I reserve the right to not use my time wisely

I think I sewed myself out.  I have no motivation to plug in the ol' girl and get going.  I am very close to the finish line of my to-do list, but I can't get that last boost to officially cross it.  I think I have that feeling Holly Golightly called the "mean reds" but not as severe--maybe more of a pinkish hue.  I felt terribly unproductive at work today, but I know I did things because of all the check-marks on my list.  After work I decided to finish the book I've been reading (I won't be making detective today--totally surprise ending on this one; never would have figured it out in a million years), watch some TV, and call it a day.

So as I'm sitting on the porch on the wicker loveseat, I feel this...vibration and immediately I'm alert and thinking "What in tarnation is under the porch?"  Out of the corner of my eye I see movement--and it's a bird hopping across the floor.  I couldn't tell if it was a baby or hurt, because it couldn't fly.  When I stood up it hopped away more quickly and fluttered a bit and disappeared. Ok, I thought. That's that.  Sit back down. Open the book, and now I'm distracted by about half a dozen birds acting frantic.  They're sitting on the  phone wire and chirping as loud as they can; one flies away and another comes in; two fly away and come back to chat with the others, the whole time just chirping loudly like they're trying to warn all of the birds in the area that there's some danger.

Now, we have five cats. Actually, my neighbor across the street has five cats; they just think they live at our house (and that our house is a brothel).   In the past week we've come across three dead birds either in the yard or on the sidewalk out front.  So now I'm thinking that the cat killed the injured bird and the others are freaking out. So bravely I go inside and look out the front window and see a cat sitting on the front step.  I boldly go and....get my mother and get her to come with me.  The cat runs away, leaving us to discover the injured bird in the window well, petrified (not literally -  but it was so scared its feathers were standing on end) and trying not to move.  My mother managed to get the bird out, and we watched it hop-hop-hop-fall for a few minutes.  Neither of us knew quite what to do.  I tried to get it on a broom so I could lift it into a tree at the very least.  She ended up ushering it into another neighbor's yard that has a lot of shorter trees and shrubs where this bird might hide out until its mother can help it.  So now it's going to really bug me if I leave for work tomorrow and meet this bird after it has shuffled off its mortal coil.  My sisters and I (many years ago) spent so much time helping an injured bird out of a window well when a neighborhood cat on the prowl ran by and took care of it. It was the most traumatic thing ever.  Nature really bugs me in this regard.

But the part that's interesting? How these birds just sat there and chirped and chirped and chirped, like they're telling the injured one "Don't move. Don't blink. He can't get you down there. Just stay where you are.  An overly curious girl lives here and surely she's going to wonder what the noise is about soon.  She's not fond of her neighbor's cats so surely she'll chase it away.  Just stay calm."  So I'm hoping that little guy is safe somewhere for the night, and that the cat found something much more interesting. Somewhere else.