One of those days in one of those weeks...

I don't think I am ever taking another week off from work, since this week bit so horribly. I couldn't even wake up this morning without something happening, namely a spring working through my mattress and jabbing me in the leg. Meaning, I had to buy a new mattress cover, and a new mattress pad in a week when money is going to be tight since I didn't work this week.

I wish Merry was still alive to cheer me up. Why couldn't someone's ugly, man-eating pit bull die, instead of this lovely little bird who did more in his lifetime than some people do, because he left the world a little better and brighter than when he came into it? If there was some way to take the life force out of all the pit bulls in all the world and put it into Merry so he'd be back with us, I'd do it. I don't care what it costs, even if it costs my soul. I can't get the image out of my head, of my mother sitting in the bedroom, holding Merry wrapped in his little shroud and crying over him. I don't want that image in my head, I want to be able to go into our dining room and see him playing with his bell or hear him chitter-chattering away. I don't want to have to go to all the work it takes to train a new bird to talk, and it requires a lot of patience, which I admit, I don't really have much of at the best of times, and especially not now, when the universe seems to be conspiring against me. It's like there's something out there that can't stand seeing me happy, so it has to barge in and destroy something I need or value. Whatever it is, why can't this thing go barge into some gangbanger's life and destroy his gun stash or his drugs? When's enough?!

Sorry for the outburst

... I just want everyone who's posted their condolences (or who have been quietly holding them in their hearts) that your words and thoughts and feelings really do help... I'm just not in a good place right now and I don't feel like I'll ever be out of it again. I feel like a part of my world ended with Merry and I doubt even adopting a new parakeet would help bring it back. I wish I could rewind this entire week and have it go better...

Oskar the cockatiel has a new room-mate

Just back from the local pet shop (where we'd gotten Merry), and we have adopted (or maybe been adopted by) a teeny little yellow parakeet with a smidge of green near his tail. We're still working on choosing a name for him (current candidates are "Frodo" [again from Lord of the Rings: Hobbit names make good budgie names, in my opinion] and "Teeny" [my dad's choice]), but so far he seems like a cheerful little guy. He started twittering and tweedling as the water was running in the washing machine and he was watching my mother as she swept the dining room floor. He's still a little shell-shocked from being brought home, but I think he'll settle in soon.

Unfortunately -- but not unexpectedly -- Oskar the cockatiel isn't too thrilled to see the table across the room from his cage now has a new tenant. He's acting rather like the older kid when the new baby comes home from the hospital.

Oops...

Dragon eggs need their clickies:

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