and then something dumb happens...

...and I get attacked by a bird.

Literally. No exaggerating.
Dive-bomb, direct target, brutal attack.

Riding my bike by the river today, I felt something hit my head.
I thought it was just someone throwing something at me again...
Yes, that happens to me...and more often than I care to admit.


But then I reached up and felt a feathery mass of body.

And I freaked out.

I tried to pedal faster, but my poor bike doesn't do faster.
I think there's only like, one gear. If that.
So my feet did that funny thing, you know, like when you're walking up the stairs in the dark, and you think there's just one more step than there actually is, so you step down too hard and you get that weird sinking feeling in your tummy...yeah, that.

Stupid bird kept diving down, pecking and scratching at my head!

Finally, after about a block, it stopped.
Maybe I hit it. I don't know.

It wasn't until later, when I went to go tell my sister what happened, that I noticed my hair was wet.
BLOOD!
B.L.O.O.D!!
I got freaking owned by a bird!

In hopes that this never happens to me again, I am hear-by offering a public apology to the birds of America...

I'm sorry.
I wasn't making fun of you when I wore this two Halloween's ago...

Please don't attack me again.

As always. The joke is on me.

pen and ink...

click to enlarge.

Ps. sorry for the crappy penmanship and spelling/grammatical errors.
Pps. I love you all.

how "being green" can sometimes lead to "bloody massacre"...

I have a strange relationship with lint. I just can't justify tossing it out when it could be saved and used for cool things like this. Seriously, how awesome is that?!


So, every time I empty the lint trap out, I just set it on top of the dryer until I can think of something to do with it. But, like almost everything else I set out to do, I never get around to using it and the pile gets bigger and bigger. Eventually, my husband will inform me that our basement lint population is out of control and threatens to throw it all away if I don't create a fiber masterpiece of my own. Then he gives me 'the look'...you know, the same one that debuted here...the "you're in big trouble" look.


With a defeated sigh, I will mumble something about not being free to be myself and how my efforts of creativity are stifled by his need for cleanliness, and then trek out to the backyard with two armfuls of dusty lint. I hang it in tufts on the branches of our crabapple tree and wait for the birds to come find it to use for their nests.


Turns out, a mama rabbit found our offering and dug a little nook in the tall grasses (read: weeds) next to the fence. Tucked inside were six tiny baby bunnies all snuggled together on a bed of soft, multicolored fuzz. The would-have-been discarded fibers of our socks, shirts, and unmentionables (why do I write about underwear so much??) had provided a soft, safe haven for those little babies.


But really, only a soft haven, because it was far from safe. Even though the nest was on the other side of the fence, even though we worked so hard building and designing it to keep rabbits out and that nasty, vile dog we call ours in, it wasn't safe enough.


While we were inside cooking up a fine spaghetti dinner, Lena was outside pacing the boundary line, salivating, and formulating a plan in that pea sized brain of hers. Escape was necessary and by any means possible. She violently tore the chicken wire off the trellis and gnawed her way through the crosshatch. Squeezing her whole body through an impossibly small hole, she landed directly on top of the sleeping babies.


I can't write the rest. I am honestly still shaken, and I think it would just be cruel to put into words the horror of what came next. You know what happens. You can imagine the rest.


And that's why this post will have no picture. If that disappoints you, you are sick. Sick!


Somewhere out there is a mother rabbit who has lost her family.
I hope she didn't see it all go down.
That would suck.


Lena and I are not on speaking terms.
She has totally spoiled the joy I used to get from saving lint.

once upon a time...

I was sixteen and had a disposable camera...

(Left to Right: K, Me, Kimberly, El.)

...and I was a bridesmaid in El's wedding.

These are my friends from years ago.

We met through a community theatre when I was only thirteen, and have stayed friends since.

Through my teenage years, I looked up to these women. 

We shared crushes, makeup, tears, secrets, clothes, bobby pins, shoes, hairspray, jokes, and break ups. 

And we shared gallons of glitter.

Then, I grew up some more, got a nice new film camera, and took this picture at Kimberly's wedding...

That's Kim on the left! She, in fact, has a blog herself. It's a crafty blog full of crafty things, recipes, and seriously adorable stories of her babies.

Once, I thought I killed her. 

I can't remember the details now, but it was my idea to get a late dinner at our favorite Perkins. 

We laughed a lot, as usual, and I remember being giddy with excitement to get to spend the next day with her at one of our theatre performances. 

On her way home, driving 70 miles an hour on the highway, she rear ended an SUV. 

Now, if my memory serves me right, there was construction, she was talking on the phone, and the SUV was parked as traffic was at a stand-still. 

If all of the above is indeed true, I'm not sure why I still blame myself for the accident. Even though it was my idea to get a late supper, the afore mentioned scenarios were much larger contributors to her collision, wouldn't you say?

The next day, I waited for her to show up to the performance. 

She was late. Really late.

Finally, someone came up to me and told me she had been in an accident the night before.

I was stunned. I cried and cried, I blamed it on myself.

If it weren't for me wanting to grab a late snack, if it weren't for me keeping her out late, she wouldn't have run into a parked vehicle on the highway!

They said her car was completely totaled, the brand new car she had just bought a few days before.

But, then they said, she only broke her nose, and she was safe.

Phew!

Anyway.

I went to the store to develop that picture, but I only had the negative...

Well, apparently, they don't know how to do that anymore. 

I handed them the negative and in return, I received the emptiest of blank stares I have ever laid eyes on.

And though they were all wearing name tags that stated, 

"19 years photo lab experience"

they clearly did not know how to handle this situation.

An hour or so later, after summoning several more photo technicians, I was given back an envelope filled with all of the pictures I did not want printed, and only one that I did.

Oh well.

More years passed by, and, even though I feel like the same. exact. person. in the first photo, I guess I must have grown up enough to get married myself...

That's ME! In the middle! At MY mostly-grown-up-adult-ish wedding!

This time, I erhm, actually, our parents had enough money to hire a photographer to take the picture!
 Luckily, I didn't have to sort through negatives to get a second print of this. I had it neatly stored on our trusty Mac. All I hubby had to do was zip it over to a USB and take it to the store to print.

That, they do know how to do.

I don't have much else to say about the USB.

Except that,

later that night, when I was dressing for bed, I found it nestled in my underwear.

No. I don't know how it got there.

I've retraced my steps, questioned my husband, and scratched my head.

No idea how it ended up there.

That brings us to the present, at "K's" wedding, where I completely forgot a camera of any sort.

So, I stole it from Kim's blog. Yup, I right-clicked that sucker. (but, ps. only I'm allowed to do so, so don't you dare try it yourself.)

You can read her side of K's wedding over on her blog, with a detailed, hilarious, and very, very accurate account of "the lake fly incident" .

Day to day, it never seems as if anything is changing. 

We feel the same, act the same, 

and looking back at our reflections, 

we think we look the same as yesterday.

But, for the four of us, most things have changed.

From disposable, to film, to digital cameras.

When once upon a time we giggled about boys and crushes while trying to adhere our false eyelashes.

Now we laugh and sigh contentedly about husbands, homes, and babies.

And it is good.