The Birds: The Sequel

I had a weird thing happen to me at the Tulsa Zoo today.  I went into the rainforest exhibit, and my glasses immediately fogged up.  So I stood there just inside the entrance loitering for a couple of minutes while my lenses acclimated to the temperature and humidity.  While I waited, I looked around to see what animals might be nearly.  Not really seeing any, I decided to continue on.  When I took a step, I nearly stepped on a bird.  My heart skipped a beat, I think.  It just appeared out of nowhere.

It was completely unafraid of me.  Not only that, but there was something menacing about how the bird looked at me.  And it kept trying to get behind me.  I’d walk one way and it’d get behind me.  I’d switch direction and it’d get behind me again.  It was some kind of Amazonian stalker bird.  And it was getting really close to my ankles.  It followed me all the way to the second airlock, and appeared to want to follow me through the doors there.

Curious if it would follow me back to the entrance, I doubled back.  It did.  Somewhere along the way, it found a juicy cockroach and had it in his beak.  The insect was still squirming.  Now the bird started chasing me with it.  I had a Hitchcock-style vision of it poking the roach up my pants legs or down in my shoes.  It kinda freaked me out.

I hurried back to the second airlock, and when the bird tried to follow me inside, I shoed it away.  I was safe.  Then I turned around, and a zoo employee was standing right behind me.  I shrieked a little.  I was so embarrassed.

See a video of the bird here.

Little Arsonists

No, I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth.  I’ve just been lacking material, but it turns out, all I needed to do was go home for the weekend.

No sooner than I arrived, my mom got a phone call from a neighbor woman.  “We’ll come down and look at the fence sometime this weekend,” she said.  I asked, “What fence?”  Mom looked at me with frustration and began to tell me what happened.

Apparently, my two brothers (6 and 8 years old) decided they wanted to build a camp fire.  These are the same two brothers that have been fascinated with cigarette lighters and burned a large spot on the carpet in their bedroom (they now have a tile floor in there).  Anyway, they decided to build a fire.  They piled up some sticks and a bunch of leaves.  I’m not exactly sure how they knew what to do, but it sounds like they built it mostly correctly.  Maybe arsonists are just born knowing how to build fires–perhaps it’s instinct.

But the fire began to spread.  They tried stomping it out, but it got out of control and started burning the wooden fence they built the fire beside.  Realizing they could not stop the fire, they ran back to my mom’s house, went in their bedroom, and shut the door.  Mom noticed they were acting strangely, so she went outside to see if she could figure out why.  That’s when she saw the firetruck down the street.  Immediately, she knew the boy’s were responsible.

Hence, the reason for the call.  Mom is going to have to replace the fence.  After she hung up, I told her, “At least they’re not starting fires in her house anymore.”