Bird and other, larger Birds.

A couple of days ago, while I was in the office by myself for a long and boring day, I turned around to look out the window behind me and saw a giant turkey staring at me from the back yard of our building. He just walked around for about an hour, stretching his wings and pecking at the grass.

The next day, I saw a very large hawk in the backyard, flying from tree to tree and swooping around between them, sometimes standing on the fence or in the yard.

The next day, I saw the turkey and the hawk together in the yard. Not playing croquet or anything, just both at the same time.

What does it all mean? Because those are both large birds, and large birds are harbingers and omens. A sign of something. A sign that I will be job-free by summer, perhaps? A sign that I need psychotropic medication to stop the hallucinations?

Neighborhood Watch
I'm going to give you a glimpse into the un-glamorous world of living in an Urban Neighborhood. For all its cute shops and hipster bars and internet groups and community gardens and Priuses, my neighborhood still has its unsavory residents, and I do live across the street from a row of duplexes that some might find... er... shady. So the other night, around 4am, a car alarm goes off. I look out the window and see the lights flashing but nothing else, so I say a whole rosary of "mother fuckers" and go back to bed. In the morning, I saw this:

Obviously it wasn't random, and there have been some yelling matches and the cops over there on occasion. And the woman who owns the car seemed barely bothered the next morning, which I found a little shocking. I don't feel personally threatened by it, though I don't like the thought that people were being so malicious so close to my peacefully sleeping family. Welcome to the 'hood, y'all.


Bird Update
Bird is up to three and four word sentences, like "baby. clothes. off" and "keys. door. go." and "cat. box. poop." She can also count to four and sing bigger and bigger chunks of her songs by herself. She stands on a chair in the kitchen and helps me make quesadillas. And so many milestones I envision off in the future somewhere are played out right before my very eyes when I go to pick her up at daycare and she is scooting around in circles on a tricycle. Propelled Fred Flinstone-style, but still. I had no idea she was so big. And she has her own life, in a way, which is so strange, and even stranger is that I am not completely heartbroken about that part of it.

The Clubhouse Climber that my parents bought Bird for Christmas has arrived. In two gigantic boxes on a pallet taking up half of our garage. It is frickin huge and it is going to be frickin sweet.

Now, here is a picture of Bird having a lovely breakfast conversation with Thomas, added to this post to make up for the picture of the Hoe car:

And here is a picture of her with my fuzzy socks on her arms, because she's just that silly.