a bird, sunburn, and lost-and-found

Just when I thought I was back to "normal"... I suppose life is rarely normal, thus I obviously was mistaken when I thought I was returning to some semblance of normalcy when I got back to Pittsburgh. Not more than a few hours after my return, I got a call from Michelle that a bird was inside our house (not my apartment - the house). I hadn't planned on visiting there until Saturday, but I thought I'd better go rescue her and the cats, who were simultaneously drooling and puking from the excitement of a tasty treat fluttering about the dining room.

It was a juvenile starling or something that looked like it that was sitting on the chandelier when I arrived. Mom's nature-minded tips encouraged us to turn off the dining room lights and turn on the outside lights, open a door, and try to encourage the bird to go to where it was light. It took a few tries, and I was quite sure I might have better luck just catching the bird in a bag, but eventually it found its way out the door. Yay. Just a helpful hint: if you ever want to chase after a bird in your house and don't feel like finding big gloves to protect your hands...try using either a pair of socks or oven mitts. Worked just fine for Michelle and me!

After than amusement I moved a few more of my things out and over the apartment. I had intended to bring my hibiscus plant to the apartment, but when I looked in the backyard, I couldn't find it. Very odd. I figured maybe it was just so dark so I couldn't see it. Maybe I had put it in some strange spot before I left, although I was quite confident I had not.

The next day when I returned in the light the plant was still nowhere in sight. Had someone taken it??? If so, who -- and why? Undaunted, I moved more and more stuff into my car and took it to the apartment. It wasn't until later that evening that I realized I had broken my charm of staying sunburnless due to a careless mistake. One shouldn't get sunburned by walking to and from the car, right? Wrong. In retrospect I should have realized that being outside for any length of time between 10a.m. and 3p.m. is a recipe for disaster with my skin. Most of my face, legs, and arms were unscathed, but my upper arms, which hadn't had the pleasure of getting bits of sun during vacation unlike the rest of my exposed parts, did get a little rosy. Unfortunate.

I returned to the house again at night to do some weed wacking. It's a strange evening activity, but it's been so incredibly hot!! I was literally dripping sweat during the moving, and all I was doing was walking back and forth from the car to the house! (Sometimes I was just standing in the house, which I am fairly certain was actually warmer than outside.) So weed wacking, per our landlord's request, seemed best to do once the sun had gone down. I had already moved the weed wacker to the apartment, so I packed it back up, along with the extension cords needed to power it around the perimeter of the lawn, and returned to the birdless house. Amusingly, when I got there, I discovered that there was no string in the weed wacker. I have no idea where that went to, since I've only used the thing maybe twice... More things missing... I'm also missing 9 of the 12 forks I had brought to the house three years ago...

Sunday after church I went to Lowe's in my skirt and bought the appropriate weed wacker string. Then I changed out of my skirt and wacked the yard, which wasn't so awful, even though it was the middle of the day (and believe me, I DEFINITELY had on sunscreen this time), because there really isn't all that much yard to wack. In the process of all this, I miraculously found my hibiscus! It was SITTING IN MY NEIGHBOR'S YARD!!!!!!!!! I was so mad. I took it and put it in my car and brought it to the apartment. WHY would anyone think it proper to walk into someone else's yard and take their plant?! Wow. The nerve of some people! I left the weed wacker for our other neighbors to have (the apartment doesn't have a yard for me to wack, anyhow) and left nothing for those plant-stealing neighbors.

Michelle, Lori, and I discussed the many issues we'd had over the weekend and concluded that all evidence pointed to the neighbors sneaking a bird into the house to fly forks to them and then serve as a distraction while they tip-toed into the yard and took the hibiscus.