Monthly Archives: June 2008

Jun30

Aromatherapy Pillow Spray Doesn’t Counteract Evening Caffeine Consumption

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Aromatherapy Pillow Spray Doesn’t Counteract Evening Caffeine Consumption

Whenever a soda company comes out with a new flavor of soda, I feel inexplicably compelled to try it.  Even if I know it will be disgusting, I still have to try it.  It’s a rule.

I tried Mountain Dew’s new soda yesterday afternoon at 4:00, completely without thinking that 4:00 is four hours after my caffeine cutoff time.

When it was time to go to bed at 10:30, I was exhausted.  I lay down on my Sleep scented pillow and…suddenly became wide awake.

We had previously decided to go into the gym this morning, but when it was 11:30 and I still couldn’t fall asleep, I had informed Joey – rather rudely, I’m ashamed to admit – that I wasn’t going to start my Monday on less than 6 hours of sleep and reset the alarm clocks for 6:30.  (They had been set for 5:20.)

I lay there until midnight, at which time I relocated to the couch so I could toss and turn without bothering Joey too much.

At 12:30 I gave up on the couch and went back to bed.  I was getting mad.  With a capital M.A.D.

Sometime quite a bit after 1:00 I fell asleep.

The alarm woke me up at 6:30 and it was like being pulled out of a dark hole. The M.A.D. that I had been experiencing at 12:30 had grown disproportionately into a “wrong side of the bed bad attitude hurricane”.

“I’m going to just sleep until 9 and leave by 9:30…” I told Joey.

“How am I going to get in?” He asked.

“Ride your bike,” I mumbled.

“I have to be there by 7:45 though…” he said, “So I can get 10 hours a day for the next 3 days…so we can go to Chicago.”

I shot out of bed.  I stormed around the room turning off my alarm clock, fan and whatever else I felt like turning off at the moment.  I was walking so quickly and stomping so hard (poor Downstairs Neighbor) that, as I plowed through the bedroom door, my foot slipped on the carpet and I totally almost wiped out.

I wanted to laugh so bad.  So bad.  But it was impossible for me because I was being the “wrong side of the bed bad attitude hurricane”, and that stunk.  Unfortunately, I decided to keep having a bad attitude, so I made an extraordinary amount of noise while I got ready in record time.

At 7:15, we were heading out the door.

At 8:15 I was still mad about waking up.

At 9:15 I finally got some breakfast and some coffee.  Still mad.

At 10:15 I was starting to wear an expression on my face that didn’t look like “wrong side of the bed bad attitude hurricane”.

At 11:15 I was getting over it.

At 12:15 I was eating lunch and feeling sane and normal again.

At 1:15 I decided to apologize to Joey for my horrendous, inappropriate, unsavory and juvenile behavior.

I am still trying to come up with, like, the best apology ever.  I already told him I was planning one but I haven’t gotten all the details worked out yet.  I still have three hours, though.

I am rather astonished by my response to waking up this morning, though.  I can think of about twenty different (and better!) ways for me to have handled my bad attitude than stomping around the house and making life miserable for everyone just because I didn’t really want to get up.

Yick, I’m such a sinner.  And I’m thankful for grace.  (Both God’s and Joey’s in this case.)

Jun30

Canoe Olympics

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Canoe Olympics

I am an unabashed Olympics junkie.  We’ve never even had a TV, but for the Salt Lake City games in 2006 we borrowed one from Joey’s parents and set it on the floor of our little living room in Iowa and watched Olympics from 5:00 – 10:00 every evening for two weeks.

It was delicious.

We happily returned the TV after Closing Ceremonies (yes, I watch all of the Opening and Closing ceremonies and I love every minute of it, that’s how far it has gotten) and I immediately began worrying about what I would do for the 2008 games.  And at that time, I didn’t even know we’d be moving to Texas and extremely far away from the in-law’s extra TV.

But Houston, we have a problem.

Guess when the Olympics are this year?  August 8-24.  Guess when Jenna is going to Boundary Waters and will be completely off the grid for one entire week?  Yeah, pretty much August 9-17.  This means I see the Opening Ceremonies somehow in Texas, maybe catch an couple hours of it in some hotel in Cloquet, MN on Saturday night, and then I am completely out of it until Sunday the 17th.

HOLY COWS!!!

I am already stressing out.

I have been for, like, two months.

I told you it was bad.

So since I’m super addicted and nerdy, I have already put the offical NBC Olympics website on my little quick-likes favorites bar on the ‘Fox, so I can check it neurotically throughout the day.  (Not like anything’s happening yet, except Olympic trials which are still very cool, but they have this little countdown clock on the top left of the page…)

Anyway.  I remembered today that they have Canoe/Kayak as an Olympic event.

Um – awesome!  I’ll be canoeing for a whole week!

So I think I’ll make up my own Olympics and force my siblings, and potentially my parents, to play them with me.  I’m currently trying to think up events.

Pops informed me that we’re getting ultralight canoes this year (apparently he’s getting soft…he used to make us get Alumacraft every year because ultralights are more expensive to rent), so my favorite idea of having a contest to see who could swamp their canoe and then bail it out it the fastest — while remaining in the canoe –  got nixed.   Also my second favorite of rowing out into the middle of the lake solo and standing up in the canoe while hopping on one leg the longest amount of time before falling in the lake also got nixed.

Lame.

So I’m currently working on relay ideas for ultralight canoes.

I’ve come up with a couple…they’re not as funny as jumping in the canoe, though.

  1. Fastest time while paddling solo (a set distance)
  2. Fastest time team paddling a set distance using improvised paddles made from whatever you can scrounge up from the woods or around cam
  3. Fastest time team paddling a set distance out in the lake, turning around in your seat and then paddling the canoe back to camp…backwards.

That’s all I can come up with.  I probably need my sibs to help me.

I think I’ve got “medals” figured out though.  Mom got us some gourmet hot drinks in individual packets and put them in our stockings a couple years ago, and I think they are in sort of metallic packages.  A couple gold, silver and bronze ones would do the trick and keep Pops happy because they wouldn’t be dead weight.

So we’ll see if Canoe Olympics really materializes.  I kind of hope it does…I really want to see Pops try to paddle a canoe backwards.

Jun27

D.O.U.G.L.A.S.

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D.O.U.G.L.A.S.

OK, I promise you this is all related.

Last night I had two voicemails.  One from Dad, one from Grams.  The one from dad was entirely confusing, but it told me to call Grams, so I did.

Grandma had quite the little story.

Yesterday she was waiting in the lobby of a building waiting for a pouring rainstorm to let up.  She stood there by the door with a gentleman, a salesman of some sort, and struck up a conversation with him.  They started with rain and moved to the flooding in Iowa.  Cedar Rapids, specifically.

“My son’s office was destroyed by the flooding,” Grandma said.

“Oh, that’s terrible,” said the salesman.

“Yes, he took some pictures of his office after the flood waters abated, and then my granddaughter (that’s me, folks) put them on CNN‘s website.”

The salesman paused.  “iReport?” he asked

“Yes…” Grandma said.

“OH!”  He cried, “I look at those pictures every day!  I sit there and I feel so sorry for that man who lost his office, and I wonder how he’s doing!”

Grandma was shocked.

“And now I can go back to my office and tell all my co-workers that I met his mother!” He gushed.

Wow.  Wonders never cease.  They seriously never do.

Anyway, Grandma was able to assure the strangely fixated salesman that Pops was OK.  I’m not sure if he’ll continue to look at the pictures every day now or not, but it seems kind of odd to me.

I promised you that this post was related, though.

So in the flood, Dad lost this photo collage that we kids made for him several years ago.  We ran around Des Moines, the kids ran around their respective towns, and we all took pictures of signs which had the word “Douglas” on them.  Joey photo-shopped them all together and we gave it to Dad for either Father’s Day or his birthday, I forget which.

The “Douglas” got left on the wall in Dad’s office because original estimates said there would be 2 feet of water, max, that got inside the building.  When he woke up the next morning to find 5 or 6 feet of water, it was too late for the “Douglas”.

Immediately, we sibs went into action.  We knew we’d have to recreate the “Douglas”.

Joey and I had deleted all of our pics from the first “Douglas” last month, of course, and we frantically searched our backup hard drive.  Fortunately, they were there.

Andrew had the great idea to assign each of us kids a letter of Dad’s name (since there are seven of us now!) and to somehow figure out how to make that letter with our bodies.

Joey and I went to Michael’s and found photo cubes that we thought would work perfectly for the new and improved D.O.U.G.L.A.S.  We bought seven.

The front face of each cube would be the letter made by us kids.

(Joey & I, Laura, Stephen, Joey & I, The Kid, Sister & Stephen, Brother)

Seven signs with “Douglas” on them.  (OK, the Pepsi one was a photo-shop special done by Andrew.)

One side had a picture of each of us couples.

(Joey & I, Andrew & Laura, AshleyNicole & Stephen, Me & Joey, The Kid & Caitlin, AshleyNicole & Stephen and Andrew & Laura)

Another side had (mostly) individual shots of us kids.

(Joey, Laura, Stephen, Me, The Kid, Sister, and Brother…with The Kid looking snidely on.)

More Douglas signs to boost Dad’s self-image.

And more pictures of his monsters.

(Joey, Laura, Stephen, Me, The Kid, Sister and Brother)

The package arrived last night.  Mom hid it until the evening, at which time Pops tore the wrapping paper off and discovered his new and improved D.O.U.G.L.A.S.

Poor Dad still doesn’t have much of an office, so nowhere really to put his new D.O.U.G.L.A.S., but someday he will.  And when he does, he has something for his wall.

Take that, Great and Evil Flood of 2008!

Jun27

Goin’ to the chapel…gonna get married

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Goin’ to the chapel…gonna get married

So something romantic happened to me last night.

Joey picked me up at 5ish like normal, but when I got in the car instead of hearing NPR, I heard something different.  Something…vaguely familiar.  I couldn’t place it.

“What is this?” I asked him.

“The radio,” he totally lied.

“Is not either, the CD player is working.  I can see that it is,” I protested.

“Oh.  Well, it’s…” he paused long enough for me to hear Pastor Steve say, “We are gathered here today in the sight of God to unite Joey and Jenna…”

“OH MY GOSH!  How did you get our wedding on CD?” I squealed.

Apparently he’d asked Danny to do it at work for “practice” or something.  Anyway, we listened to it all the way home.  We heard Sister and Brother sing “O the Deep Deep Love of Jesus” and Mr. Goodwin play something…I forget what…and got as far as the Bridal March before we made it home.

We decided to leave the CD in the car and listen to it while we drive around for a little while.  This morning we heard Pastor Steve’s wedding challenge and, honestly, it was completely new to me because I don’t remember any of it from the wedding.  However, three years later it’s super challenging and extremely helpful.  He focused mainly on our future ministry and marriage, balancing the two, and being a “Mary” instead of a “Martha”.

For those of you not entirely familiar with the Mary and Martha story, Mary was the sister who sat at Jesus’ feet and desired closeness with him.  Martha was the one in the kitchen who was more worried about “serving” and getting a good dinner on the table and got so caught up in her business that she neglected her relationship with Him.

I think I tend to be a Martha and I’m not even an official pastor’s wife yet.

Anyway, what a great thing to have to meditate on this morning!  I love that Joey put our wedding on a CD, I think that was the sweetest thing ever.  And an excellent byproduct was the reminder and wisdom we got from Pastor Steve on the way in.  It means a whole lot more now that I’m not all dizzy-brained over the fact that “I AM GETTING MARRIED TODAY!!”  Good stuff, Pastor Steve.  Thanks.

And I love Joey a ridiculous amount.

Jun27

Girly girl Jenna

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Girly girl Jenna

I love dresses.  I like pretty, girly dresses with gauzy, flowy skirts.  Fortunately for me, Joey likes to buy me dresses too.  (Muahahaha)  After college there was definitely a several year time period where I flatly refused to wear dresses, stockings, or anything even remotely associated with them.  I have since, however, grown out of that and appreciate a good dress or skirt on a regular basis.  I think they’re fun.

If I could pick an era to transplant myself into, it would either be 1875 (on the Iowa prairie…I used to be a historical interpreter at Living History Farms in DSM and it was awesome) or the 1950s.  I would kick June Cleaver’s butt.

Seriously, I love the 50s.  I think it sounds positively delightful to wear cutie little dresses and heels while vacuuming my carpet, baking cookies, and wearing a girly apron.  I would totally be That Mom.

But back to 2008.

Joey and I rode our bikes to NorthPark, locked them up outside of Dillard’s and went in to the Gap.  I told him how Laura first thought I took Thunder into the mall last time I rode over, and we both had a good laugh envisioning ourselves wheeling our bikes past the Clinique counter and through the mall.

Surprisingly, we ran into Danny and Laura while in the Gap.  We blocked traffic for a few minutes while we chatted. (This lady pushing a double stroller gave me the filthiest look, although I’m not sure why she thought that if she pushed her stroller right up behind us –  we were not facing her, mind you — that we’d somehow sense her presence and move.  In any case, I let this one roll.)

I then showed Joey the dress that I remembered being very cute when I tried it on.  He looked at it kind of uncertainly.

“Trust me,” I told him.

“Okfine,” he replied.

On the way to the dressing room, he got sidetracked. “Who cares about that dress, I want to buy you this dress!”  He pulled this gray, billowy, strapless dress off the rack.  It was super cute.  And not on sale.

“You cannot buy me that dress, now come see what these look like.”  I pulled him into the dressing room, but not before we had snagged the gray dress to try on “just in case”.

The original green dress looked horrible.

Like a sack of potatoes.

“You, um…it doesn’t really…I can’t….” he fumbled.

“I know,” I said.  “It looks like…well, it looks bad.”  I turned around and looked at it from a different angle, “I don’t really remember it looking so shapeless,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, try on the other size,” Joey suggested.

The other size was worse, if you can believe it.

“OK, now try the gray one,” he prompted.

I tried the gray one.  It was irritatingly pretty and flowy, and girly, and just about everything that is right with a summer dress.  It even had several flowers on it.  Not floral print, mind you, but several flowers.  This is important – Jenna does not wear floral print dresses.

“I want to buy you that dress,” Joey said, proudly.

“Why are we always buying me clothes?” I wailed.  I mean, I like it but I get seminary-wife-guilt whenever we spend money.  It’s annoying.

Joey explained his rationale, which seemed questionable, but we exited the dressing rooms carrying the gray dress and the cardie.  The cardie was way too big and they didn’t have my size anywhere in the store.  Except…

“Can you pull that mannequin down?” Joey asked a salesdude.

The one on the mannequin was the correct size.  AND it had a hole in it.  A hole which was easily fixable.

“Thirty percent off, but you can’t return,” said salesdude.

Done.

We walked up to the register, paid for the dress and cardie, and exited the Gap.  I went home and fixed the hole in my discounted cardie, Joey finished memorizing his verse (which he said spot-on last night before we went to bed – yay honey!) and we took Henry for a walk.

I have been talking in my sleep lately.  Three times in the last two nights.  Last evening I said:

“I can’t wait to wake up because then I can wear my new dress”

and sometime after 2:00 I said, frantically,

“No one will go to your websites, Joey, because no one knows their addresses!”

(But I’ll post about his Web Dominance later.  There’s really nothing to say about it yet because it is as you have just read:  two websites purchased with nothing yet on them.  Boring.  Lame.)

Jun26

Be Flexible?!

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Be Flexible?!

We were going to see Wall-E with Cuz and a bunch of Joey’s coworkers on Friday night.  It was going to be a big party.  Then everybody got cheap and decided we ought to go on Saturday morning and get matinee prices.

“This better not require me to get up early,” I told Joey firmly, when he asked me what I thought about the time change.  “And I don’t want to take a shower.”

My rule on Saturdays: no hairdryer.  (I have about a million rules, but my favorite two are Pepsi Wednesdays and No Hairdryer Saturdays.)

Since I’m not really one of Joey’s coworkers (I’m just the backup hard drive, tee-hee) my vote is worth like 0.25; we’re seeing the movie on Saturday morning at 11.

“You’ll probably have to get up at, like 9:00,” Joey informed me last evening.

I glared at him.  No matter that I’ll probably already be up at 9:00, but I hate having a schedule on Saturday mornings.  OK, fine, a schedule beyond my own nit-picky one where I clean like a madwoman and then ride Thunder to do errands and hit the grocery store befoer it gets too hot.

“Looks like you’re going to have to be flexible,” he goaded me.

“I hate being flexible on Saturdays,” I grumbled.

“But the good news is that after Wall-E, Ryan and I want to go to Panera to set up our Web Domaniance and you and Jocelyn can go to the mall and shop or something.”  (Joey’s Web Dominance is an entirely different post for another day.)

It’s true, that would be fun.  Although those boys can probably spend more time on their Web Dominance than we girls can enjoy ourselves at the mall.

Since Joey has a bunch of junk to finish for this summer class and it’s due tomorrow night, it’s possible that we could just shift everything around and do date night as a group date morning on Saturday and I’ll clean the house while he’s finishing up his homework.  If I get the house cleaned tomorrow night, I can take Thunder to the store on Saturday morning and be done with everything by movie time.  And if I stall long enough, I can “run out of time” to take a shower.  Muahahahaaaaa.  Although if I ride Thunder around, that might be really rude of me to not shower first…nuts.

Jun26

Wednesday Night

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Wednesday Night

Last night, as planned, I rode Thunder over to the mall to see if there was any of that Sleep Aromatherapy pillow spray left and on sale.

First of all, I have to say that I felt like a complete and total idiot riding my bicycle around in the parking lots at NorthPark.  That place is set up for snobby valets, not for cycling…I pretty much almost got hit by two cars at the same time, which was kind of awkward.

Anyway, I finally found a place to lock up Thunder. After analyzing the situation very carefully – there are no bike racks anywhere at that mall – I decided to lock my bike up outside of Dillard’s.  This seemed the safest, least-likely-to-be-stolen location because people who park on the ramp outside of Dillard’s normally seemed to me to be less likely to be the kind of person to steal Thunder.

I have no scientific data to back up my hypothesis.

I chained my bike up and walked into Dillard’s wearing my blue plaid bermudas and pink panda shirt.  (I know, I know, you’re judging me because you don’t think my outfit matched.  But it was my panda shirt, so that makes matching null and void.)  There was a squat, plumpish, well-dressed man standing near the door who appeared to be waiting for someone.  He looked irritated.  I walked by on the other side.

Joey wasn’t with me – he was studying (poke my eye out) – so I browsed through the Gap for awhile before going into Bath and Body Works and I found this little sundress that I liked.  I tried it on a month ago before it was on sale like it is now, and the price looks much better to me now than it did then.  I left it on the rack because I didn’t need it and went across the way to look for the pillow spray. (I told Joey of this sundress when I got home and he said, “OH!  Why didn’t you buy it?”.  I can’t win.)

I got the one of the last Sleep pillow sprays in the store.  Pleased with myself, I browsed around a little more to kill some time before going home.  (Joey studies better when I’m not home saying “are you done yet?”, etc.)  I found this candle I’ve been wanting for awhile, the RealEssence Dancing Waters one…mmmm, smells so fresh!, and it was on sale: buy one get one free.   Maybe if I bought one for me and one for Sister I could justify it?

I called Sister.  “Can you have candles in your apartment?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

Dang.

I put the candles back.  Sadly.

I left the store shortly thereafter so as not to talk myself back into the candle which, honestly, I don’t need I just want, and made my way back to Thunder.

The squat, plumpy man was still standing outside Dillards 35 minutes later.  He looked even more irritated now than he had when I first went in, and I was extremely glad that I was not the one who was supposed to be picking him up.

Thunder was right where I’d left him, so I undid the lock, put everything in my panniers and hopped on just as some major thunder rolled over head and the wind kicked up into stiff gusts.  The ride home took me about twice as long as it took to get there (it’s only a mile) because of the stupid wind.

Joey had finished the last of his collateral reading for his Sanctification and Ecclesiology class right before I got home.  So, to celebrate, we went on a walk while he reviewed the passages he had to memorize (for the same class, by tomorrow…and they’re definitely not memorized yet.  But they will be.)

And, for the record, that Sleep pillow spray works super well.

Jun25

The Mean Call

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The Mean Call

Last night I was getting ready to flop on the couch to read when my cell phone rang.  It was not a number I recognized, but it was a local one, so I flipped it open and said, “This is Jenna”

“Jenna you are a blankety-blank and a blankety-blank,” the male caller said.  The connection was fuzzy and distorted but the voice seemed oddly familiar.  (Although it’s hard to know what’s familiar when a connection is full of static.)

“Excuse me?” I asked, incredulously.

Click. The line was abruptly disconnected.

I stood there, staring at my phone.  I had never been called either of the blankety-blanks before.

“Joey, someone just called me –” I repeated the words the caller had used.  Joey’s eyes got real big and he reached for the phone, pressing redial.

The phone rang for several long moments and I stood by the door, still traumatized.  I heard data tones faintly from my cell phone, and Joey closed the phone.

“Someone was calling from the internets,” he said.

“Loser…” I mumbled.

We determined that someone must have been just dialing numbers and cussing out the people who answered and then hanging up.  I saved the number in my cell phone as “mean number” so, just in case, I can bawl them out if they call back again.

I went back to the couch and immediately called The Kid.

“Kid someone just called me two bad names,” I whined.

“What were they,” he asked.  I told him.  “HOLY COW,” he said.  (I think he had been expecting me to say something like “fatso” or “loserface” – stuff he calls me all the time, mind you -and not legitimate bad names.)

I told him our theory and he concurred.  Once I hung up with The Kid I redialed the number again, one last time, and got the data tones again.  I glared at my phone and set it down.

So today I did a reverse lookup on the phone number.  It came up in the directory and showed up as a business, but I’d have to pay $5 to find out any more information.  I’ll have to go home and ask Joey if he thinks it’s worth it to pay good money to be figure out the identity of the rude caller.

I haven’t hurt from Mr. Bad Manners again since yesterday evening, but I promise you that if I do I’ll wash his mouth out with soap before I hog-tie him around a porcupine that’s running down a hill that’s covered in sand burrs.

Wait, that’s not very sanctified of me, is it.  I think I’ll have to re-evaluate that emotional response.

Jun25

Aromatherapy

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Aromatherapy

Last week, Joey and I went to Bath and Body Works to pick something up, and discovered that most of the store was extremely on sale, including the item we went in to get.  (When I say “we” I mean that I needed to get something and Joey came in with me because he’s a good sport.)  I grabbed my $5 item and noticed Joey standing in front of a display of Aromatherapy pillow sprays.

“We should get one of these to try.  They’re only $5,” he said.

“OK,” I told him.  I’d secretly been wanting one for awhile but wasn’t about to fork over the moolah required to buy one at full price.

“I know you’ve been wanting one of these, you just wouldn’t buy one,” Joey read my mind.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

The pillow spray we really wanted (Sleep) was sold out, so we got the Relaxation one instead.  We immediately went home and I sprayed our pillows down so they’d be lightly scented and dry by the time we went to bed.

I sometimes have problems falling asleep and I’ll lay there and count sheep, goats, say the ABCs hundreds of times, try to count to 1,000 (I succeeded once and was so mad that I was still awake when I got to 1,000…I cannot even tell you) and the first couple of weeks of June were no exception.

However.

Since purchasing this ridiculous pillow spray, both Joey and I have slept like logs, and have fallen asleep quickly, too.  We both randomly said so at the same time yesterday evening.

“Have you been sleeping really hard lately?” Joey asked me.

“YES, it’s weirding me out!” I said.  “I have been falling asleep really fast, too…”

“We should go buy the Sleep one and try it,” Joey said.

I might go back tonight and check to see if they’re still on sale.  I seriously hate to pay full price for anything, even if it does help me sleep.

Jun25

Three Amigos

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Three Amigos

Cuz came over last night.  The plan was to walk to Baskin Robbins (to burn calories), consume ice cream, and walk back home (to burn calories).

Once Cuz arrived, Joey suggested that he and I ride our bikes and Cuz take the unicycle (yes, we have a unicycle and no, I can’t ride it because I can’t reach the pedals when I sit on the seat — it’s Joey’s) but Cuz actually happened to have his own unicycle in his car.

So off we went.  Joey, Cuz, Thunder and me riding through parking lots to get to Baskin Robbins.  We got lots and lots of strange looks, probably because none of us were wearing helmets.

We each got something (and one of the somethings was free – we had a buy one, get one coupon) and sat outside with our bikes/unicycle to eat our rapidly melting ice cream.  We discussed and solved pretty much all of the world’s problems in the 30 minutes we sat there, and if anyone would take our advice I’m sure the world would be a much better place.

A glance at Cuz’s watch, though, told us we’d better head back home.  So we hopped on our bikes/unicycle and began pedaling home.

“STOP!” Cuz yelled, a few minutes later.  “There was a baby bird in the road back there.”  So we all pedaled back to the spot where the baby bird was laying in the road on his featherless back.  He was freshly hatched and still blind.  His little birdy tongue was flipping in and out of his beak.

“Ohhhh….” I whispered, looking at the poor thing.

Cuz glanced around quickly, trying to determine where the bird came from.  There were no nests, or anywhere a nest could possibly be built, within a reasonable distance.

We all looked sadly at the baby bird lying in the middle of the street.  (And we were totally blocking traffic this whole time, too.)  We knew we couldn’t just leave him there to be squished by a car, but we couldn’t very well put him back in his nest, either.  First of all, there was no nest to be found…and second of all, he was suffering and pretty much a goner.  It was hot last night.

Cuz gently scooped the birdy up and placed him on the side of the street.  “You probably want to leave now, Jenna,” he told me.

I rode my bike away as fast as possible.

Shortly, Cuz and Joey came riding over to me.

“It’s taken care of,” Joey assured me.  He then proceeded to ride his bike straight at me off a curb and then fall on the ground.

“OH!  I’m so sorry, was that my fault?” I gasped as Joey picked himself and his bike up.

“No, I really should know better than to ride my bike straight at you off a curb.  I really thought you’d move.”  He dusted off his hands, one of them was bleeding.

“I didn’t think you were really going to keep coming at me,” I said.  He’s right, I probably should have moved.

Later that evening, after Cuz was on his merry way (but we’re going to see him again on Friday), I asked, “So…how did you guys take care of that poor birdy?”

“Well, Cuz did it.  I couldn’t have done it.  But he did it very quick and painlessly.  Quite humane,” he assured me.

More humane than leaving the poor, featherless baby in the middle of the street, that’s for sure.

We always like hanging out with Cuz.  We’ll miss him when he moves to Indonesia in December, but until then we’ll continue causing trouble and solving problems over ice cream.  Hopefully next time he comes over we don’t have to euthanize a baby bird.