Thursday, June 4, 2009

This Could Only Happen to a Romance Writer...

Before I forget, I want to say HELLO to Dan's cousin Jerry and his wife who told me when I was recently in Indiana that they are big fans of the blog and read it regularly. Thanks guys, but I think you have to prove it to me by commenting one of these days!! :-) Nice to see you both!

Right outside my office window is a bird house that sees a LOT of activity every spring. Each year a new family (I assume they are new or this woman has a LOT of kids by now--the bird world's Octomom) moves into the little house and the parents spend hours each day carting in junk from the yard to make their nest. They loved when Consuela was around because her hair was everywhere and it was very popular bedding material. Yesterday, I'm sitting here minding my own business and trying to work when Mom and Dad decided to "take a little time for themselves." Outside the house. In front of me. OMG, I have NEVER seen birds humping before. I didn't even know they could! Dan says, DUH, where do you think the babies come from? To be honest, I'd never given that much thought! Wings were flapping, there was lots of chirping, and then a THIRD bird came along. Apparently this was too much for Mom and Dad because they chased off the interloper and continued what they were, ahem, doing. I was relieved to discover that Mom and Dad aren't swingers!

Today, in a brazen attack, a squirrel ran up the side of the shed where the birdhouse is mounted and plopped himself on the roof of the birdhouse. Mom and Dad FREAKED out and managed to chase away an animal that was easily ten times their size. I guess the parental protection gene is the same in all species. In a few weeks, the incessant chirping of the baby birds will drive me BATTY, but until then I'm enjoying watching Mom and Dad and their many adventures. It's like Wild Kingdom around here.

While we are on risque topics (and there will be a risque point to this if you stick with me), my friend Cheryl initiated a discussion about Twitter today, basically asking the question: WHY? This is what she said, and I couldn't agree more even though I'm under tremendous pressure to join the Tweet bandwagon to help sell books: There's actually a fairly big divide in our company about this, with the youngsters wondering 1) how we (old people) could breathe every day without using (social media tools), 2) how did we even get to live this long and 3) why we don't jump on this bandwagon, for which we are already way behind the curve. The old people like me and my bosses wonder 1) what the hell do you do with all this stuff, 2) what's in it for me, 3) if I want the information I seek it out, 4) if I want to talk to someone I call them or email them, I don't need to track down my old gym teacher from 1st grade, 5) if the youngsters are so smart, why are the old folks their bosses? (I like that last part the best. Reminds me of that line from Fried Green Tomatoes: I'm older, I'm stronger, and I have better insurance. We may be old and stupid, but we are the bosses!) Anyway, so one of her friends replied with this gem: I do not tweet, but I laugh because in an interview, Stephen Colbert said that he had "twatted." Now that is funny!

And since we're going for it on the risque for the day, I give you this, which quite simply cracked me up:




Thanks to my friend Chris who sent that one!