New babies on the way!

We left the sparrow's nest from last year up, hoping that they would come back and reuse it. We were surprised to see what we think is a robin taking residence. She added to it--it's definitely bigger this year. This is all we've been able to see of her so far. The head and tail look like a robin, but she looks to be on the small side, which is why I'm not 100% sure. I don't want to bother her, though, so we'll just have to wait. I'm sure we'll see her full body soon enough. I took this shot from quite far away--having a great zoom is very helpful at times like this. We haven't heard any peeping sounds, and the babies are usually quite loud, so we're pretty sure nobody has hatched yet. We will continue to put food on the ground near her nest, so she can eat well without working too much. We so love to watch all of our spring babies!

This week has continued to be stressful and busy and full of animal placements. We had to find immediate placement for 2 dogs and 3 cats by this morning. Shockingly, we actually did what we thought would be impossible! Allegrea has made so many helpful contacts through her AR MySpace. These people stepped up and helped, and two of the animal placements are in Rockford and Chicago . Once again it’s apparent that many of our local acquaintances—as people like this could not be called friends—prove unwilling to house more than the one dog or one cat in their huge homes with yards. God forbid they put themselves out with an additional responsibility. These people repeatedly show us that they would rather see an animal die or become absorbed into our already crowded and less than ideal circumstances, than make even the tiniest of sacrifices. When I am leaning toward my agnostic side of the fence, I can console myself by thinking that justice will be served in the end somehow. Benign neglect is no less evil than abuse. When I lean toward my atheistic side of the fence, I get really pissed off thinking that there may not be justice for the very selfish masses.

Time spent with my very sweet and entertaining Luciana as well as with my furred and feathered babies has helped my pain slowly cede into the background. It’s far from gone, and I’m still not able to talk about the horrible things that happened that Saturday night and beyond, thanks in part to the cruel and dishonest JPD.

L. had her friend Emily stay overnight on Friday. Emily is such a sweet little girl! They used to be our neighbors, and we still miss them over two years after they’ve moved. The girls had lots of fun together as always.

Poor Dej got a horrible cold virus and was home sick Thursday and Friday. She even had to miss work, which bummed her out a lot, as that’s lost money. She returned to school yesterday, but is still far from over this virus. We’re hoping that the rest of us can stay healthy and don’t catch it.

I'm taking an online seminar in .NET power debugging today and tomorrow. It makes for long days. I'm not good at just sitting and listening for hours on end. I know-it sounds too exciting for words and you wish you could join me. ;P Anyway, Dej called me while I was in the class today, so I stepped out to call her back to see why she was calling during the school day. She told me that she just ran over her cell phone with her car. She had dropped it out of her pocket and didn't notice, until she had driven over it. The screen is smashed and there's no display, but the phone still works. That child has a knack for breaking and/or losing everything she owns of value! Good thing I never got around to cancelling the insurance plan we put on her cell phone.

L. has heard the term, “smoke weed”. She has a teenage sister and a world full of our very diverse activists, and we tend to have a lot of political conversations (drug laws, penalties, policies, etc.). She hears everything. However, this particular phrase, she has always heard as “smoke wheat”. She thinks that there are people who actually smoke wheat. We don't correct her, because it's so innocent and precious (and funny!). She drew a picture once, when she was really mad at D., portraying D. as a very ugly, evil looking girl with a piece of wheat hanging out of her mouth. She asked me Sunday if people smoke flour. I said not that I know of. She said that when she grew up she wouldn't smoke wheat, but she should smoke flour, and then she proceeded to giggle her ass off as if it were the funniest thing in the world. Her giggle is so infectious, that I couldn't help laughing.