Let's see:
This week my little four year old neighbor was diagnosd with leukemia. Um, that was a bit of a shock. I think he'll be ok, but still, it's a pretty messed up situation, considering he was having a water fight with his brother in the front yard on Saturday. Plus it happened sooo fast. Saturday: leg pain, Sunday: bruising, Monday: Dr's, bone marrow bx, Tuesday: diagnosis - leukemia. It's crazy. They have a friend who works here (in fundraising...whatever) who's offered to help out so I think I'll just tell them whatever they need done, just ask. It makes you think though. Nevermind feel utterly helpless. Stupid cancer.
Then on that very same day, my father and I went for a glorious paddle in our kayaks. It was really just lovely. We started in the Indianhead River and paddled to the North River, which probably sounds impressive but really isn't at all. There were sunshine and birds everywhere. Sigh. When we got home we put our kayaks behind the shed, not sure when we'd have them out next. As we were getting ready to go inside my dad turned and looked and said "Oh my God. A bird. Allison, it's a bird." Then his voice went up a pitch, something I'm not used to hearing ever really and he said "It's the catbird, you have to help it, quick quick!!" See the catbirds have been nesting in our yard every summer since we moved there, so even though over the 17 years it's been different birds, we're attached. Besides, how can you not love a catbird? They're so sweet and charismatic and strike me as quite intelligent. Anyways, I got over to the bird and saw that it was in serious trouble. It was standing with its wings splayed and at first I thought it just had a broken wing, but then it flopped to its side. It couldn't even hold its head up. This is, as far as I know, pretty much the worst thing you can see an injured bird do. When they won't even hold their head up. I said "Oh dad, there's nothing I can do, something very bad is wrong with him." I pet the bird for a bit, then picked it up, and it died right in my hand. WTF. We were going to put him in the bird graveyard, but I told my father that we should let nature take its course with this one, as one birds misfortune could be a jackpot for another animal family foraging for food. It still sucked though. We couldn't see anything wrong with it from the outside, so I'm not sure what killed it. I'm not worried about bird salmonella now that we've eliminated our feeders and groundwaste. I dunno. Sigh.
To sort of rid myself from lingering feelings of ominousness and disease and death, I decided to do something happy. I began a wedding gift registry. Hurrah! Now Jamaal once revealed, much to my absolute horror, that he would prefer only money as gifts. I finally convinced him that putting that on an invite is the number 1 tackiest thing you can do. You can put sequins and feathers and sh*t on there and it would still be LESS tacky than putting "monetary gifts only." Gah, I SHUDDER. And I am pleased to say that all the etiquette gurus agree *smiles smugly* BESIDES a wedding is really the only time you can ask for specific gifts! And having attended many a wedding, I personally don't find registries offensive (I guess some people don't like to be told what to buy). I think they're a godsend, especially when you don't see a person that often or know what their decor is like. Soooo I started a registry. It was actually started for the sole purpose of entering a $4,000 gift card giveaway to Crate and Barrel, but since I was probably going to strongarm Jamaal into registering there anyways, I figured, why not? I only have a set of pans, a mixer, and some cake and loaf pans on there, but putting gifts on a registry gave me a giddy happy feeling :D Of course the rest is really going to have to wait til we find a place to live and til we get closer to the wedding. There's no use in registering for too much now, as it may be discontinued by the time we get hitched!
So that lifted my spirits significantly :)
Oh. I have no pictures to go with this post, I'm sad to say. My external hard drive, which held all of my pictures, crashed on Sunday. Sooo it is hopefully being repaired....I say hopefully because the computer guys have yet to call me with a clear prognosis. We'll see I guess!
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