Beachy things have been happening. We have two seasons; hot/sunny and chilly/wet. It is suddenly hot again, and will be until November. I am happy with this.
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Every Monday, something dramatic happens during school dropoff/pickup. Car accidents. Swarms of ambulances. Near misses. “TODAY,” I said on this latest of Mondays, “TODAY, NOTHING STUPID IS GOING TO HAPPEN.”
And we came home with another rescued baby bird.
As bird hazards go, school children and tree trimmers are the worst. We gave it baby formula, tucked it up warm for the night, and then sneaked it back to its parents the next day. Those things you’ve heard about birds rejecting their babies if they smell like people are lies. Birds can’t smell any better than we can, and nobody is tossing their babies out of trees because they smell like birds.
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Getting tossed from this metaphoric tree, however, is a real estate agent. We have started looking at houses – in our price range, I used the term “house” loosely – and showed up for a look at a place next to a crowded, whizzing highway. The agent followed us around like a hopeful duckling while we looked at the hastily flipped house. The man and I exchanged a meaningful glance, then I said, “Well, it’s very nice, but too close to the road. Our cats and babies would get smooshed. This one’s just not right for us.” And then the realtor said, laughing and gesturing between the man and I, “Well, so who has the final say here?” The laugh suddenly slowed, and then became a rewinding noise.
When I was 14, we were walking back from PE when one of the girls in my class decided to throw a rock at the car of a boy she didn’t like. Only she had terrible aim, and instead of lobbing it through his windshield, she nailed me in the side of the head from two feet away. Fortunately for my brainpan, the rock was actually a clot of dried mud, and it broke instead of my skull. To onlookers, however, it looked like the new girl had just split a rock with her head and just said, “Ow. Dude.” This was a good enough reason for one of the cool boys to come slouching up, in the broken-hipped manner of cool boys through the ages, and put his arm around my shoulders while we were walking. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to accomplish with this, so I turned and looked at him. He tore his arm away and jumped. “WHOA. Ha. You looked at me and I thought you wanted to fucking kill me!”
I’m pretty sure this was the same expression the real estate lady saw. I haven’t ever seen it, since it has always been on the other side of my face, but I imagine it's something like this:
Major joint purchase I will be paying for for the next 30 years and raising my family in? BETTER LET THE MAN DECIDE, I AM A LAYDEE.
Out of the tree she goes.
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