Bird of no Feathers

I always knew that my big feet would cause great misery and misfortune one of these days.  Yesterday was that day.

Before I tell you this, I just want to make sure you all know that Nimbin is OK and has no serious injuries.  Now that I got your attention...  the story!  Nimbin (my cockatiel) was sitting on my shoulder like he normally does when I'm at home.   I wanted to grab something to eat, so  I put Nimbin on top of his cage and walked over to the kitchen.  Unbeknownst to me, Nimbin flew to the floor and followed me into the kitchen.  I turned around and stepped back towards the living room when and I heard a little shriek.  I looked down, and saw Nimbin running away from me... well, most of him ran away from me.   His tail stayed in the kitchen.

Oh I have never felt so bad about anything in my life!  I caught up to Nimbin and he didn't seem to be hurt... there was no blood on him (or on his feathers).  I am sure his little bum smarted, it's probably like getting a chunk of your hair pulled out (or like being waxed against your will).   The poor little guy!  He looks so strange without his tail!  Here are some pictures:

My poor sweet birdy.  Look at how many feathers came out!  It's unbelievable that all of those feathers were pulled out and there was no blood at all!

The vet wasn't open yesterday when it happened, but I took him in today and the doctor said he will be perfectly fine, although it will probably take a few months before his feathers start growing back.  Thank goodness!   Of course, now every time I look at his little pear shaped tailless body I feel just as terrible as I did when it happened.

Now, in memory of tails lost, here is a picture of Nimbin with all his glorious feathers!  (He is the one on the left).

Oh, and the wild birds must have caught wind of what happened.  This morning, my car was covered in bird poop.

Happy 11th Anniversary of the Worlds Longest Covered Bridge!

Apparently, the worlds longest covered bridge is in Canada.  And today is it's birthday!  On this day, the day of America's independence, 11 years ago... Canada had a dream.  A dream of the worlds LONGEST covered bridge.  Even google.ca is excited about it!

 

Speaking of Independence Day... I had a pretty good view of the fireworks from my apartment.  But they were incredibly close, which caused an incredible racket.  It sounded like people were setting off fireworks right outside my door!  I feel bad for anyone in my apartment building who has small children that were trying to sleep...  Wanna see the fireworks?  I know you want to!  Here ya go! 

 (Hopefully the video works.  If not... well, I'm going to leave it anyway. )

Well, happy 4th everyone!

Debby

When no one is asking me to write, I have oh, so very much to say.  But for some reason, when I am expected to write (in this case, I expect myself to write in my blog) I can never think of a topic to write about.  What's up with that?  Maybe my problem is that my life is too boring.  When I was in Australia, I had something interesting happen to me every day, so it was easy to keep up with my blog!  Now, I work a 9-5 at a doctors office, and yes, sometimes interesting things happen, but because of HIPPA regulations I can not tell you about them.

Maybe I should just start making things up, so I can have interesting stories to tell all of the two people who read this, my blog.

Anyway, most of you know that I was affected by Tropical Storm Debby earlier this week.  Sunday we had torrential downpours, which caused massive flooding.   On Monday, I had to bring my car into the shop to get fixed, which meant I had to drive roads that I don't commonly drive through.  On my way to the shop, a few roads were flooded enough to have lane closures, but I was able to get past the water by using the median.  

I dropped off my car and picked up my rental car quickly and easily... though I can't say I'm a huge fan of my rental car.  It's tiny and low to the ground, which makes it so hard to get in and out of.  But, if it is only for a few days, I guess I can live with it.  So, I'm driving the new rental car to the office, again driving a route that I'm not familiar with.  I take a side street (as recommended by my GPS) and I notice some flooding blocking an intersection that I needed to cross.  I looked down the road and could see some cars past the flooded road... but I couldn't be sure if they had driven through it.  The flooded area wasn't blocked off at all.  Yes, it's a side road, but it's a fairly well traveled side road.  I figured that if I couldn't pass it, they would have blocked it off!  The decision was made.  I was going to go through.

Slowly, slowly, my tiny rental car started it's journey through the water.  It was higher in the middle than I thought it would be... I was starting to get pretty nervous.  The water was moving quickly to the left, and it seemed like my car was struggling to stay in its lane.   Was the car drifting to the left along with the flood?  Was there a creek in that direction that my car would soon get sucked into?  I pressed down on the gas a bit, I wanted to get out of the water as quickly as possible!  My car started making a strange sputtering sound... Shoot, was I even going to make it out of the water?  Have I ruined the rental car on my first day?  WAS I GOING TO BE SWEPT OUT INTO THE OCEAN, NEVER TO BE HEARD FROM AGAIN?!  Then, it was over.  I was out of the water, no worse for the wear.  I made it, with only minor water damage to the car.  But it was worth it.  I have the story.

My poor car

I've had my wonderful, beautiful car for a year now... and luckily I've had no bumps, scratches, dents, or chips in the paint.  But yesterday... all of that changed.  My poor car was attacked by a snappy looking red Camaro convertible.  Here is the damage:

It happened at a light right down the road from my apartment development.  The guy in the Camaro was trying to squeeze by me on the left to get into the turn lane... well, apparently he misjudged the room he had!

Sigh.  I was really concerned for a while that I would have to go through my insurance company, pay a 500 dollar deductible, and possibly have my insurance payments raise.   Thankfully, I misunderstood what the "no fault" part of Florida's insurance meant.  This guys insurance (I found out later that the guy who hit me is actually a doctor, so I don't feel bad if his insurance has to go up) is paying for everything.  Even my rental car.  And I didn't have to call my insurance at all on this.

So it was definitely an annoying inconvenience for me... but, at least I won't be losing any money.  Maybe I will even gain money if the rental car has better gas mileage than my car does!  Silver linings, right?

My Dad

This fathers day, I wanted to write about how much I appreciate everything that my dad has ever done for me.  I inherited some of his level-headedness and his logical thinking, as well as his strong work ethic, and for that I thank him. 

My dad has always been there for me and has been accepting of any choices I made, even if he might not agree with me about them at the time.  I know he wasn't happy about me going to Australia initially, or moving to Florida (and about that I'm sure he still wishes I would change my mind and move back to NJ) but he has never tried to stop me from doing something I really wanted to do.  He will give me his opinion, but accept my decision.

Thanks Dad, for everything you do!

Oh, FORGET IT!

I made a hasty decision today.  Despite what I said on yesterdays post...  I have decided to go back on my decision not to text.  Yes, I'm stubborn, and YES, I know I could do it if I continued to put my mind to it.  But really, what am I trying to prove?  Texting wasn't really my huge time waster in the first place (really, the only reason I wanted to put texting on the list was because I found myself texting a lot at work... which was a huge no no), and the fact is, when I am feeling lonely here by myself in Florida (Especially during the week, since I tend to only go out with friends on the weekends) it is nice to send and receive texts to cheer myself up.

Maybe this no texting challenge would work better if I lived closer to my support system (my sisters and my parents are amazing!) because I would see them all the time.  But as it is now, seeing them all the time is impossible, and the best way to feel close to them is through texting.  I haven't checked my texts yet, but I turned on the notifications for texts I have not gotten since the beginning of the month and I see this:

Aww thanks guys!  Not even two weeks have gone by, and I told you all I wouldn't be texting... but all that love!

Yeah, so I am giving up with no texting.  However, I'm still staying off TV and Facebook for this month... even though I don't think that my problem with Facebook is actually "Facebook".  I have now replaced Facebook with an iphone app for the internet site "Reddit" (which I am new to).  Now, instead of Facebook, this is the kind of thing I am looking at while sitting at red lights:

COFFEE TIME COFFEE TIME COFFEE TIME!!!

(Hopefully this is working as a gif... if not go here: http://redditpics.fpapps.com//?thingid=t3_v0f1p&url=http://i.imgur.com/yxsJY.gif )

So really, what my problem seems to be is that I need constant entertainment.   I can't enjoy just one thing... if I'm eating, I must be watching TV, Reading, or Surfing the web as well.  Same with brushing my teeth... waiting at traffic lights...

So I'm going to continue not using Facebook this month but I also have a bigger problem to solve. 

No TV though?  Huge success.  TV was my biggest time waster and it made me so lazy.  I am doing much more with my time after work since I gave up TV.   Now, if only I can make myself not go back to that habit when June is over!