yesterday
as lake was leaving
i found a pigeon in the back garden
she was just sitting there
i went up to her
she was unable to fly
i picked her up and put her in a box
and gave her some food
and water
i checked her wings
they were not broken
i tried to coax her to fly
but all she could do was flutter
she got used to me quickly
and would step up onto my hand
and she even jumped onto my shoulder

the rain was coming
i couldn't leave her outside
so i got one of the bird cages we don't use anymore
and put her in it
in the basement
i tried to find an animal rescue that would take her
no luck
everyone i called was at capacity
and gave me the same speech about not enough funding
i continued to try throughout the day

i kept watch on her in the basement
around 2, i brought her outside
she had lice
pretty bad lice
the rain had stopped
and i sat with her on the back porch
for about an hour and a half
picking the lice off her
and giving her scritches
she just laid in my hand

i gave her some water
from a bowl
as i held her

i put her back in her cage
i had other things to do during the day
the next time i went down she couldn't use her legs
she was flopping around the cage
she was getting worse
i gave her more water
though i had to hold her head up to the bowl
i picked some more of the lice off
and put her back

i was still trying to find a rehabber
but at this point it was becoming clear
i wouldn't find a place until the morning

the next time i went down
she was having spasms
i had talked to a vet
she told me to make sure to give her some gruel through an oral syringe
i had come down to do that
but i never did
her neck was twisted around so much that i thought it was broken
i moved it back
she was still alive
but she was stiff
she felt half-dead
it wasn't much longer
i buried her in the garden where i found her
the rains had started again
i placed her in the earth
with some wish pods
under the tree
in the garden
where she can fly away

Haven't given much of an update lately on what I've been up to.

The weekend before last my sister, Madeline, and Christian came up to visit. I met them downtown on Saturday and my sister took me to get my first ever professional manicure. I had a lot of fun and Maddie is a joy. She is so huge, though! I'd swear she was 10 or 11 if I didn't know she was 7.

Last weekend, invalid_userid came down for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows release. purpleglitter, invalid_userid waited in the long line in Harvard Square. Usually waiting in lines is boring, but with the crowd I had a great time. There were a couple profiteers who got in the front of the line and walked down it trying to sell their books for $50. I didn't see anyone buying, but I'm sure they found someone when they got near the end (which rumor had it was somewhere in Watertown). I was very excited to get merryperseis's register when I finally got my books, I had thought the odds of that rather slim.

zarthon took purpleglitter, invalid_userid and me out to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the next day. Inevitably a lot of the book was left out, but I think enough critical stuff was missing that someone who hadn't read the books probably wouldn't be able to make much sense of it.

Sunday, we all went to the Museum of Science. The exhibits there have enough range to appeal to any level of scientific knowledge. We saw a demonstration of the still very functional original Van de Graaff generator built by Robert J. Van de Graaff in 1933, but my favorite part of the Museum of Science visit was the butterfly exhibit, where a large owl butterfly landed on my shoulder and sat there for a very long time just looking at me and occasionally stretching its wings. Looking into the butterfly's eyes made me regret all the nasty rhetoric I've spouted about exotherms.

Next weekend, our new landlord is coming to visit from California. She has not seen the building in over a year. I'm excited to meet her, she sounds awesome over the phone. She's trying to rent the unit next door, so if anyone is interested in a two-bedroom in Arlington, let me know.

At the end of next month, I will be heading down to see my sister in the Washington, D.C. area. My mom will be visiting there at the same time, so it should be a great trip.

For a long time Sir Dubbins was hobbled by the awful clip he received before we got him. However, he just took off from my keyboard and flew to his cage across the room. Not only is he now able to make it to his cage now, he landed higher on his cage than the hight he took off from. I think we can finally call him "flighted".

The new tiel is already stepping up. I can tell he's going to be a super friendly bird. He's still a quite timid, especially with that awful clip. I can't wait until he molts and gets his flight feathers - then we'll see his real personality come out.

I was supposed to see dicotomygrrl tonight. Just before she was due to arrive, I received a panicked phonecall from purpleglitter. Dandelion's food was hurt and there was lots of blood. I ran over to purpleglitter's house with my shoes in my hand, not even taking time to put them on until we had already loaded Dandelion in the car and were heading off to Angell Memorial Hospital.

Prior to calling me, purpleglitter had put styptic powder on Dandelion, so the bleeding had stopped. He appeared to be doing well and half way there we questioned if he needed to go, but we decided it was best that he see a vet anyway just in case.

Even in the strange situation, rushed out in the night, Dandelion still did step ups for the attending vet. When the vet asked if he was flighted he took off from his finger as if to say "Of course I can fly".

He got right onto my finger and I scooped him up and handed him to the vet. He is a brave bird. The vet took him in back to the "exotics" ward. Dandelion was a bit shaken when he returned, but I gave him good scritches while the vet looked for Dandelion's records and he calmed down.

He apparently got his toenail caught in something and it broke off. It looks like he'll be alright.

As purpleglitter was leaving for work yesterday, she came across Cloe Longfang attacking a blue jay. purpleglitter chased Cloe away and called me. I came out and put the jay in a box and took him out back to purpleglitter's screen-in porch. He was such a beautiful bird and i was so worried about him.

I called an animal rescue. They were very nice, but very busy and didn't make it out to pick up the blue jay until early afternoon. The person who picked up the jay said that he had a broken wing, but the wing was still responsive and he had a good chance at recovery. I hope the jay is alright.

I broke my staff. I had put it on my bed and I sat on it. I am such an idiot. I need to remember that it is just a thing. That it was mine when it needed to be mine and now maybe i don't need it. Maybe it was meant for me for a small period of time and then it is gone. Maybe something else. I haven't been meditating and praying enough. I feel like I'm slipping back into the fog of the everyday. Maybe I need to capture back that sacred space of the soul that seems to be slipping away. It is something that needs to be fought for. A constant effort. Maybe the breaking staff tells me I'm losing my way. I've made an attempt to fix the staff with gorilla glue held down by a bolt of wire i bought to make færie wings. Oddly symbolic as I've left to the faeries to supervise the mending of my gift from the færies. Maybe I should be less beating myself up over breaking the staff and looking to the symbolism of what is occurring. Find the meaning in this. There is too much here for their not to be meaning.

A couple days ago, I was smoking a chocolate-flavoured cigar with iamacliche and I figured out what the bubbles were. They were bugs. I saw them again behind his apartment building. They were little white bugs with white wings. They had a wingspan of about 3mm. In the hazy sunlight they looked just like tiny bubbles. Those around me have suggested I get my vision checked, as confusing bugs with bubbles could be an eyesight problem.

As they were real and just misinterpreted, seeing them was not a psychotic symptom. Even if my eyes are having problems, my image recognition processer still needs to be tweaked. Part of good image recognition processing is being able to compute a reasonable estimate of the probability of error, which my brain failed to do. My circuitry is a bit clanky, but it is still adaptable. I think that's why I have an affinity for jerryrigged items such as Oz: my brain is jerryrigged too.

Cloude just had his first outside cage time. He almost landed on my butt as I was bent over to pick something up. I could feel the wind from his wings on my derriere. He was a bit timid at first, but did some exploring. We discovered that he is incompatible with mosquito netting. His claws get stuck in it and he panics. So out goes the mosquito netting. I hope he had a good first out-of-cage experience.

After I left Harvard Square, I met riga_mortia at her house. I'm blessed to have gotten to spend another wonderful night with her. I’m blessed again to have gotten to sleep next to her yet again. The best, most wonderful sleep. I’m yet blessed again to have had her make me breakfast in bed in the morning. I’m so completely in love with her.

She is beautiful and wonderful and wounded and fighting all at once. She’s amazing. She inspires me. She, too, is a broken angel, but she’s still flying. Somehow. The thunderous storms still sometimes come to batter her. The viscous winds still sometimes knock her to the ground. But, she is still flying. Through it all, with tattered wings and shattered bones and bloodied flesh, she still flies. She is still radiant.

Today I discovered something at Trader Joe's I hadn't noticed before. Marinated mushrooms. I haven't tried them yet, but the whole jar has only 80 calories. I'm planning to try them out with the movie I picked up at the video store, "Gladiator". Didn't want to watch anything heavy tonight and it got great reviews.

Didn't get any material for the wings today, because Lake and I decided we need to conserve money this month. Next month, when we have roommates, we'll be in a much better position.