Incidents and accidents

I HAVE HUMMINGBIRDS!!! Ah…. Yeah. I do. I saw the first one at 5:55pm this evening. A bright, shiny adult male. I yelled so loud that I scared the poor thing away. I grabbed my camera and laid in wait for him to return. Snapped a few photos to make sure I had some, then set up the tripod to see about getting some identifying shots. A few hours later (with these beautiful shots), and I said “wait a minute… I think it’s two different birds…” I looked out front and there’s a male hummingbird. I look out back and there’s… a male hummingbird! Both at the same time, two different feeders. So far I haven’t seen them fighting yet, but the peace won’t last long. Yay for me, this is 11 days earlier than last year! I just hope they stick around this time. Larken, fill up the feeder, they’re probably wondering what’s going on over at your old place.

I was on the phone with Larken this afternoon when I hear a crashing sound, then nothing, then an animal squealing sound. Thinking it was just a squirell telling off an intruder, I keep talking. The sound doesn;t stop though, and I can see a lot of rustling on the ground underneath a tree. I walk over, expecting to see two squirells fighting in the leaves. No, it was just one squirell, lying on it’s side, squealing in pain, poor thing. It’s legs were all working, but it just couldn’t get up, so it kept turning circles in the leaves. I ran in to get a towel (squirell bites are BAD) and put it in a box. It seemed to get a bit shocky then, and it looked ot be hurt badly, so John and I hopped in the truck and drove it over to the UGA Small Animal Teaching Hospital. They’re the only people here licensed to deal with wild animal injuries. They started laughing when I brought him in because they’d had two squirells, a possum, and a hedgehog in already today. The doc took the box with the squirell in it and told me he’d be right back. Dum de dum.. He comes back with two elbow-legnth raptor handling gloves on and says “Judging from his reaction, I think he’ll be fine.” He thinks the squirell knocked himself silly when he fell and just forgot how to use his legs for a while, but was pretty much fine by the time we got there. He said they’ll give him some water and release him later today. Yay!

DavidB (my photo-geek neighbor) has been gone for a week finalizing a few things after his mother died. Larken said she died in a fire and they’re investigating it, but that’s all I know. I had been under the impression that she’d died of old age, DavidB being about as old as MY dad. Anyway, a few things survived the fire at the house, so he went to go get them. He and his wife (Larken’s mom) came back today. She comes and knocks on the door and is like “I got something for ya!” So I follow her around to her back porch and she’s got a rosebush in a pot and a camellia in a bucket, both about 3 feet tall. She says “I’m keeping the rose, but I thought you might like the camellia. Do you think the hummingbirds would like it?” Now, usually, I dislike camellias. They’re just not that pretty, in my opinon. Plus, they attract bees like crazy. But the bush she has is georgeous. The flowers are a baby pink streaked with a darker pink, and wonderfully scented. So I reply “The hummingbird won’t, but I will!” Larken and I carry it back to my flowerbed and I dig a nice hole and plant the thing. She said “Now, the only condition is that you have to dig it up and take it with you when you move. I miagine you’d be doing that with your rose tree anyway.” So, it’s a pretty pink flowerbush. For free! I helped her plant the rosebush in return. Wednesday, I’ll be planting the salvia I got a few days ago at the hummingbird plant sale and my vigorous morning glories. Stumpy keeps eating them, so they need to go out.

I went to public school all of my life except for one year. Eighth grade. We moved into a huge old house we got for cheap because it was in various states of disrepair. It was on the other side of town from my old school, so we went to new ones.Mom hated the public school there, so she sent me to John XXIII Catholic school (yeah, I was a catholic schoolgirl) for a year. As per normal, I was the outcast there. I wore glasses, I wasn’t raised with them. I wore shorts under my skirt because the boys had a habit of flipping up unwary hems as the wearer walked past. Most of all, I wasn’t catholic. Despite this, I loved my time there, mostly because of just one person. Sarah Taylor. You couldn’t pick two people more different, but she and I latched onto each other like we’d been friends all of our lives. We looked different, we talked different, came from different backgrounds, and yet that one year of school was better than any before or since because of her.

Sarah and I were joined at the hip for most of the year. We even once made a vow to each other to tell each other about our first times (sex, people) before we told anyone else. We played pranks on eatch other, and even on her poor mother (who was deathly afraid of snakes). We hung out with a few other people the majority for that time too. Tara Cain was another good friend who was sort-of dating a guy named Adam. Sarah was sort-of dating a guy named Jason, and I was sort-of dating a guy named Chris Sauter. It was a big happy group. I can’t even remember when or how I met all of these people, but it was a great year. At the end of that year, my family moved to Georgia despite my tears and promises to run away. I kept in touch with Sarah and Chris for a while, but both will tell you how awful of a letter writer I am. Chris and I carried on a somewhat long distance relationship for a while, but when you’re 14, distance is a killer. I lost touch with both of them over the years. Sarah found me about 6 years ago, and again, I lost touch somehow.
I found her again thanks to (lame) classmates.com. I jumped on after a year of not being on and found her. She’s gotten married and changed her last name. She’s even had a baby! After doing a little research on her with her new last name, I found her phone number and gave her a call two days ago. I got the machine the first time I called, and attempted ot leave a message, but the machine cut me off, so i called back. Sarah: Hello? Me: “Is this Sarah Taylor?” Sarah: “I was…” Me: “This is Heather Lickliter…” Sarah: “OH MY GOD!!!!” There was much hooting and hollering on both ends of the line, and I chatted with her for about an hour. She’s married to a great guy named Steve and after 5 years of trying they just had their first child Roger about 6 months ago. Durring that chat, a bit of her younger self came through, and I realized that she’s just as weird now as she was then. Me too, for that matter. John’s as weird as me, so i wonder if Steve is (or knows) as weird as she is. She told me that Chris is married and living in Phoenix, AZ with his wife and twin daughters, and I found his phone number too. I haven’t called him, and I’m not sure I will. It might be a little too weird hearing from your eight grade pseudo-girlfriend with your family around you. I’ll have to ask Sarah what she thinks, since she’s the one who has kept up with him.

Well, it’s nearing the end of February. That means…. a little under a month until hummingbirds arrive back here! I’m trying not to get overly excited, but I’m mostly failing at that. To do:

1. Put out the 12 Artline flower feeders my mother got me.
2. Move two trellises, one to front one to back.
3. Plant 3000+ Scarlet Sage Salvia seeds.
4. Buy and plant some Morning glory on one trellis.
5. Buy and plant some Cardinal Vine on the other trellis.
6. Refill all feeders
7. Borrow some pruning shears to chop-chop the dead juniper.
8. Buy another fushia for the hanging basket.

I came home today to find these on my doorstep. It’s a lovely little Keepsake Azalea, but I haven’t the slightest clue who one earth left it there. No note, no nothing. They’re great, and the brighten up my day, but I hope to find the gift-giver at some point. Maybe Larken for helping her move? Maybe John for some reason? Maybe some weird cult that secretly worships me? Probably not on that last one, neh?

I’ve been whining to John for a while about how I want a brown skirt. The ones that are somewhat popular these days. They fall at about mid-calf and are very wide in the hem, making them swing a lot when walking. Larken will tell you I have an adoration for blue and brown, so a brown skirt would be nice to have. Anyway, after whining about it a few days ago again, John says “Why not make one?” and I thought “yeah! Why not?” So I went out and bought the skirt pattern and a sundress pattern. Larken and I will got check out fabric sometime soon. I want to do some fun tops too, like these and these.

The camera closed out at $305. This was totaly due to Blixem. He is TEH AWESOME. Really.

I played in a new Eberron game with Justin and a group of his male gamer freinds. They were somewhat shocked to have a female in the group and consequently got nervous, which led to drinking, which led to drunk. This led to them being very loud and very obviously hitting on me. Note to self: make sure all know I’m not single. The game seems fun, however. I’m playing a half-giant fighter with a HUGE greatsword.

Stephen came to visit this weekend. We took him to the Eberron game, where he played a loincloth-wearing fighter. He too had a little too much to drink, and being Stephen, said some things that were somewhat offesnive to the rest of the group. Second note to self: no beer or booze at games. Ever again. He stayed over with us and for lunch we took the customary trip to Taco Stand. It was fun playing with his new camera. He got a Canon sd450 on my advise, but I’ve never played with one before. If memory cards weren’t an issue, I would have bought that one. It was a very windy day, so we took my 50 foot mylar dragon kite out to fly. The wind was a little too rough for it, and it decided to shred itself inside-out. No loss though, as it was only $5.

John and I are headed to ARIZONA! John’s dad is sending us for a week in early May so I can slobber all over 13 species of hummingbirds (and photograph them) while John laughs at me. Here’s the sketchy pre-planning phase schedule:

Day 1: Leave Atlanta, arrive in Phoenix. rent car, drive to tucson. Check in to hotel, spend the rest of the day messing about in tucson getting coupons and transit schedules.
Day 2: Arizona Sonora Desert Museum has a hummingbird aviary among some other really awesome stuff.
Day 3: ASDM again, since it’s reccomended to take 2 days to go through.
Day 4: Drive down to Sierra Vista for Ash Canyon, Beatty’s Guest Ranch, and Ramsey Canyon.
Day 5: Ash, Beatty’s and Ramsey some more. Or if done head to SABO’s banding station. Perhaps drive over to Paton’s Feeders or Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve.
Day 6: Another day for the canyons or drive back to Tucson for Colossal cave Park, Tucson Botanical Gardens or Reid Park Zoo.
Day 7: Zoo, Cave, or Botanical Gardens again.
Day 8: Drive back to Phoenix, drop off car. Get on plane, return to ATL.

Here’s a map! We may change the entire Sierra Vista bit with the first two days in Tucson, just so we can have the entire tucson stay at once, rather than in two seperate bits. It’s just hard to say how long we (meaning I) will want to stay in the canyons. I will have to get some more memory cards for my camera, or borrow a laptop to download pics to. I will certainly have to get some more batteries. Let me know if you have any borrowable/sellable Compact Flash cards.

It’s been a while since I posted anything. I’ve been so busy with work and christmas planning that I haven’t gotten the pictures off my camera until now. The stories just aren’t as fun sans photos, so they’re late. I will tell you though, being a Pre-school teacher has some holiday advantages in terms of nice people. I’ve been making out like a bandit at school. A $20 wal-mart card, a $10 Bath and Body Works card, a huge picture frame, an adorable brown bear in a copperish bathtub from B&BW, some fancy drawing pencils and paper, 4 ceramic japanese bowls, some bubble bath, great Victoria’s Secret body butter and shower stuff, and an apple nightlight. It’s nutty!

On the 21st, John and I and Tim and BrianS and Kevin all went over to Larken’s place for a little pre-christmas get together to open presents and stuff before people left for out of town. We all had a good time just messing around and drinking egg nogg. Well, Diet Coke for me. John and I bought Christine her own box of Apples to Apples, so we had a fun time playing that. John and I made it out with a collector’s edition DVD of Spaceballs from Tim and BrianS and our very own copy of Kung Pow on DVD from Christine and Bruce. Yay for awesome movies! The running gag and highlight of the party was the gift from Christine to Tim and BrianS. It was a talking Yoda doll. Yoda played Apples to Apples with us, Yoda got a little excited and knocked over someone’s drink.. etc. As an added bonus, if you poke Yoda in the ass, he says “See that you are interested in something else, I do. Save that for later, we will.”

I didn’t have to work yesterday, so I spent most of it hanging out with Larken and Munchie. I brough my camera with me and got lucky at the park and in her kitchen. Munch and Christine and I all ate at the China-Star Buffet, then made Cheerio-string birdfeeders, then we headed to the park. That park is a great park, as well as being out of the trees for some great near-sunset lighting in the winter. I came back home for a little while, but instead of taking a nap like I should have, i messed around with the pictures. Brian S called and we hung out and ate cheesy raviolli before going back over ot Christine’s place to watch Kung Pow. All In all, it was a fun few days.