For the love of bacon...

Life's been heavy the past few years.  There have been  low times for some family members and friends.  Stress has reared its ugly head on more than one occasion.

Like a trooper, I have coped with this by eating poorly and not exercising.

Well, that hen has come home to roost.

Seems my cholesterol level has crept into the "borderline" level.  My doctor's office gave me this happy news last week after my annual (well, maybe it was a tri-annual) check-up.

I'm nothing if not a worker bee, and I do well when I know exactly what task lies ahead.  Diet and exercise it is.  I can handle that.

But crap, does it have to involve cutting out bacon?

I will not lie.  I love bacon.

The ever-supportive Steve has greeted this news with wild and bubbling glee.  Over coffee yesterday, he began his litany.

"Let's make a list of all the things you can't eat anymore."  He held up a hand and began to tick off my favorite menu items, raising a finger each time.  "Cheese.  Ice cream.  Pepperoni.  Popcorn at the movies."

Each item drove a little dagger into my heart.  Instead of telling him to put his fingers AND his list someplace where they certainly wouldn't fit, I smiled and nodded.  I am, after all, a grown up.

"Oh," he continued, "and you have to eat oatmeal.  Not the instant kind.  REAL oatmeal."

Real oatmeal?  The kind that looks like something my kids used to leave in their diapers?  The kind that tastes like rocks?  (I know how rocks taste.  I used to put them in my mouth when I was a kid.)  The kind that always makes me GAG because it is like forcing a vat of paste down my throat?

Yep, that oatmeal. 

Shortly after this, Steve went grocery shopping, his weekly chore.

"Wanna come with me?" he asked, sounding like a 17 year old trying to procure a prom date.  "No thanks, honey," I said through gritted teeth.

He came home with delicacies to tempt my palate.  Delicacies like golden flax seed ("You can sprinkle this on your oatmeal," he chirped) and oat fiber cereal.  No ice cream was procured.

I am touched by Steve's concern for my health.  And by tomorrow, I'll stop hating him for his low cholesterol.  I want to live a long time.  I've got things to do and want to be around should either of my children ever decide to procreate.  

But really - no bacon?  Shit.

The whole Debbie story...

I've just dosed Debbie for the evening with antibiotics and painkillers. I think she's a little wasted.

Why am I delivering narcotics to my pet pigeon? It's a fair question, of course.

I find it ironic that only a short time ago I wrote about how Debbie, my pet pigeon, had fallen in love with me.

Oh Debbie, don't you know? Love hurts.

Debbie had taken to following me around at my school. She was my shadow, my constant companion, strutting about to find me should I leave the room. Unfortunately, Debbie's devotion led her down the road to disaster.

Debbie was pecking my feet the other afternoon, and had settled down under my chair for a prolonged bout of cooing her adoration.

I had gotten used to moving my feet very slowly if I needed to get up from the chair. I did just that the other day.

But instead of moving away, Debbie began to fiercely flap her wings. She shot out from under the desk and flew to the top of the door, shaking her head wildly and moving about like, well, a pigeon with her head cut off.

I noticed a flap of feathers on her chest vibrating. That flap of feathers was something new, and it wasn't good. Blood was also starting to pour out of her chest.

I had run over poor Debbie. Actually, I came to realize later, when inspecting the chair, that her neck had gotten caught in the little plastic flap that covers the chair's wheels.

Fifteen years of First Aid training has to count for something, right? Apply pressure to stop the bleeding. I grabbed a wad of paper towels and coaxed her into my hands from atop the door.

I couldn't see the wound, but I knew it had to be bad. Luckily, our school is two doors away from an animal hospital.

I rushed out the door and up the hill to the vet's office, Debbie in my arms, paper towel pressed against her chest.

As I made my way into the office, I remember starting to cry. I babbled something to the front desk lady about running over my pigeon. Luckily, she took Debbie from me and went immediately into that mysterious back section of the animal hospital that I have never personally seen.

My thoughts centered on the fact that this was a catastrophic event for a small animal, and that I just wanted to have Debbie's suffering ended.

At this point, some mysterious forces in the universe began to align themselves.

"Go ahead and put her down if she needs to be," I sobbed. "I know that most vets don't work on birds."

The kind animal hospital lady replied with "The vet here today does work on birds."

While I was processing this information, all three of the animal hospital ladies surrounded me, offering hugs and a box of tissues.

Things started to look even better when the vet herself appeared to tell me that even though it was a nasty wound, it had missed Debbie's eye, ear, trachea and all other important parts. The doctor thought she could fix it.

Pigeons, she told me, are tough birds.

Debbie was put under and the vet started her work. I waited for two hours. My friend Sue, in response to my tearful and most likely incoherent phone call, came to join me.

The vet finally came to tell us that Debbie was stitched up. She would need antibiotics and pain medicine, but the vet was cautiously optimistic about her chances for survival, provided there wasn't a secondary infection. I found all of this hard to believe, and wasn't yet ready to claim some of the vet's hope for myself.

I brought Debbie home in a cardboard box, dragged an old parakeet cage out of the attic, tearfully settled her into it and went to bed dreading the morning, when I was sure I would find a former pigeon on the bottom of the cage.

Of course I didn't sleep. I had one of those nights where the tape is on constant rewind. Every time I felt like I could doze off, I was greeted by a vision of Debbie frantically shaking her head, trying to figure out what had just happened to her.

The worst feeling of all was knowing that I had killed my own pet. With a chair.

(Weeks from now, I'll be able to mine this whole situation for the dark humor it inherently contains. Right now, I'm still a little raw. So shoot me.)

Dark nights end, of course. In 51 years, I have at least learned that.

In the morning, I steeled myself for the trip down the stairs. I expected a disaster.

I heard her cooing before I got into the room. She was alive!

I saw that she had eaten and drunk overnight, and, although she looked a bit worse for wear (just look at the accompanying picture), she sat firmly on her perch, and bobbed her head as I approached.

I couldn't believe our luck.

She continues to act like her old self. She sits calmly when I put Neosporin and Mederma on her wound, and lets Steve hold her head so I can give her the medicine the vet prescribed. It is surprisingly easy to administer medicine to a bird.

I would like to think that she is fully on the mend. The next few days will tell, I suppose. I would also like to think that she has forgiven me. I know animals can't assess blame or hold grudges, but still.

I guess it wasn't her time yet. For that, for the kindness of strangers and friends, and for the toughness of pigeons, I am thankful.

The perfect cup of coffee...

We take our coffee seriously here at the Pierson household.

Listen, and I shall provide instructions on how to brew the tastiest cup of coffee, ever.

First, you must arise while it is still dark outside. All other members of your household must remain asleep. This is probably the most crucial part of the process.

Stumble into the kitchen. Ignore the whining dog who only wants his breakfast. Move with stealth and surety.

Start with fresh ground beans - one scoop for every two cups.

Use cold, filtered water.

Put beans and water into the coffee maker.

Now, this is the important part. Watch the coffee start to brew. When there is enough to fill your mug, pour yourself a cup.

Do this before the pot has finished.

You will, of course, risk being served divorce papers if your spouse should awaken before you leave for work, and have a cup of coffee from this pot for himself.

Yep, after almost 30 years of marriage, this is the cause of the biggest disagreement between Steve and me. You'd think I'd learn to wait.

But I have trouble denying myself that first, and most flavorful, cup of coffee.

On weekends, when we arise at the same time, Steve actually employs a strategy I believe elementary students refer to as "puppy guarding" around the coffee maker. If I get within a few feet of the brewing pot, he is likely to throw a complete body block in my path.

"Now?" I will whine.

"No, honey," he explains, as if to a four year old, "the coffee isn't ready yet."

Sometimes, if I have made it downstairs a short time before him, he will question me with the tenacity of one of those detectives on Law and Order. And, he never believes me.

"You drank out of this pot already, didn't you?" he'll demand. He pays careful attention to my eyes. I find it impossible to tell lies, but I have, in the case of the first cup, learned to perfect my technique.

"Of course not," I'll reply. "What makes you think I would do something like that?"

Somehow, I think he is still suspicious.

The devil is in the details....

I am the first to freely admit that I never read owner's manuals.

I am, as I keep pointing out to my husband, a "hands on" learner. This means that I never read owner's manuals.

I am usually able to figure out how to use coffee pots, hair dryers, toasters and cameras without too much trouble. You turn them on. They work. End of story.

I do admit, however, to being shocked at all of the things my camera can do. My brother showed me. He has the same camera.

"How did you figure this out?" I asked, clearly in awe of his superior photographic talents.

"I read the owner's manual."

Ahem.

Anyway, I was vacuuming the sofa today, using the upholstery attachment.

I could digress and riff on the amount of dog hair presently in our home, but I shall spare you.

My efforts were laid to waste when I discovered that the vacuum was spewing tufts of dog hair back into my face.

Steve not being home - who needs owner's manuals anyway when you have a husband with the mind of an engineer? - I switched off the vacuum and pulled the attachment off to look at it.

I found this helpful picture, a mini owner's manual for the illiterate. I have posted it above.

Aha! I thought. Now I know the cause of the malfunction. I guess that:

• I should have put on my airport quality headphones, because
• I will look very unhappy as I am vacuuming, due to the fact that
  
• the upholstery attachment should vibrate until it takes flight, at which point
  
• I should unplug it, and
• look at it sagely.

I'm so glad that is all cleared up now. Who knew that owner's manuals could be so enlightening!

The object of her affection....

Apparently, I have become the object of Debbie's affection.

Debbie is my pet pigeon. She lives at my school. I acquired her several years ago....well, it's a long story.

Our school seems to attract a fair amount of animal life. We are set back from the highway, and the back of our building faces a pond and a large open space. Woodland creatures are always paying a visit. Ducklings and snapping turtles have hatched on our property. We have several nests that are used by mommy robins each spring. Deer eat our bushes. I've found mice and weasels in the strangest of places. A snake once took a sunbath in my classroom.

One summer day a few years ago, we discovered an injured pigeon within our fenced playground. This was not just any pigeon - he was long, sleek and white, nothing like the urban pigeons my husband refers to as "rats with wings." He was, however, sporting an injured wing, and it didn't look like he would be able to fly at all.

Being who we are (frankly, mildly insane) we scooped him into a laundry basket and carried him into the school.

This pigeon also had a band around his foot, indicating that he was a racing pigeon. Through the miracle of the Internet, we were able to track down his owner, call him and report finding his pigeon. He showed up late in the afternoon to retrieve his bird.

In the span of just a few hours, I became very attached to this broken guy. We've been over this before...I have a thing about animals.

So, by the time the owner showed up, I had convinced myself that, since this pigeon's racing career was obviously at an end, he was likely a candidate for pigeon euthanasia.

I voiced my concern to his owner.

"Can't we just keep him?" I asked. "He obviously can't fly anymore."

The owner's response is made more dramatic if you say it with a heavy Russian accent.

"Oh no, this bird, he can fly."

I was incredulous, images of my new pigeon friend having his neck wrung the instant he was taken from the building filling my little brain.

The owner continued.

"If you want bird, I get you bird."

And that, I thought, was the end of it.

A few weeks later, however, a woman came to the door of our school carrying nothing but a cardboard box.

With the same Russian accent, she announced "Here is your bird," put the box into my arms and promptly drove away.

With no idea how to care for a bird, I opened the box to reveal a puffed up and angry looking - chicken? This looked like no pigeon I had ever seen.

We promptly named her Debbie, and I set about learning how to take care of her. It took weeks to discover what she liked to eat, and months before I was able to open her cage without her puffing up and attempting to swat me with her wing. But I persisted, and eventually, she let me hold her.

Little did I know that all of that would pay off in an ample amount of pigeon devotion. I would let Debbie out of her cage each morning for a walk around the school, and eventually she became my shadow, following me around like a small prancing dog.

Birds, it seems, attach themselves to one person. Debbie is, after all is said and done, MY pigeon.

For a few glorious months last year, she started laying eggs. Now, she has begun a career as a stalker.

I let her walk around all day during the summer, when we have only a small amount of children in the school. No matter where I am, she will find me, and prance about, head bobbing and cooing, before perching on the highest surface in the room and, well, gazing at me with such concentration that I figure she is trying to control my mind.

Her latest trick is to walk under my desk and, just when I am not expecting it, peck at my feet. An internet search revealed that this is mating behavior. Apparently, in the absence of a suitable male partner, Debbie has decided to devote herself to me.

There are worse things in life than to be adored by a pigeon.