Thursday, August 17, 2006
LITTLE BIRDS
My wife is in the unenviable position of working for three bosses. Essentially, they share the cost of her job among their individual cost centers. The saving grace is that the one boss she sees the most is really cool. When this boss started working from home, she had my wife move into her former office. This is especially nice because it’s large and has a window.
The window has a tree just outside it, and to improve the view as it were, my wife hung a bird feeder on it. Now she enjoys a constant show of finches and grackles all day, with the occasional Blue Jay, Cardinal, Goldfinch, and some white finch-like bird we haven’t yet been able to identify. She has taken to filling the feeder daily; when she doesn’t, the birds perch on her windowsill and stare at her mercilessly. Not much of an extortion technique, I guess, but she tells me it’s pretty effective. I’m amazed at how much seed they go through in a day. She fills it up when she arrives in the morning, and it’s empty by the time we leave. This morning, one of the birds was perched on a car in the parking lot as we pulled up, obviously waiting for the feeder to be filled.
I commented on how the birds were stuffing themselves, and my wife said that they had to get fat for the winter, which is SIX months away!
I pretended to be the bird and said, “Well, you know the story of the grasshopper and the ant don’t you? There was a grasshopper and an ant and I ate ‘em both. I love that story.”
“Got any food?” my wife chirped.
My wife is in the unenviable position of working for three bosses. Essentially, they share the cost of her job among their individual cost centers. The saving grace is that the one boss she sees the most is really cool. When this boss started working from home, she had my wife move into her former office. This is especially nice because it’s large and has a window.
The window has a tree just outside it, and to improve the view as it were, my wife hung a bird feeder on it. Now she enjoys a constant show of finches and grackles all day, with the occasional Blue Jay, Cardinal, Goldfinch, and some white finch-like bird we haven’t yet been able to identify. She has taken to filling the feeder daily; when she doesn’t, the birds perch on her windowsill and stare at her mercilessly. Not much of an extortion technique, I guess, but she tells me it’s pretty effective. I’m amazed at how much seed they go through in a day. She fills it up when she arrives in the morning, and it’s empty by the time we leave. This morning, one of the birds was perched on a car in the parking lot as we pulled up, obviously waiting for the feeder to be filled.
I commented on how the birds were stuffing themselves, and my wife said that they had to get fat for the winter, which is SIX months away!
I pretended to be the bird and said, “Well, you know the story of the grasshopper and the ant don’t you? There was a grasshopper and an ant and I ate ‘em both. I love that story.”
“Got any food?” my wife chirped.
# posted by Renfield @ 11:48 AM 
