The Desert Mermaid

Lucy was looking a little under the weather the last few days--puffed up, wheezing, and unusually quiet, so today I took her to the vet. She perked up a bit on the car ride over, though, and chatted a little with me. The vet's office still does no contact, so I dropped her off at the door with the receptionist with a "Bye, Lucy."

I must admit that, as I drove away, I had the thought of "What if ..." but I dismissed it. That was until I was halfway home, when I got a frantic call from the vet.

It seems that Lucy collapsed while they were trying to move her to an incubator, and they decided it was not worth it to resuscitate,* so I was welcome to come back and pick up the body. She looked a little comical with her beak open and her tongue sticking out, but mostly it was just painful to see my little birb without any spark of life.

I took her home with me in a stupid little hatbox provided by the vet, and Mom and Dad helped me to bury her under her Japanese maple tree (not in the stupid little hatbox).

I'll miss her chatter from the corner where her cage was: her appreciative commentary on her food, her kibitzing about where I was putting hte dishes when I emptied the dishwasher, her alarm chatter when she saw a Threat in the sky, and her joyous squawks when I pulled into the driveway and slammed the car door. I don't have a fancy box for her ashes, but if I did her epitaph would be the neighbor kid's summation of her: "That bird is TOO LOUD."

RIP, Lucy. You were TOO LOUD, and I'll miss you.


French fries were a Sometimes Food.


*What would that look like, anyway? I'm picturing a medical drama with tiny defibrillators on either side of the keelbone: "CLEAR!" *BLAM* *feathers flying everywhere* "DO IT AGAIN!" "DOCTOR, SHE'S GONE!" "NO! CLEAR--" *BLAM* "Doctor! Call it!" "*sigh* Time of death, 2:45." *dramatic music*

I have nothing useful to add to the Boston business except more of the same "Damn, that is not awesome" and "But it's nice to know that most folks are not so much the blowing-you-up type as they are the type who will run alongside your wheelchair holding your arteries shut after an explosion."* I just need to get it off my chest that, you know, randomly and anonymously exploding people seems to be a poor way to make whatever crazy point you want to make.


*Although some people around here are of the "exaggerate the shit out of things" type. We had one lady in the office yesterday claiming authoritatively that it was a country-wide attack. The way she was telling it, every major landmark and city in the country was being Emmeriched into shrapnel by The Terrorists.