Child: Somebody’s gonna fart.
Mom: Shhh.
Child: Somebody’s gonna fart!
Mom: Please, shhh.
Child: Somebody’s gonna fart!
Mom: Please, not so loud.
Child: Somebody’s gonna FART!
Mom: Please, stop that. You’re being too loud.

Child: You guys...
Mom: Don’t say it.
Child: SOMEBODY’S GONNA FART!

Short Story Long:

Sometime last week, we started hearing strange noises in the house. Tom would get up at 3AM and wander around thinking, “HOME INVASION!” only to find our house completely secure.

Well, one morning, we heard pigeons cooing IN THE HOUSE.

Only, there were no pigeons in the house. It was coming from UP. INSIDE. THE. FIREPLACE.

“Oh, shit,” we thought, “we are homeowners and somehow we are going to have to get those pigeons off or out of our chimney!”

Given that we are not in any position right now to get pigeons out of anywhere (no ladder, and ladders = $$$$$), we figured that we’d wait until our friend Martin could bring over a ladder. No big whoop.

Well, on Saturday, there was a terrible metallic scratching and clanging coming from UP. INSIDE. THE. FIREPLACE. and I thought, “Those stupid fucking pigeons are roosting in my floo!” And resolved to shake my fist at them once we scared them out after we got the ladder.

Or to turn the fire on if I got really annoyed (not really, idle threat).

So, today I got home from work and was minding my own business when Tom yelled, “THERE IS A PIGEON IN THE FIREPLACE!” and started laughing.

As you can see from the above photo, the thing was covered in soot and totally mellow.

Earlier in the day, Tom had opened the floo in the hopes of confusing and/or convincing the pigeons that this was NOT A GOOD PLACE TO ROOST but had succeed in freeing a trapped pigeon instead (that’s our theory, anyway).

Tom put on some gloves, got a box, and prepared for injured pigeon work. Once he opened the glass doors, though, the pigeon was like “SWEET!” and totally flew out! Straight into our ugly maroon wall where it left a big sooty smudge! AN IMPROVEMENT!

We then scared it out the patio door and it flew off and joined the Pigeon’s Union Local to report on it’s week long job of alternately scaring, concerning, and annoying the owners of the Third Chimney on the Block.

As my good friend Annika says, OH MONDAY.

I swore that I would never write this post. That I would never be one of those people that moves to a new place and complains about the people that live in the new place. But here I am.

California drivers are, by far, the worst that I have ever encountered.

I could list all the reasons why but I will leave you with a warning: If you come here and need to drive, make sure that you always wear your safety belt, that your car has the maximum number of airbags allowable, and that you don’t have freeway driving anxiety because you will die of a heart attack.

From what I’ve been told, in dealing with life long Californians anyway, is that Californians “just drive fast.” If speeding was the only issue, things would be peachy!

I’m sure matters are not helped by the state, counties, and municipalities that refuse to put up decent signage anywhere.

The moral of the story: Driving here is the worst and I don’t’ want to do it anymore.

And I haven’t been in an accident or anything.

I’s a beautiful day, but I can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that we are still in the heart of winter, especially when I keep hearing about the weather back in Washington (the state) and how the passes are getting closed repeatedly due to snow, and the roads in Eastern Washington are so bad that you can’t make the drive to Spokane from Okanogan.

Weird.

There are hummingbirds everywhere.

I own a kumquat tree now.

I’m buying a bathing suit for the first time in… nine years?

My skin looks fantastic!

Today, I put up 230 back issues of National Geographic for the taking on Freecycle. I got three responses – two from individuals and one from an organization called Urban Rest Stop. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.

I’ll be delivering the magazines to Urban Rest Stop this weekend and, if I can get off my duff, I might take some knits over, too.