into the library today. It had been chased all day by one of our coworkers upstairs, who thought she had trapped it into a small room. The bird was a wiley and devious creature, thoroughly unafraid of humans.

I heard about the bird in the latter part of the day, to which I immediately ventured upstairs hoping to help.

Laura (coworker working upstairs at the Reference Desk) was already following into the construction area when I tagged along.

This bird, I tell you, was as cool as could be.
He was not afraid of us, nor was he trying very hard to get away. In fact, I think (and Laura agrees) that he was just messing with us. After all, he was out in the open of the construction area. An area mostly filled with shelves and almost finished study rooms. Two little ladies were following him around with sweaters to toss on him, and gosh! their reflexes were slow! What's to worry?

Eventually, Eddy offered his aid. We lost the bird for a while, but soon discovered him hopping around on the floor amongst the patrons sitting at the computers.

Pretty soon, three library staff were running around back and forth trying to get under the feet of some patrons. Can you imagine the commotion we caused? Oh, it was glorious. To be a patron, completely unaware, and then suddenly a library staff employee saying, "Excuse me, there is a bird at your feet and I'm trying to catch it."

How would you react?

Eventually, Eddy was able to corner it into a side room and quickly closed the door. Laura and I slid in, our soft sweaters at the ready. A crowd gathered at the windows of the room we were in.

It was insane. All of our energy went into trapping that bird, and that is when the bird started to freak out. That was the bird's mistake, I think. The freaking out. If he had stayed cool, we probably would have never caught him.

But I could see he was irritated. His feathers started to ruffle. Somehow we got him cornered and both Laura and I threw our sweaters onto the little creature.

I could feel him under my palm through the sweater. He was fluttering like mad. As I gingerly scooped him up, he made a noise of indignation. So I would know how upset he was, he made several more noises as I picked him up in the folds of the sweater.

Hurrah! At last!

As I carried him through the library, I got many nods of approval from both staff and patrons. I went outside and set the birdie free, who left without a look back.

Laura, Eddy and I are BIRD VICTORS!

Eddy reminded me that this was my second bird rescue within a year, and I recalled that he was indeed correct! He helped me catch a rooster at the very beginning of the year (January or February). Many cock jokes were made. Hurray!

Five Pounds

I saw my orthopedist earlier this week for a check-up on my elbow. He says that for some reason my fracture shifted, however it's still healing nicely.

I am sad to say I didn't hit my arm stretch quota for my third week. I was hoping to personally be able to bend my arm all the way out and rotate my wrist so my palms were face up.

We all heal differently. I was just hoping to heal like Wolverine.

My wrist is halfway there. Unfortunately, because of the trauma I've inflicted upon my own self, my muscles are extremely tight. It's my job to loosen them up and stretch them out. It's like when you're trying to learn how to do a split. It's hard, it can hurt, but in the end you can do a split.

Personally I can't do a split, but maybe after this I'll start trying to.

What I'm supposed to do is take a five pound weight and have it rotate my muscle for me. I've bought a heating pad to heat up my muscle and loosen it. I also took the weight in the bathtub last night where my muscles would've relaxed due to the warm water.

It's too soon to expect results, I guess, but due to my American nature I want it to happen instantaneously. I want to be fixed now!

Last Thursday I was teaching bellydance fusion at Floorspace. I was trying to warm up our bodies and got to our arms. Arms are important to warm up, and I've always been pretty proud of my arms. I was super sad that I couldn't get my left arm to do all the florets and wrist turns that I wanted it too. I hope to have that changed by next Thursday when we pick back up.

At least I can pick all my weasels up in my left arm. I walked around with all three of them hanging onto me this morning. Maybe they'll be part of my daily/constant work out. I mean, all three of them together have to be at least five pounds. Jack is 3lbs alone.

Oh!!! And that reminds me, with all the insanity happening at the beginning of this month I totally forgot that my babes had birthdays. I haven't given them a proper shout-out, so I guess I'll do that here on The Mindful Rudyard.

Rudyard, my darlingest weasel, happy birthday! You are SIX years old!
MoMoBella, you pretty peach, happy birthday! You are SIX years old too!
Jack, my little man, happy birthday! You are THREE years old!

You three give me nothing but happiness! and a lot of worry! But the worry is compensated by the amount of happiness. You may not have realized why you got those new toys and beds in your house, but it is because of your surreptitious birthdays.

Birthday Gifts Were (ferrets in these photos were not included):

An alligator bed, a pirate hat, and a lady bug toy (but not the frog or bee, unfortunately).

Thanks Guys

I've had a ridiculously adventurous past two weeks.

I broke my elbow about a week and a half ago during dance rehearsal. I was attempting a high kick from Beyonce's "All The Single Ladies/Put A Ring On it" when both my feet left the slippery concrete floor and I came crashing down, my weight all onto one point.

A few days after that, I moved into a duplex with Eddy where our management is insanely incompetent and slow moving.

While the break isn't actually terribly bad and takes a total of six weeks to heal, dealing with this thing has been one of the hardest things I've done so far. Not being able to function to the same capacity that I'm used to is mind-boggling and pretty upsetting.

All my friends and family have been amazingly helpful and encouraging. I've been out of my sling for the past five days and, while it was pretty difficult at first, I think I'm getting used to working around my arm.

I can't work my second job as a server, unfortunately, so half my income for the month is temporarily suspended. While I'm working at the library, I can't actually shelve very much. I try to, but my arm can only go up so high.

The worst of it, which has gotten substantially better, is sleeping at night. I tend to wake up at least once a night thinking, "Oh man, that really fucking hurts." I wonder if its because when one drifts off into sleep and then you wake up and you're not quite aware of what's going on? Or maybe I sleep funny and keep thinking I can sleep like I normally do, but I can't? Or maybe its just sore?

I dunno.

But regardless, I'm still really grateful to all my family and friends that have helped me out. Eddy's been Superman for sure, and my mom has been great, and all my friends are endlessly wonderful and helpful. I feel really lucky.

And I'm sure people who are very active can feel me here--it's hard being so independent one minute and then not even being able to dress yourself the next. It's hard losing your own schedule and having to be dependent on what everyone else can do for you.

Not that I'm complaining about having to be dependent on other people's schedules--it's just such a huge change! All of the sudden changes have been hard on me, but I'm finally working around it. Plus I am capable of getting dressed AND putting make-up on, as well as manage to put my contacts on one-handed. And, I'm hoping, maybe I'll be able to actually wash and blow dry my hair one handed so I don't look so raggedy and disheveled. :P

And now I'm going to stop my blubbering.