Oh My, It Has Been Ages, Indeed - Jun. 30, 2010

 She came in from the garage.

 Not unusual, of course.

 I was sitting on the couch, doing nothing. Really doing nothing. Like Elaine said in Seinfeld one episode when she was asked what she did that particular day.

 "Nothing," she said.

 "You must have done something," said Jerry.

 "No, I did nothing. Absolutely nothing."

 Which was my state at the time.

 Until I saw Shelley had a tape measure in her right hand.

 Said to self..."this cannot be good."

 Now, Shelley is five-foot-four inches at the maximum, meaning she's standing on a New York City phone book to reach that height. Our windows in the television room are about eight feet high.

 Ignoring me on the couch, she proceeded to venture to the window and attempt to take measurements of the pane height.

 'Paneful,' for me to watch.

 Off the couch, over to help.

 After 18 years together, words are not necessary in situations such as this.

 Next thing I know we are measuring the windows for new drapes, curtains or whatever in heck you call them.

 Turns out, of course, measuring is the easy part.

 Installing them is the chore. Those little half inch screws that a hamster couldn't wrap his paw around let alone my gnarled fingers and things.

 Anyway, this is not about curtains.

 It is about, however, a curtain threat from years gone by.

 It was a Sunday. Shelley had taken the late, great Sunny out for a walk. She returned after a bit of an adventure. Sunny had bolted into a tree-line and found...a budgie.

 Sure as rain in April.

 Shelley secured the budgie from the mouth of Sunny - he was not biting down, just holding - and went door-to-door in the area looking for anyone who may have a budgie named Houdini.

 No dice.

 So, the bird ended up at our home.

 This was before we owned Animal Essentials so we had to elsewhere to get some supplies after some ads were taken out and no one responded.

 We joked later we found out why no one responded.

 We would eventually call the adopted bird N.B. That stood for Nasty Bird. And was he ever nasty. Would bite you in a heartbeat for no reason other than wanting a clumb of skin.

 N.B. would leave his cage, fly around the area and then settle...atop the windows that we were measuring.

 I was reminded of the damage when I was measuring the drapes. Clumps of wood taken out of the perch.

 "Hey, there is some of the damage from Nasty Bird," I said.

 Which got us talking about the little guy.

 He did not last too long with us, tell you the truth. Probably six months. Our amazing house maintenance lady took a shining to N.B., so she was the benefactor, taking him lock, stock and pecking barrel home with her.

 He is still around, in fact.

 Still being Nasty Bird.

 And still leaving memories in our house.

 Gotta dust up there, too.

***

 Speaking of budgies, 12 more flew into Animal Essentials this morning. Hamsters and fish, too. We are well stocked again in the critter and aquarium region of the store.

***

 Tomorrow we celebrate my birthday...well, it is a birthday for this terrific country, too. I have a long way to go to catch up, turning 46, but we will close the store for July 1, re-opening Friday.

***

 The best laid plans...we are preparing to stock Canadian-made Acana pet food. We put the major order and finally it arrived...thing is only three bags arrived. Yep, three. Never worked so hard for so much for so little!

***

 Our treat grab bags at the front of the counter are going great guns. It is our nine-year-old who makes them up. She does a great job. In fact, she was going down today to do more.