Already a Dipped-in-Gold Day

Sparkles of pixie dust continue to gild my Weekend Eve:

For starters, there were Christmas cookies for breakfast. (Peanutbutter makes them a healthy food choice, right?)

And only fairies could've inspired me to employ a cappuccino-flavored candy cane to stir my coffee. (Who knew those were a real thing?; did you??)

Then there was the discovery of a bunny at the bottom of the back steps, eating the birdseed and biscotti crumbs that I'd earlier thrown away.

And now holiday cards have just appeared in the billbox! (So cool that they're appearing even though Christmas is over. I love prolonging the holiday somehow....)

The day's only half over, too; I wonder what delights are yet to come!

But I'm not the only one for whom magick calls. I want to hear about your wonder-filled discoveries. GO!
...

Dear You:

Season's Greetings from Tumbledown

A heart full of happiness.

Loved ones just a phone call, postage stamp, status update, email, heartfelt thought, arm's length away.

Good health getting 'gooder' by the minute.

Time enough to spend engaged in your heart's delight.

An already dipped-in-gold year to look forward to.

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, I hope the season finds you over your head in all of the above.

Love,
...me.
...

Santa's Got the Right Idea

Go, Santa; you can do this!

I'm with the Big Guy on this one.

There he is -- ambushed by the Christmas Crocodile of Stress and chased by some festive partygoers as he gets out of Dodge with a sleighful of snacks and a drink in his hand!

Looks like he's gonna make it, too. And with that magick fairy wand in the back, he's got everything covered. Bottomless drink, endless holiday snacks, the perfect gifts. I'm envious....

Actually, those aren't all 'festive partygoers.' That's really supposed to be a little LEGO Me in the background. I tried to make my own 'mini fig' this year but the selections at the LEGO store were slim. I got the glasses and the messy hair right, but I was looking for bibber-alls to dress my fig in, and when I couldn't find them I chose to give myself some serious cleavage to go with those serious hips. 

And look at that -- she's smiling even.

That's so not me. At least not in recent days. 

Things are getting down to the wire here. The Christmas clock is tock-tocking and I just want to reach in and yank its dang pendulum out.... I've yet to bake, clean, wrap, write. I've checked my gift list. Counted it twice. Rethunk EVERYthing. Wondered if the toys I've purchased are too small, or too difficult, or too babyish, or too simple, or too cheap-seeming. Wondered if the grown-up gifts I'm giving are too lame, or too silly, or too handmade, or too weird. Wondered if I'll ever get Christmas cards sent or letters written. Wondered wondered wondered.... *BOOM*

(Momentary clean-up at the keyboard....)
 
I look at my mini fig in the photo above and know that if Santa'd just hold up a sec, she'd hop in that sleigh, pour him another drink, and start dishing out that pizza. I want to join them! And I'd let them both have dibs on the food and bev. 

Because I want that wand so I can wave it and make everything Perfect....

 

'Tis the Season

Winter Begins

Snow piling up outside. Soup bubbling on the stovetop. Candles casting dancing shadows. Greens on the mantlepiece scenting the house like a woodland walk. Frank Sinatra on the radio, jazzing up the carols. My guy downstairs, enjoying a Snow Day....

Forget hustle and bustle, car commercials and diamonds, and 'stoplights blinking a bright red and green.' I'll take this for my holiday, thank you.
...

Sun In My Eyes

Although all the sun and sky suggested otherwise, there was nothing balmy about my walk this morning. The wind on my exposed forehead was like a hammer blow to my brain -- it shocked me awake, it brought tears to my eyes, it made my cheeks bloom like peonies, it made my nose run. But the return trip, with the wind at my back, was perfection.

Clouds sailed the blue sea-sky and made my day appear springlike. As I walked I recalled similar days in my memory of icy winds and moments spent tethered to a kite string, and the thought had hardly formed in my head before I saw one in a tree. Sponge Bob, upside-down, smiling at the sun.

I walk this route almost every day and don't recall ever seeing it before. Had it been there since spring, hiding in the leaves? Or did someone look outside today and think, like I did, that everything looks and smells like kite-flying weather?

Piranha Birds

Lovey's on the left, complete with paper butt tiara.

Peachy-faced Piranha Birds is my new name for lovebirds 'Lovey' and 'Thurston.'

 

It's not original to me; my friend CollegeGuy (who watches our 'zoo' in our absence) coined the name, and I'm sure he speaks from experience. As do I as of yesterday, as one of the highlights of my weekend was the mega-cleaning of their cage which resulted in a Lovey bite.

 

Since their rescue, my cage-cleaning efforts have been limited pretty much to changing out the papers on the bottom of their cage. Aggressive little Lovey (I suspect) could skeletonize my exposed flesh in a second, and even though I've been patient and caring around her (and her beaky lunges have subsided somewhat as a result) I'm still a little fearful. I'm pretty sure she's guessed this. Thurston, bless him, is her hopelessly devoted boy toy -- clueless and lovesick and long-suffering. But Lovey is a cold and calculating harpy waiting for the day when I accidentally leave the cage door ajar so she can scissor my face from my skull like a can-opener. And until then she'll bide her time with silly Thurston, having birdy sex....

 

My biggest challenge has been how to get at the interior of their cage without being flayed alive, and I've put it off. And off. And off.... I wondered what would be the best (and safest) way to go about it. Should I let them out in an enclosed space, like the bathroom, and risk having them fly at the closed window or go right for my earlobes? Would they just naturally return to the cage when I was done with it? What if I had to leave the bathroom for something and they escaped? How hard would it be to catch them in a butterfly net if I had to? Would throwing a towel over them enrage Lovey such that I'd never be able to get near the cage again?.... 

 

So many things to consider.... But I couldn't stand their digs a second longer. It was now or never.

 

I'm happy to report that today they're clean and content, but at the expense of my entire Sunday and my thumb. And what I ended up doing was this: I outfitted an old birdcage with a water tube and enough paper to keep Lovey happily shredding her brains out for the rest of the day if necessary. Then I fashioned a square tube out of cardboard, one that would fit snuggly into the cage door, taped it together, then fed it from the door of the new cage to the door of the old one.

 

Lovey smelled a rat right off the bat and was highly suspicious, but when she saw all the paper on the other side of the little corridor she was through it in a heartbeat. Thurston, on the other hand, stood on this side of it and called to her. Back and forth she went, shredding paper in the new cage, tucking it into her butt feathers, and bringing it all back to the old cage. Don't ask me how I managed to get scaredy-cat Thurston over to the other side, but when I did he panicked. And, of course, he couldn't put two and two together and figure out how he suddenly found himself in this new environment.... Lovey sat in the tube and screamed at him but it didn't work. And when she hopped down to square off with him right to his face, I shut the cage door.

 

Easy-peasy.

 

Cleaning that hell hole was a pleasure. And pretty easy, too, as it turns out: Lovey's nest was a 'pooper'-maché creation that fell out in one big lump. Then it was all about the scrubbing and disinfecting. I added a furry 'love nest' that hung from the cage's rooftop, sort of a soft-sided triangular hammock that they could snuggle in. I clipped a new-fangled nesting box on the side and threw in enough flyers and junk mail to keep Lovey happily nestmaking for days. 

 

Then I grabbed the cardboard tube.

 

Lovey instantly knew what was going to happen. She dove for the door as I was trying to place the tube and slowly open it at the same time, and that's when she nailed me. Her bite wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating, but it was still a surprising pinch, and I yelled at her. And now I think she likes the idea that she got such a great reaction. (Dang. Back to square one again....)

 

Anyway. Thurston took forever again figuring out how to get to the other side, but Lovey's no-nonsense scolding helped. He claimed dibs on the love nest until she kicked him out. And last night I saw him sleeping on the top of it while she was inside, nibbling paper strips and chittering to herself..... 

 

And today they're back to being their horrid, noisy, nasty, delightful, sweet-faced, smiling selves. They may be ferocious little piranha birds, but they're all mine and I adore them.

...