I'm a good samaritan!

In another chapter of "My life is a Sitcom", here's a story for y'all.

So I was on my way to go deal with a child and bed time issues (read "My wrist hurts"and "my leg hurts" and "I can't fall asleep.  I tried really, really hard", etc.) when I spotted some geese and a duck in my front lawn.  Normally I would think its pretty cool to have such exotic wildlife in my lawn, but I also remembered that a few weeks ago a neighbor searched my woods for some of her foul that had been run amok the night prior.  After I laid down the nighttime law, I went over the the aforementioned neighbor's house to altert them of their runaway feathered pets.  There was no answer at the door; pitch black inside.  Either they are being really, really quiet, or they are away.  I wonder which is the logical answer.  I mean, they have kids and I know how hard it is to keep kids quiet for a second let alone a few minutes.  They must be hiding....

After I gave up on the neighbors are hiding from me theory, I followed the mini flock up the street with the intention of coaxing them back home.  How?  I had no idea.  I've never moved geese before.  I tried whistling at them.  Calling them.  Chirping at them.  Kissing and click noises.  They were not amused or even remotely interested in me.  I felt that they would be fine and eventually make their way home.  The neighbor told me that they are very good at finding their way back home so I felt confident that they could fend for themselves until they meandered home.

As I was walking back to my lovely abode, I looked back up the street to see my new feathered friends crossing the road. (Please no "Why did the goose cross the road" jokes)  I live on a very busy main route.  People come flying by all the time.  Last year a very intoxicated woman decided my mailbox looked better 50 feet down the road than at the end of my driveway.  I just wish she used her words instead of her car at a high rate of speed.  So I am motioning to the coming cars to slow down to give my feathered comrades a fighting chance of crossing the busy thoroughfare.   One gentleman thinks I was waving at him and kindly waves back.  Eventually he realizes what I was alluding to and stops to let them cross.  As for the other lane of traffic, not so much.  I can only be in one place a one time.  This one driver didn't see the birds until it was too late.  Two of the five hollow boned animals met their maker with a feathery, automobile-ic thud.  The guy that hit them was very concerned and apologetic.  I really felt bad for his tween daughter in the passenger seat who witnessed the whole episode.  She seemed to be taking it quite well.  He felt so bad that he called the police then ran to BJ's for a few things.  But he said he'd be back to check in before going home.  What a nice guy.

So he leaves.  I get the rest of the very sad flock (if you can call it that) into the back yard and into their pen.  Then the police officer arrives.  I fill him in on the situation, who the rogue birds belong to and whatnot.  This officer and I spot another lone bird and decide to reunite hime with his feathered brethren.  This bird is a little more agile and astoot.  It was one of the city's finest and me, chasing a duck, trying to steer him this way or that.  We succeed to get him back to the pen after about 20 minutes or so.  It must have been some sight.  Then the driver who assaulted the geese/ducks came back.

A car pulls into the driveway of the house that houses these birds.  I'm thinking the owners came back from dinner or a night out on the town or discovering some far new land or something.  But nope.  It was just the duck-sitter; the person responsible for locking up these guys at night.  Then another (or the same one) bird is spotted.  Now its on!

For the next HALF AN HOUR (or so) me, the duck locker-upper, and a couple of neighbors try to get this fast, smart, ornery, sly, insane, black duck back home.  And the cop just drove right by.  I guess he is only good for one wildlife call per night.  I'm sure he will be talking to this call to all his cop buddies for a while.  Back to the runaway duck.  We corner it.  It gets away.  The helper takes a few dives to try to grab it but it gets away.  It was quite comical.  Finally we get him cornered in a bush and he is captured.  Ordeal over!  Just use your imagination and try to see us chasing a duck around the neighborhood.  Laugh at will.  I did.

All in all it was an unexpected turn of events that broke up the normalcy of a Saturday night.  And I did some good samaritan work.  Maybe this will get me off the fast track to the bad place when I meet my maker.  I just hope it won't be  as I'm crossing the road with my feathered friends.

And I forgot....


HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL MY DAD READERS

Well, Its been a while... But here's an amusing story

Ok.  You caught me.  I will plead to "I haven't felt all that creative and I'm kind of lazy" in the first degree.  But I will change.  I promise.  Just give me a slap on the wrist, a verbal reprimand, 15 lashings across the....  Oh never mind.  I will try to be better.

So since I've been gone some stuff has happened.  One band fizzled.  I pseudo-joined another, which has slowed.  And another is in the works.  So that's the musical update.

The dog is good.  He's a little stinker at times, but we (most of us) love him.  Its hard to imagine but its been almost a year that we have had him.  Time flies.

Kid wise is a different story.  We have gotten into our groove with school, errands, playing, and what-have-you.  Bayly is doing great in school.  Reading.  Writing.  Spelling everything.  And I mean EVERYTHING.  I can't even spell out "bad words" anymore because she will figure it out.  Why do they have to be so smart?  I blame the schools.

Cali is coming into her own; her own devilish character.  For instance, I would be cleaning up, kids playing together and as soon as I look up I see Bayly do some sort of bodily harm to her sister.  The first couple of times I reprimanded the elder child and imposed a fitting punishment.  After the fifth or so time this happens I realized that it was the younger offspring that was instigating.  Bayly was just defending herself.  The little (insert adjective here) was timing it just so that she wouldn't be caught.  This is going to make for great teenage years.

This past week has been one of Cali's "best" weeks.  And I use quotation marks to show sarcasm.  (I think that is understood, but adding these few more words makes the whole post seem longer, and in turn making me feel like I have written more than I actually have.)

The other day while playing together during relaxation time, (for those of you who do not know what relaxation time is, its after lunch when I get to do laundry/watch TV/look for jobs on the internet/research garden ideas/goof off/etc. and the kiddies play upstairs.  Play is usually what they do in between screaming at each other.) the two of them made a whole poop-storm of a mess.  Not actual poop, just a big F'ing mess.  The older one blames it on the younger one and vice-versa.  Long story short, they are not allowed to be freed of their mess until it is cleaned.  After some time, they clean it up and all is well in the world.

The next day relaxation time again (it happens every day for sanity's sake).  Laundry folded and I get to chill for a bit before I get the "Can we come down yet?" hollers from the stairs in their most angelic voices.  Only this time its a little different.  "Daddy, Cali's pouring water on the bed."  WHAT?!  It make perfect sense to pour water onto you bed if it were on fire or smoking or was a fish.  But her bed was and is none of these things.  So up the stairs I go to investigate The Great Waterbed Caper.

I need to preface the bed thing just a bit.  Cali has been potty trained for a long time.  It was recently that we kicked the pull-ups for bed and were going with gotchies a.k.a. undies.  A couple of weeks prior she was a super star.  Waking up dry, after us getting her up at 11 to sleepily put her on the potty.  Then she regressed.  One night was three sets of sheets in one night.  Then it was a couple days of bed wetting.  On the morning of the GWC, she was waiting for me when I came out of the shower, wet P.J.'s and all.  I clean her up, clean the bed up, put the sheets in the washer, etc.  Now before relaxation time, I had made her bed.  She saw me do it.  She witnessed the putting on of the new, non-urine smelling sheets.  Mind you they were the same ones that she soiled because I work that fast!

Back to the story.  So I enter the room of play to find a very wet bed and a very devilish Cali grinning.  She may be a psychopath.  Or she may be three.  Or she's both.  Well I was not pleased to say the least.  There may have been some talking in loud tones, I'm not sure, but I was ready to lock her in a tower until she was 45.  (Anyone got a tower I can borrow?)

The funny thing about my kids, and it may be the same for other families as well, when one is in deep do-do, the other one is overly helpful and polite.  It changes from one to the other, but when it hits the fan the other one knows to be an angel.  Which is nice.  But why can't they just act like that all the time?  So Bayly quietly and without so much as a peep cleans up the disastrous play-room while her sister is wondering if she will have the same fate as Rapunzel.

She was marooned to her tower.  That was until mommy got home and freed her.  Damn Price Charming.  Always ruining everything and freeing the princess.  I blame Disney.

Long story short, the Stay-At-Home-Dad thing is great.  There is always something new to keep me on my toes.  I wouldn't trade it for the world.

P.S.  If anyone wants to make a sitcom of my life, let me know.  I'm sure it would be amusing.  And I said sitcom.  None of this reality TV B.S.  There's enough of that on already.  I mean they have a show centered around duck calls.  Whats next?

That's it.  I'm done.  For today.  For the week.  For a few months.  Maybe.  Maybe not.