This is nothing but today.

 Yesterday after work, Torrey & I went for a walk to the nearby cemetary (it's really pretty and also a good shortcut to a main thoroughfare) to feed the crows who hang out there. I met Stripes, who has a couple of white feathers on one wing. We sat in the grass & enjoyed the sun and warmth and I almost forgot it was spring. The crows are starting to pair off and do the mutual preening thing, and we actually saw one fly by with a twig in its mouth, off to build its nest.

I miss my office crows.

Later that night I started feeling anxiety and uselessness and so I said 'fuck that' and got up and baked tollhouse cookies.  Yeah I'm diabetic now, but over the past year I've learned how to monitor and moderate and the approximate limits of what I can & can't eat. I can have sweets, in moderation.  Anyway it made me feel better.

Figured out how to do remote check deposit for my work, so (in theory) I won't need to go to the bank anymore to make the deposits. (I was already doing that for my personal banking, but it's not the same bank.) Some of our clients are already shifting over to electronic payment systems, which I heartily approve of. (My company has a separate bank account we use for that, so that we aren't giving our main bank account numbers out to anyone.)

Today I went in to my office to check mail and grab some remaining supplies. Mailbox contained no mail, but contained a note regarding the forwarding order, so I definitely won't need to go check the mail there again until post-crisis.

And then I remembered, hey, didn't we used to have some N95 masks? And WE DID and I FOUND THEM and I was SO HAPPY because we can donate them to the local hospitals!!!  Fishy has done two trips so far to pick up masks from people who sign up to donate and drop them off for hospitals. A local UW employee organized it through twitter and google docs and I was so happy that I found these that I cried. Fishy told me a little bit about some of the folks who've been donating on his run, and it's so moving. Most people, it turns out, do not become dicks in a crisis.

Pity the ones who *are* dicks in a crisis are so often the ones in power. :/  We need to remind them that we outnumber them.

Hi there!

I haven't been posting in a long time. I aim to start again. Mostly I've been findable on Twitter these days, but I really miss being able to express some complex thoughts and/or meaningless babbling in a longer form, and more importantly, to be able to FIND THEM again. For me, hanging around on Twitter is a lot like hanging around on a MOO (which I also still do); I see whatever's there when I'm logged in and looking at it, but that's mostly all I've got time for. I still like Twitter a lot. I've just not been making use of other tools as well.

(I deleted my Facebook account entirely, as many of you know. I'll probably make a separate post about that later.)

While I'm getting my thoughts together for future posts, here, have a link to our CrowCam. It's our backyard bird feeder that's weighted to accept crows & anything lighter (like squirrels and steller's jays) but to swing shut when seagulls land. NO FOOD FOR YOU. It's an ingenious thing devised by Tony after I asked for a CrowCam for Christmas.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqPZGFtBau8rm7wnScxdA3g/live

 Time has been seeming to go by way to fast lately. Most recently this was partly due to migraines and cramps. I lost a good chunk of Consonance (and the weekend prior) to a migraine, and a whole evening this week to cramps. I now hate cramps for the same reason I hate migraines (besides the pain, I mean): they are thieves of time. Not only because I become useless but I seem to have a pain response that amounts to "fall asleep on couch for hours."  I HATE wasted time. Hate hate hate. I mean, time that I didn't *choose* to waste. I have no problem sitting around wasting time watching mindless TV or playing iPad games if that's what I want to do. But I absolutely hate having time TAKEN from me. (Or accidentally wasting it, like forgetting something important that I have to drive all the way back home for. I kick myself hardest for those.)

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Speaking of Consonance, it was lovely! We hadn't been in a couple years, I think because ECCC kept being on top of it. The time not stolen by migraines was well spent hanging out with friends and enjoying concerts and filk circles and backing Scott Snyder in his awesome concert for his awesome new album, Rock and Roll to Hit.  Scott is a delight to work with and a dear sweet person and he actually remembered that time at a house filk a hundred years ago where he trolled me with "Faegrass". :D

And yet I did not get ENOUGH time to spend with people! It was like I blinked and it was over. I did run off to a Disney pin trading event on Saturday afternoon (the Nor Cal group was having a gathering on the same weekend like TWELVE MILES AWAY from the hotel, how could I resist?) but I was only gone for a few hours! It was actually pretty fun indulging two of my favorite hobbies in one trip. Efficiency!

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Spring has come to Seattle, which means highs of 60F or so and lows of 35F or so. Spring and Fall are the Times of Layers.  Spring is also the time when the crows go a little nutsier than usual.

I'm walking to and from the office these days, which means feeding them more. Sometimes they absolutely mob me, which is delightful and hilarious. They crowd around, fly in circles around my head, zoom very low over me (there is nothing quite like the whoosh of wings about one's ears).  One tried to land ON my head but either it got no purchase or was startled when I was startled, because I just felt its little claws go BONK. Other days they are so busy chasing each other (did I mention it's spring) that they actually FORGET THE FOOD.

When they're crowding around, there will always be one or two who fly up and land on the ground fairly close to me, hoping to get to the food before anyone else does. They'll usually land alongside me, which delights me, and I will carefully toss some food near them so as not to scare them (arm-throwing motion right AT them makes them fly away; they have a pretty good basic grasp of physics.) Occasionally one will do this but land in *front* of me, while I'm *still walking*, which means now I'm *walking toward them*, and you can SEE them go "I IMMEDIATELY REGRET THIS DECISION."

By the way, in case you did not happen to see my status on Facebook or Twitter: I am very happy that my friends see crow things and it makes them think of me. I take it in the friendly and affectionate way in which it is meant. That said, please be assured that I HAVE SEEN THE CROW STORY. Yes, the one with the little girl whose crows have been giving her gifts since she was eight. Yes, I've read the article. Really. I really have. I've also seen the BBC follow-up where other readers sent in their crow stories in response to that article. (To be fair, only one person sent me that one.)  

Amusingly, when the first person sent me that link and said "hey vixy, do your crows do this?" I was like "...no they don't and now I am a little pouty about it :(" and then a couple weeks later the crows left me a dandelion by their food dish at my office.  Then earlier this week one of them dropped a scrap of pink tulle down to me from the wire where it was perched. I think the corvid takeover is coming, you guys. They're clearly reading Facebook now.

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Speaking of food, I went for it and started eating meat again back in January. (I forget exactly when I started, but I remember eating some meat during Conflikt, so it was sometime around then.) I decided to take Brooke's advice, in that if I was going to be risking unpleasant results anyway, I might as well make it worthwhile and eat something DELICIOUS. So I started with Torrey's amazing meatloaf. (Which you guys is OMG SO GOOD.)  I moved on cautiously to other delicious things. It has been going much better than I expected!

Without going into gross detail, I'm thinking back and wondering if those problems I had before were just IBS all along. IBS is a vague bunch of symptoms that sometimes get exacerbated by things, and I got diagnosed with it long after I'd become a vegetarian. There was this time around ten years ago where I was having REALLY BAD gut pain (but not meat-related) and the doctors were like "OH SHIT RULE OUT ECTOPIC PREGNANCY QUICK" (because that can kill you, and fast) and then ruled out other things too. I had three pregnancy tests (boy was I not pregnant, I was the most not-pregnant I have ever been), two CT scans, and an ultrasound, and they found nothing at all wrong with me, and concluded "I dunno, eat more fiber or something." (I paraphrase but that was actually as much concrete info as I got.)

Anyway, it turns out that pre-emptive taking of things that help IBS also help when I eat meat. I haven't had any significant problems AT ALL. I really did think there was going to be this horrible period of adjustment. So far the worst that has really happened was that the General Tso's Chicken tasted gross to me (it could've been just a bad piece or maybe I don't like dark meat or who even knows).

The hardest part has actually been mental/psychological. Fifteen years of being a vegetarian means I have developed mental habits that can be summarized as OH GOD NO DON'T EAT THAT. I am still having to consciously remind myself sometimes that this really is an okay thing to put into my mouth if I want it.

This makes for an interesting cognitive dissonance with the things it turns out I kinda missed. YOU GUYS I LOVE HAM SO MUCH. I always did. I keep almost saying I missed it, but that's not quite right-- I wasn't thinking about it all those years. It's just now I remember how great it was.  Bacon is great but HAMMMMM. A few weeks ago, I ordered what used to be my very very favorite pizza ever since I was a kid: Canadian bacon and black olive. OH IT WAS SO GOOD. Also Fishy and Torrey had an idea to make Alton Brown's eggs Benedict recipe (with homemade English muffins OMG) and while I have confirmed that I still don't like Hollandaise, the rest was DELICIOUS. Also sausage is still delicious with maple syrup, I checked.

As was my intention, it did make some things a lot easier. I took Fishy to a doctor appt and got food while I waited; the small cafeteria at Group Health didn't have a lot, but they did have pizza by the slice. What's that, you only have pepperoni or Hawaiian? I'LL TAKE ONE OF EACH. Then again, some things are a lot harder; we went to the Italian place that has replaced Macaroni Grill, and there were SO MANY TASTY THINGS HOW DO YOU ALL DECIDE. And of course, the housemates no longer feel the need to save pizza for me. When there was only one kind I could eat out of the kinds we ordered, they'd be careful to save that for me. Now it's EVERY CARNIVORE FOR THEMSELVES, BABY. ;)

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Next on calendar: ECCC! I think!

 It's summer, and it has been ridiculously hot. It was less melty this weekend, at least. My brain's still pretty melty today.

'Tis the season for what I call the teenager stage of the juvenile crows. (I've probably written about this before, but it doesn't stop being funny to me.) They're old enough that the adults no longer dive-bomb people protectively for getting near them, but young enough that they still have the voices that sound like kazoos. And still try to get adults to feed them. This results in the crows coming to my food dish (and everywhere else) consisting of one or two juveniles following an adult around going KWAAAAH! KWAAAAH! KWAAAAAAAH! with beaks constantly open, while the adults gather food for themselves and try their best to ignore the juveniles.

Once in a while the adults get fed up (so to speak) with it enough that they'll suddenly turn and shove some food into the juvenile's mouth. Which results in a sound like KWAHH! KWMMPHWMMMWMMMPH. Which is NEVER NOT HILARIOUS.

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My bosses have decided to cancel their PO Box and have the mail just come to the physical address. I've worked for this company for ten years, and they had the box for I don't know how many years before that. Back when they got it, the idea was to protect the office manager (now me); one or two incidents of an angry claimant threatening or shooting at insurance adjusters made national news, so I'm told, and since everyone else in the company works at home, the office manager is alone in the office most of the time. They got the PO Box so that the company's address on public materials, correspondence and so forth, would not be the physical address where a claimant could find the office manager alone.

Google making it possible to pretty much find the physical location of anyone anywhere, the bosses have decided there's no point making me go to the post office every day. They did check with me first to see if I was okay with the change. I was. So last week I canceled the PO Box. It was much easier and quicker than I was expecting (though probably they skipped a step or two for me, like checking ID, since they know me by sight.) And now I no longer have to make those daily 1.5-mile-round-trip trips. And though that means taking my walks on my own time now, it's a bit of a relief not to have that hanging over me every morning (the mornings with migraines were...unpleasant.) It's kind of a weird change; I haven't yet stopped getting the feeling around 9:30 or 10am of "I've gotta do something I'm supposed to do something I haven't done yet and I'm about to be late for it."

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We had two gigs this past weekend. We had fun but I'm exhausted today. (See also: mornings with migraines.) Can't Stop the Serenity was in a cute new location this year, the Central Cinema. Nice acoustics, nice layout, good feel, pretty good food.  (Although some folks seemed to think "dinner theatre" equated with "bar" and thus talked throughout the concert. A little distracting, but not the venue's or the organizers' fault. I chose to think of it as having communed a bit with the spirit of my mother, who played her share of bar gigs where nobody was listening.) It was a good turnout for the event. "Hecklevision" (basically MST3K via tweet) seemed to work well once everyone got the dick jokes out of their systems.  I'd enjoy seeing a movie a little better suited to it. We had to duck out early so as to get rested up for Sunday, so we didn't get a chance to say goodbye to the SBC folks. Thanks again for inviting us!

Betsypalooza (not the official name I don't think) aka House Concert Under the Trees (I don't actually know what its official name was) was an absolute BALL from start to finish. I was so happy to see all the wonderful people who came and brought all their positive energy and love. I really needed that. (I know that I hide a lot from the social, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate what you bring.) The tiredness today is TOTALLY worth it. Thank you to everyone who performed and everyone who worked and everyone who came and everyone else who tweeted or otherwise sent their good wishes. Thanks especially to Kaede Tinney for asking us to join the event as their backup band. <3 <3 <3

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Tomorrow's my birthday. I'll be 43. My postal carrier at work (who's been our regular carrier for the entire ten years I've been here, and for the years before that when he knew the previous office manager) remembered my birthday, but didn't remember my age, and refused to believe it. :) That's always flattering. I get the good genes from both sides. I told him I'd show him my ID tomorrow if he wanted. I might greet him at the door with my driver's license just to be funny.

I've been wracking my brains for literally a month trying to figure out what I want to do for my birthday. And I can't really think of anything. I don't have any super-special restaurant I want to go to. I'm thinking about afternoon tea at Queen Mary's, but that's not something the whole household would really enjoy. (Torrey and I might just go by ourselves.)  The spa would be nice, but the boys can't go to that. (Torrey and I might go do that too.) I perused the local theatre and ballet offerings, but nothing's on right now that I want to see.

Maybe I'll call in sick to work tomorrow. I'm not sure they'd actually buy it... but that's actually all I can think of right now that I really want to do. Take an extra day off work and just lie around the house. Except then I'd just end up feeling guilty at the end of the day for having "wasted" it. Brains are silly.

Well, the good news is, my crows cannot possibly be responsible for the ripped-out shrubbery.

The bad news is that we know this because it keeps happening. 

When I noticed that first bush had been pulled up, I heard from A at the office down at the other end of the bulding that they'd had a plant pulled out as well. Then sometime last week I came to work and there was another one of our plants pulled out, at the opposite end of our planter, and I noticed that in front of C's office next door (other direction from A) there was also a plant dug up. Duly reported to building manager again. (Side note: there isn't and has never been any food in those places, so no reason critters would be digging things up there.)

This morning I arrived and we have had a third bush torn out of our planter-- this one back at the same end as the first one, like someone's going back and forth taking one from each end. Nothing gone that I could see from C's this time; I didn't walk down to A's.

Called building manager; she said one of the condo owners in the building had already reported it, and they even have a partial time frame of when it happened. She's pretty much certain it's drunks wandering up from the pub next door (it's technically two doors down, but what's between us and them is a vacant plot of land overgrown with weeds.) She also says that the cost of the plants stolen so far is now up to more than $300, which she says is now more than a misdemeanor. (I guess? That's what she says. I don't really feel like looking up vandalism charges in this state.)

It's weird, but then who expects vandalism to make sense, really? I'm pretty sure it's not people stealing the plants to use in their own landscaping; the plants aren't dug up carefully. There are lots of broken-off roots in the soil, bits of broken stems on the pavement (along with LOTS of spilled dirt) and one of the plants next to the recently-stolen one is also badly broken. I think if you were stealing something to replant you'd dig up a little more carefully, wouldn't you?

I'd almost think this was some bizarre retaliation against our office for a claim we denied; we do occasionally get people so angry about a claim denial or a payment they think is too small that they threaten to "come down there" and beat up or shoot the adjuster (which is always fun because the adjusters work out of their homes, so the only physical address publicly available is the one I'm at.) I even had a slightly creepy call last week that seemed to be verifying our address. But since the other offices are getting it too, it's more likely just random vandalism. (And anyway what a weird form of retaliation that would be. "I'm SO MAD AT YOU that I'm going to... STEAL YOUR PLANTS! ONE... BY... ONE!  Soon you will be completely without plants! Your snails will have no shade!  Your windows will be slightly less pleasant to look out of!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"  Or maybe it's a really misguided attempt at oxygen deprivation. I think the maple trees have got my back there, though.

Whatever, I get to go to Disneyland pretty soon. :)

So I've been asked to stop feeding the crows.

Well, sort of. This morning a woman knocked on the office door just after I arrived. She's a resident of the building (it's a condo building with offices on the ground floor) to ask if I'm the one putting out food and water (yes, I am) and is it for dogs or...? (it's for crows-- which she clearly knew.) 

She was quite polite, but her actual complaint about it kept changing, and it's kind of hard to argue with a moving target. First she mentioned the bird poop on the sidewalk; I pointed out that there is a line of TREES out front all overhanging the sidewalk, and birds, y'know, perch in trees. Then she shifted to talking about the color of the poop (which is apparently BRIGHT ORANGE, from the dog food I've been feeding them-- heh, oops.) Then she shifted to talking about how the water dish sometimes gets kicked around by pedestrians (I've always suspected stumbling drunks from the bar two doors down) and the food scattering looking messy.

When I made polite but noncomittal replies, she said something like:

"Oh well I could always talk with Joan about it if you won't, you know, the building manager."
Me: [managing not to laugh out loud at this implied threat]: "Oh, Joan knows I feed the crows. She's always known. She's never had a problem with it." (Joan's only stricture so far has been not to feed them any shelled nuts or seeds, as the shells/husks clog the gutters. I never have fed them anything like that, so she was fine with me feeding them crackers etc.)

I personally think it's ridiculous to care about the SIDEWALK. I've always been mystified by condo associations with rules like that, like the place I lived where you couldn't keep your bicycle on your balcony, because... it might look like someone is athletic? Or, heaven forbid, someone might think the resident isn't rich enough to afford a gym membership. :-P  But then I've never understood people who wash their cars regularly, either. Maybe it's from growing up in an area where it could literally rain on your nice car-washing job any minute, but making sure your car or sidewalk is shiny and clean has always seemed to me like taking a mop and some floor wax and polishing the road. 

ANYWAY. I did not tell the nice lady to go f* herself (not even in a euphemism) because I have to be here all day and I have to get along with these people, and also because I figured a compromise is probably better than her going to the condo association and having *them* tell me to stop. So when she started suggesting compromises, I agreed. I agreed to get another dish to put the food in, rather than scattering it all about, so it will look neater. I agreed to change what I'm feeding them so it's not BRIGHT ORANGE (and really, the orange poop *might* mean they're not fully digesting what I was feeding them, anyway-- I was just buying the cheapest thing I could carry). And I agreed to take the dishes inside the office when I go home for the day, so they don't get kicked around. We'll see if that helps.

While I was at the store buying a new dish and more food, it also occurred to me that I could agree to just clean the damn sidewalk. They have a person who comes every so often to do gardening and stuff, and someone who comes with a leaf blower, but they don't come every day, it's not really those people's job to clean up after what are basically my pets. I don't mind hosing down the sidewalk once a day if that works (and there's already a hose hooked up), and I just ordered an outdoor broom. So we'll see if that helps too.

At the moment the crows seem rather hilariously confused. They were just looking at the dishes and then at me, and then at the dishes and then at me, like WAIT THERE IS FOOD WHERE THE WATER WAS... WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO... UM... WATER IS OVER HERE NOW... EXPLAIN THIS, MONKEY.  (The grocery store only had smaller dog dishes, and I figured it'd be best to put food in the biggest one I have.) I went and put some hard boiled egg-- their favorite thing-- on top of the dog food in the dish, and that pretty much cleared up all confusion because OMG EGG EGG IS HERE I WANT EGG NOW.

It does mean I can't stop them from fighting as much; I was pouring food in several spots so that they wouldn't always be trying to keep each other out of it. But they were still fighting some, so that wasn't a very effective tactic anyway.

Such is the life of a servant of the crows. :)

A proper post after I've slept, but for now, randomnity!

Things I saw in Stuttgart that I forgot to mention:
- graffiti tags with written next to them, in English, "follow us on Instagram!"
- much graffiti in English
- many, many t-shirts with English writing on them, some more sensical than others
- black pigeons (they kinda look like chimney sweeps)
- not a single crow. Not ONE. Though we did see some in a field outside the city going OM NOM NOM on some crop or other.
- not a single man with long hair. I'm wondering if this contributes to Fishy's American vibe.

Random things I have seen in Paris:
- graffiti of a fetus (graffetus?)
- loooooooooooots of graffiti. SO MUCH GRAFFITI.
- many t-shirts with English writing on them
- THREE men with long hair besides Fishy! The ratio is improving.
- four crows by the Seine (that's it so far for crows. What gives?)
- the most unfortunate URL ever (I got a pic, but the business name is Mer de Sable. If you don't get it, ask your local French speaker.)
- at least 4, and possibly 5, different branches of law enforcement: gendarmes (their badges said so) with handguns and pepper spray; soldiers in camo with machine guns; RATP (transit police) with dogs; police (their badges said this) making what looked like a traffic stop; and some uniformed gents whose badges said officier de something I cannot now remember and google isn't helping but it was something I'd not seen before.

And now I'm going to bed.

There's a crow with an injured wing outside my office. I first noticed when I saw some fluttering out of the corner of my eye, which is unusual for them, especially right now. (It's nesting season; I've read that they get even quieter when they go to their feeding places, making sure it's safe.)

I saw one crow with a wing badly dragging, and then the two others who were around started harrying it. Not just being noisy (in fact they weren't making much noise at all) but flying at it, dive-bombing it. (I don't think it's a juvenile with adults watching; if it had been, they'd have been scolding a lot, and they'd have been scolding at *me*.) It fluttered under an RV that's parked outside, and they chased it there and kept flying at it.

I didn't know what to do, so I came inside and looked up animal control services. The shelter that will take it won't come get it at all, and I don't have the car today. I was thinking taxi, but animal control will come get it. But they won't come get it unless it's confined; with birds, they won't just send an officer out because it might be gone when they get there.

I've had advice from animal control and from a friend with experience on how to capture it, but it's gone into hiding in the bushes, and it's pretty well ensconced in there. I don't think I could just reach in and drag it out without hurting it worse, so I'm waiting to see if it comes out again. (I'll probably notice because they'll start harrying it again, but I'm also going to the door every so often to look.) I tried to put some food out to lure it, but it's hiding in the hedges where the sparrows live, so the sparrows are just all eating it.

...while I was typing this, I heard cawing, and came out to see. One of the other adults was out there, and the injured one was still in the hedge. My neighbor came out and suggested we try to flush it out of the bushes.

Well... that backfired a lot. It came out and ran up the street (and looking at it again, it might have been a juvenile after all, it wasn't very big); we followed, him trying to flush it out from under cars while I tried to get near enough to throw my coat over it, but it ran too fast and I never got near enough. It ran under thorn bushes in someone's yard, with too much cover for us to try and get to it, and too many escape routes to try and flush it out successfully.

I'm devastated. I know it's silly of me, but... I should have ignored my neighbor's advice, left the crow alone and waited. Now I've driven it out of what was a pretty safe place into what's almost certainly a less safe one (cats couldn't have fit through the opening of the hedges but they can probably get into where it is now) and probably terrified the poor thing to boot. Some crow mama I turned out to be.

Where it is now is near my walk home; I'm wondering whether I should try again, or whether I'll just keep making things worse.

Today's moment of crow hilarity:

One of my office crows comes to ask for food. It's one of the quiet polite ones. I'm starting to recognize a couple by sight; this one has a couple of white patches on its chest.

I toss some wheat thins. It gathers up three in its beak, goes a few steps away, puts them down.

It comes back, gathers up one more, goes back to its pile, puts it on top, picks up all four together. Bwah. Clever, I figure, since it's harder to scoop four up one at a time.

Then it drops those, comes back *again*, scoops up *another two*, and goes and tries to add them to its pile and pick up the whole thing. Unfortunately, SIX wheat thins is a bit too much to pick up all at once, even neatly stacked. It tried for a few times before giving up and settling for four.

It looked a little affronted at how hard I was laughing. ;)

So I accidentally bought multigrain Wheat Thins yesterday instead of regular ones, and didn't notice until I got back to my office. Fortunately I also bought Cheez-Its. (Also peanuts, because I had a coupon and because I figure the new fledglings could use a little protein.)

Today one of the more shy crows came over, and perched up above me on the power line while I was standing in my office doorway talking to Seanan on the phone. I grabbed some of the multigrain Wheat Thins and tossed them in the usual spot, then went inside and shut the door.

The crow did its usual hop-swoosh to the ground, pecked gingerly at the crackers, ate a couple of mouthfuls... and then walked very deliberately all the way up to my office door and peered politely in, beak against the glass.

"UM... THANKS VERY MUCH AND ALL, BUT... HAVE YOU GOT ANYTHING ELSE IN THERE?"

I went and grabbed it a handful of Cheez-Its. I figure it earned them by the way I couldn't stop laughing.

(The Cheez-Its are gone. The multigrain crackers are still there. They'll probably be gone by tomorrow too-- crows will eat anything if they're hungry enough-- but mine are spoiled enough to be finicky.)