Pickety Packbawkies

I had another paper bag fire, last night. It was the stove's fault. I lit one element, and the other three flared to life. Each element had a bag sitting on it. It was quite the conflagration. Maybe I shouldn't keep bags on the stove. At any rate, the flames were soon extinguished: I beat them to death with a Swiffer. Five minutes later, the smoke detector went off. Very efficient.

In other news, the birds have found the latches for the cage doors. They're not strong enough to work them, but they pick, pick, pick all day. A person could go batty, listening to that. To make matters worse, the vet told me to stop putting a sheet over them at night (they were panicking in the dark, and crashing around all over the place), so they pick through the wee hours, as well. They go to sleep around eleven-thirty, wake up briefly between two and three, then get up for the day at four. It seems to suit them, the new schedule. They look pretty chipper. They chatter all the time.

Miss White's markings have changed. Irregular grey stripes have crept up over her head. Furthermore, she seems to have dumped Miss Blue in favour of Mr. Snagglebeak. Miss Blue has been chumming around with Mr. Yellow. It's like a soap opera, in there.

Out here, things are rather less sudsy. Work and I are still going steady. We're thinking of tying the knot. We're the picture of domestic stability.

I once went to a school built atop a long, grassy slope. On a day with clouds and wind, you could stand at the edge of the property, and watch alternating waves of light and shadow sweep down the hill. I can't remember whether there was any appreciable chill, when the shadows came over you. They were there and gone in an instant.

At the same school, there was a tree with giant roots. One day, a man on a bicycle crashed into one of those roots, and died. No--that can't be right. Maybe he was on a motorbike, or even a snowmobile. Maybe it wasn't the tree that got him, but the fence. And maybe it happened in the next-door parking lot. Well, someone was killed somewhere, after bumping into something, conveyed by some sort of vehicle. His (or her) blood was on the snow, or possibly in the sand. We all went to look at it. (That wasn't a very good story, was it?)