Melody Platz

The Parakeet Nightmare

From deep within a comfortable sleep, I get the sense something is wrong.  I roll over and mutter, "Wha z at?"

I blink a couple times.

Then I hear it.  Mad fluttering and the banging of tiny skulls on metal bars.  My parakeets are flipping out.

The sound stops.  It's rare that the parakeets get upset enough to fling themselves aimlessly around their cages, but when they do it's dangerous for them.  They could really hurt themselves.

So I wait, praying, Stay still.  Stay still.  Go back to sleep.

They burst back into motion.  Flap! Flap! Thud! Flap! Flap! Thud! Flap! Flap! Thud!

"Criminy!" I yell and get up.  I stumble over to their cage.  But there's absolutely nothing I can do.  In the dark, I might as well be a hawk to them.  They are out of their minds with fright.

I stare at the dark cage, willing them to knock it the heck off.

A flurry rises from the cages again.

"That's it!" I holler and cross the room.  There's only one cure for terrified parakeets who are awake at 4 in the morning.

With resignation, I flip on a night light.  In just a few minutes the birds are calm and chattering happily.  They think it's morning.

I go back to bed, but can't sleep.  My night's rest has been destroyed by the Parakeet Nightmare.

 

Bulldogs Expand When Baked

My neighbor's dog reminds me of a half-baked chocolate chip cookie in this picture.  

He started out as a lump of bulldog.  When he's done napping, he'll be completely circular.

Don't worry, he was responding to me and had a full dish of water near by.  He was just sleepy and stretchy.  : )

I'm Home for a While

I've left my job of two and a half years.  Today I got up, did my morning routine, and then sat down on my couch and pulled my personal computer into my lap.  This is the first day of a new phase in my life.

Wow, just writing that reminds me of what a huge decision leaving a job can be.

The Great Unknown.  It's always around us, but when I let go of a major routine everything suddenly feels even more uncertain.

I'm excited, though.  I'm ready to pursue new opportunities.  My main goal in the next three months is to find a full time administrative support position in an organization that is doing helpful and exciting things.

But my secondary goal is to be very active here on my website and elsewhere on the Internet.  In other words: You'll be seeing a lot of me.

Now it's your turn.  Leave a comment telling me how you found your favorite job.  Or tell me about a time when you worked from home.  I'd love to hear about big decisions you've made.

Again, wow.  What a momentous day.  Both unnerving and thrilling.

photo credit © maigi - Fotolia.com

 

Starting Fresh

So many new things coming my way.

I'm excited by all the possibilities.

 

On May 24th at 5:30 p.m., I was thinking:

 

Be Kind.

Have Fun.

Remember what matters.

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi

Because I now spend at least twenty minutes doing dishes every night, I bought an audiobook to pass the time while I'm scrubbing plates.  I stick on my headphones and someone reads to me.  Genius!

 

The book I bought is a science fiction novel about a man who searches for natural resources on an alien world that is supposed to be free of intelligent creatures.  I'm getting through about two chapters every night, and often times The Boyfriend sticks his head in to the kitchen to see why I'm laughing to myself.

 

Here's what I like about this audiobook so far:

1.  Wil Wheaton, geek extraordinaire and talented actor, reads the audiobook.  (Wil was Wesley Crusher on Star Trek-TNG and he plays the reoccuring "Evil Wil" on the Big Bang Theory.)

 

2.  The dialogue is often like a dance.  No one is so witty in real life, but John Scalzi uses some of his dialogue as a chance to make jokes, wow the audience and make call backs to other dialogue.  For me, his dialogue is both satisfying and entertaining, as well as often being giggle-worthy.

 

3.  There are dinosaur-like raptors who, if given half the chance, would eat people while they were still screaming.  So cool!

 

4.  The book takes a head on look at the questions of what makes an animal a person, is nature important if people aren't around and are not gaining from it, and if facts become inconvenient, how do people and companies deal with new realities?

 

5.  Even though this story is set on a planet far away from Earth with different animals and plants, the settings and themes are very relatable.  It's easy to understand "cat-like" creatures and spike trees and a colony of humans trying to make a living off of drilling for minerals.

 

6.  Scalzi has a way of making tense scenes believable, nerve-racking, and still a little funny.  He creates the kind of "on edge" where I want to keep playing one more chapter to see what cool stuff is going to happen next.

 You can find out more about the author, John Scalzi, at his website, Whatever.

Minute Thirty - Things Go Kaput!

When my website died last week, I briefly thought, "If I do nothing, then nothing can ever go wrong."

This video is about challenges, and may feature a lovable guest.

 

Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

Some people are delightfully eccentric.  Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, might be the queen of telling a whacked-out story full of bad decisions, cursing and gross observations.  And you know what?  She is hands down one of my favorite bloggers.

So when her book, Let's Pretend This Never Happened, came out, I was pretty sure I'd like it.

I have not been disappointed.  Hers is the kind of memoir I wish I could write for myself; open, hilarious and odd enough to be fascinating.  Here's what I like about the book so far:

1.  The sheer number of weird side stories and tangents Jenny Lawson comes up with. 

2.  There are many taxidermy animals featured in this memoir - dead animals stuffed and occasionally wearing clothing.  Hint:  There's a mouse on the cover of her book.

3.  I'm impressed with how likable she is.  It feels like I'm surrendering myself to something wild, but I'm happy for the experience.

4.  I admire how Jenny can be relentlessly funny and wicked, but still manages to be sweet. 

 

5.  I think it is amazing that Jenny Lawson is so open about things that make her feel vulnerable.  She is a great example of how to take difficult situations and face them with courage.

 

I Worry for Movie Extras

An alien slices through a New York skyscrapper.  A quarter of the building crumbles twenty stories down into a courtyard full of people eating their lunch.

Visually, it's stunning.  But I am sitting there frightened and thinking, "Jeez, if my friends were in that building, I wouldn't care about how cool the wreckage looked."

Don't get me wrong, I love blockbuster superhero movies.  I saw The Avengers this weekend, and it could not have been more awesome.  Oh, my goodness, I loved that movie.

But it stresses me out to see cars flipping through the air into busy tourist attractions.  It's hard for me to seperate how I would feel  in a real disaster from the "fun" disaster being spectacularly displayed on screen.

Maybe I would have been like this anyway, I'm a pretty emotional person.  But I remember watching Harrison Ford movies with my dad when I was a kid.  Ford would be running and shooting and escaping from fifty bad guys, and all the people sent to help Harrison Ford would get killed.  I guess all that death was supposed to make us worry for the main character.  What it did in my house was make my dad wince.  I remember on more than one occasion him saying something like, "Those poor agents.  That's a shame."

 I still like seeing heroes save innocents from certain doom.

However, I believe it's good to take a moment and think, "That kind of whole sale destruction has consequences."  And then I can take a moment to be grateful that I live a mostly safe life with no alien thugs anywhere to be found.

Photo Credit © larrystunt - Fotolia.com

You Are Important

Enraged Vegetable!

What has infuriated this carrot?  

Tell me the angry story in the comments.