Please Send Me More Books to Read!

I'm down to two stacks of books and I'm getting a little nervous about how the coming weeks will spin out of I don't have my brain food. If you could send me good books, that would be even better. Oh, how dire this situation is!

But, lo, I have a story to tell you if you have the time.

Yesterday, after the tremendous butt-to-chair grafting that occurs after a day of writing, I knew today, Saturday, was meant to be spent in action mode! Insert image of me doing cool karate kick here. The phone rang early this morning and I sprang out of bed instantly regretting having done so as I have a really bad cold and this sudden verticalness made me do an inadvertent Bono impression as I stumbled for the phone.

On the line was my compatriot in action, young Dianne or D'yun as I like to call her. She, having been awakened even earlier by the petulant mewling of her cat, was awake and ready for action! As I yapped in a not so subconscious attempt to delay action! until I was truly ready i.e. awake and not doing Bono impressions, a thud sounded from the window.

I sprang over there with a much better result than the earlier spranging and saw to my horror that a young bird had flown into the window and lay on its back, little birdy (and, of course, slightly reptilian) legs twitching in the air.

"A bird hit the window! I gotta go!"

D'yun, an avid animal lover, understood.

I ran down the hall, avoiding a hairball and the wall and leapt dramatically into a pair of shoes that happened to be languishing in the kitchen. I had a brief mental debate with myself as to whether or not to turn the coffee on but I knew my bird friend needed me now.

Skiddering outside, weaving through smushed and fermented crabapples and slippery leaves, I reached the outside of my bedroom window in a flash.

There he lay, still twitching. The victim of human kinds somewhat advanced technology and my need to keep my glass so damn clean.

I gently picked him up and cradled his tiny bird body in my right palm, covering him carefully with the left. You see, many years before, when I was still an idealistic teenager full of angst and sporting bad hair, my English teacher told me that most birds that hit windows die of shock, not from the actual impact. The colder it gets outside, the more likely this is to happen.

It was about 44 this morning. Too cold for the young junco to survive unaided. So there I was, sitting on a chair on the patio at 8:30 in the morning in my pajamas holding a little bird in my hand. He kept closing one eye and I was deeply concerned for his well being.

Time passed.

I realized I was not wearing my own shoes but the shoes of someone with much bigger feet and I rather resembled a very badly drawn clown. I thought of a piece I've been writing and what action! oriented things I would be doing that day, every now and again taking a peek at the feathery bundle. A squirrel yelled at me from a tree and the chickadees all stopped by to say hello. Nice birds, chickadees. Afraid of very little and damn they eat a lot of mosquitoes in the summer!

Then a blue jay landed in the crabapple tree with all his obnoxious, noisy clatter. I thought to myself about a something I'd read or heard about or watched on tv or talked about with someone in passing about how animals react to the sounds of other animals that are considered to be higher in the eco system then they are with the fear and flight reaction. And just then the junco peeped, righted himself on my palm and took off.

All without shitting on my hand!

Oh, what a glorious day this would be!

D'yun would be over soon and we would tear up carpeting and rip down paneling and oh, what a wonderful day it would be for such action! type people such as us!

UPDATE: We tore down and ripped up many things, D'yun and I! Then I really did not feel quite so action! oriented an more. I felt more inclined towards recumbent reading that would no doubt lead to some kind of sleeping from dozing to full on rem stage. D'yun and I bid each other a fond farewell and collapsed on to my bed only to be awakened later by Jon Jordan which is just as it should be as I woke him damn early this morning. See! Life balances out! Isn't that neat?