BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

SO, THIS HAPPENED TODAY.....

Lisa has always loved birds. It makes no difference what kind of birds she is watching, Lisa loves them all. We did rescues on a Congo African Grey and a lesser sulfur-crested cockatoo that only increased her fascination with birds. Lisa is in a wheelchair now and can't go hiking with binoculars to look for wild bird species, but this hasn't entirely frustrated her desire to study birds. Our friend, Terry, and I put up a bird feeder right outside Lisa's bedroom window. The members of Lisa's other obsession, cats, are as thrilled to lie on the bed and observe the feeder as she is and they spend many ours suitably entertained.

This morning started off in a most exciting way, as Lisa spotted a barn owl in a tree in our back yard. So AWESOME! We hear owls now and again, but hardly ever spot one. Well now, wait a second, to be more correct, Lisa has heard the owls call, but I most assuredly have not. The scientific name for a person like myself is "deaf-as-a-post", so unless the owls were using megaphones, all of their screeched secrets are safe from me. At any rate, Lisa was understandably excited and told me all about spotting the owl...a barn owl, you will recall, not a spotted one. She says it was keeping an eye on the bird feeder hoping for a wren for its breakfast. Which reminded me that our bird feeder still had a little of the suet blocks left but it was about out of seed.

Filling up the bird feeder is a two-person job, because of how high the thing is located. The hook is only about six and a half feet above the ground, but that's an easy foot and a half higher than me. I called our friend, Terry, and asked him if he might have time to fill up our bird feeder today. See, he can just reach up and unhook it because he is tall. I'm NOT tall. I have to drag a ladder out to the feeder and risk life and limb since the feeder pole sits on a tiny hillock, which means the ladder has to do likewise. This, in turn, means that the damn ladder rocks and one is required to maintain perfect balance while climbing up to unhook the feeder. That's not me as I tend to be unbalanced, so to speak, on any given day.

Terry said he would be happy to help with the job and that he could leave immediately. Okey dokey! He doesn't drive so I would need to go pick him up. The outside temperature had dropped below freezing overnight. That's winter weather in our state. It had rained during the day and was freezing by morning. I'd left the Blazer unprotected in the driveway and that boded no good for a quick getaway. Usually I slammed the doors on a 30-gallon trash bag which meant they would easily open. but, I had not remembered to do that last night and, sure enough, the driver's door was frozen shut. No problem, a few hip-slams and that door opened. My thunder-butt can move mountains, let alone an iced-shut door!

Terry was standing in his garage when I got there and came right out to the Blazer. That's as far as he got because, the passenger's door was also frozen shut. I stomped around to Terry's side and tried a hip-slam which accomplished nothing. A second hip-slam delivered the same results. Terry tried hitting the door with his shoulder but no good came of that either. We are both nothing if not stubborn, so giving up was simply not an option. I told Terry that it just needed me to give it a good kick from inside and that would open the door. We've all seen this technique demonstrate any number of times on TV shows and in movies. How hard could it be?

First of all, I had to fight my poofy winter jacket...the warm one that makes me look rather like a Sumo wrestler....but I finally got turned around in the my seat and kicked out as hard as I could. No good came of that either, because I'm so short, my foot didn't reach the door. All I kicked was air. Terry just about collapsed in hysterical laughter and I laughed right along with him. Don't send me any hate mail, Little People Of America, it WAS funny! After we had nearly laughed ourselves breathless, Terry crawled inside the the Blazer, from the driver's side, and gave that door a might kick. Of course the door opened for tall Terry and his don't-mess-with-me black leather boot.

We drove over to my house and Terry had to crawl over the front seat to snag the bag of bird seed on the back seat because the two back doors were, say it with me, FROZEN SHUT. Terry is nothing if not persistent and so the bird feeder is now full again. The local bird population has already begun stopping by for snacks. Oh, and Lisa spotted the barn owl in the backyard tree again at about 5:50 this evening.

As for the two front car doors that wouldn't open today, I slammed each of them shut on a big plastic garbage bag, because it's eleven degrees at the moment and will be much colder by morning. No sense taking chances with those doors, because tomorrow I might have to run an unforeseen errand or Terry might need transportation somewhere.

Afterall, Terry would look pretty silly tied to the bumper like a culled moose.