As I was driving the little girls to school today, a bird came out of nowhere and suicide bombed my car. It was all like "Cash me ousside" and I was all like "Go home, Robin Redbreast. We ARE outside. You're drunk." I managed to not hit the stupid thing, but it made me think of other encounters I have had with birds.
Once, when I was a lowly undergrad intern at a chemical dependency treatment center for women, I had to get out to a 5K fundraiser to work at like 5 AM, somewhere on the east side of Cleveland. Now, I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, and I have the navigational capabilities of a deaf drunk bat. T his was also circa 1999, way before GPS's, smart phones, hell, even cell phones weren't so much a thing then.
Naturally I got lost. I am a very definite West Side girl here (and people from Cleveland will probably be the only ones who appreciate this...) so I was firmly convinced that I was going to die because that is what happens on the East Side. In fact, when I stopped at the gas station to get directions, the clerk looked at this young little white girl and gave me very clear directions as to how to get the hell outta dodge and instructions to not stop again. Later found out after the fact that I was in one of the worst sections of Cleveland. Alone. At 5 AM. Yeah.
Anyways, I finally get to the 5K and there is a dead bird inside the grill of my car. Just casually hanging there from it's wing, like "Heeeeyyy, wazzup?", all waiting for the par-tay to get started. Except for the whole being dead thing. And being a bird. I don't think birds party all that much, to be honest. They seem kinda lame.
Fast forward about 8 years...very different life. I'm married, two kids, and in grad school. I make the god awful 90 minute drive to the University of Akron several times a week. I do now have a cell phone, so I am talking to my husband on the phone when a bird literally drops out of the sky on my windshield. Dead as a door nail. For some reason, my first thought was to turn on the windshield wipers, but before I could even do that, it got blown off my car as I was going 60 MPH. I was left there like, "Uhhhhh...."
Again,a bout another 5 years...I'm at work in a mental health agency. There is a cardinal that keeps running into my window. Over and over again. I name it Insanity because it seemed fitting and I like to think I am a clever lass. I tried everything to get that stupid thing to stop...partially out of concern that it would hurt itself, partially because I was afraid I would have a paranoid person in my office (well, besides myself, of course) and they would lose it.
Different times in my life. Different circumstances. The nebulous "they" say that the only constant is change, and I can certainly believe that. I've had a lot change in the last 6 months or so, and I am about to have even more change. I'm going to be stepping outside of my comfort zone in a big way, a way that will impact my family. It is simultaneously terrifying and exciting and anxiety provoking in a way I have not had anxiety provoked in a long time.
Yes, change is coming whether I like it or not. I certainly could do without the birds though. They are kinda creepy and I am not convinced they do not have dubious intent of some sort.
