Birds and Turds.

It is truly a glorious spring out there. After months of cold and dead and grey, it is exceptionally wonderful to go out and have it be warm and sunny and welcoming out there. There is, however, one fly in my ointment, and that is the frigging birds.

Normally, I love the sound of birds singing. Sometimes when I'm running or out for a walk, I'll turn off my I-pod just to be able to hear all the chirping and twittering and cheeping, it's so lovely. And there are plenty of birds around here to add to the chorus; you can hear birdsong almost any time you stick your head out the door. I do like it.

But not at 4 in the freaking morning. Seriously.

Even with earplugs in, I can sometimes be woken up by that one stupid bird who insists on perching right outside my window and "to-WHOO"ing up a storm for all he is worth. If I had a gun I would shoot him. I wouldn't even get up out of bed to do it, either. It's a big backyard, I don't know why he has to sit right there and bellow out those two notes incessently. He's probably the one who shits on my car every day, too. Really, it's just as well that handguns are not allowed in Canada.

When Big Liver Girl and I spent a spectacular weekend at her place in Quebec a few years ago, I was awakened every. single. morning. at around 5 a.m. by a bird who was not only unspeakably loud, but spectacularly unimaginative, too. He sang the same 10 notes over and over and over again. No variation in pitch or cadence or timing or tune for hours at a time. We called him "Louis-Needs-A-New-Tune". (Our friend Moe had also been to the condo in Quebec and become aquainted with "Louis-Needs-A-New-Tune", and said later that summer that he had followed her up to her cottage, because he was there, too. )

Also, there is a woodpecker in the vicinity who makes an unholy racket pretty much all the time, but he is particularly vigorous at about 7:15 in the morning. And, you guessed it, his venue of choice is the locust tree closest to our bedroom window. Imagine lying in bed, drowsy and half-asleep, gently getting used to your altered state of "awake" from "asleep", and then hearing the avian equivelent of a jack-hammer revving up 20 feet from your bed. And he's fierce, too...he gives it everything he has, that tree is getting it's ass kicked, I tell you. Most of the time it barely registers, but early in the morning there's no escaping it.

I wish the birdies would come with a volume button. (As a matter of fact, I wish almost everything and everyone did.) I'd enjoy them ever so much more if I could listen to them when I want to, rather than when they want me to. (Interferring with Mrs. Loudshoe's sleep will NOT endear you to her.) When Thing 2 was about 2 years old, and in a VERY bad mood, she heard a bird singing outside at my parents house, and she sternly pointed a finger out the window and said " 'Top it, bird!". Many's the morning I feel the same way.

And I'd love to have them stop shitting on my car, too.