Chirp Chirp Chirp

*When I woke up this morning and realized that it was cold out, I was really delighted that I spent much of Saturday reorganizing my closet, putting all the sweaters and boots and cold weather stuff at the back and moving the summer clothes to the front (poorly designed closet—long and narrow, so you can only see the clothes right in the middle and everything else is lost to view—means that I have to take an all or nothing approach to seasonal clothes).

*On Saturday, we watched the Kentucky Derby at the Professor and Mary Ann’s. We sat outside for a while and the pollen was so bad you could actually see it floating through the air. I had a 20-minute-long coughing fit. It was really lovely. Even their adorable dog, Walter, was sneezing. I like dogs, but I don’t spend much time around them, so I’m not completely at ease around them. Lord Kissington is not a dog fan, so he tries to ignore them (which means they usually want to slobber all over him). The Professor said, “You two look at the dog the way I look at babies.” But I actually look that way at babies too. I prefer to take my chances with dogs; at least I know that the chances of projectile vomiting in my direction are slim. After spending some quality time with Walter, I asked Lord K if we can get a dog. He said we could if I do everything, but I don’t think I want to commit to that. I suggested we have a baby and eventually train the baby to take care of the dog. Of course, this will take a few years. I do like the idea of children as future indentured servants, but there are so many years of helplessness we would have to get through first that I’m not really sure it’s worth it. How old do they have to be before you can train them to bring you breakfast in bed?

*I spent much of Sunday in bed with a migraine, which spoiled my big plans to see the Dada exhibit at the National Gallery. I was lying there grimacing in pain, feeling bad for keeping Lord K from the exhibit, until I remembered that the whole thing was my idea and he was probably just as happy to be sitting on his ass playing videogames. I watched the entire Pride and Prejudice miniseries, which cheered me immensely. I was really wishing I also had the DVD of the new version of P&P, so I could do a comparison study, but I had to be content with 5 hours of Colin Firth, which is never a bad thing.

*The recent (unfounded) noise complaints have led to completely paranoid state on my part, expecting to be blamed for every stray noise in the building. I spent much of the evening wandering around the apartment trying to figure out where various noises are coming from. As I was getting ready for bed, I heard an unusual noise. It sounded like a bird chirping and it was localized to the dining room. In my post-migraine fogged state, I was convinced that a bird had gotten in the apartment and was now trapped and chirping up a storm, although I could not figure out how this had possibly happened since we have screens on all the windows and to get in the door, a bird would have had to make it to the sixth floor somehow. I dragged Lord K out of bed and he discovered that not only was the sound coming from the dining room, it was localized to a cabinet, making it really unlikely that a bird had gotten in there. Also, the sound was a continuous steady chirping, obviously mechanical. (Like I said, I was pretty out of it.) It turns out that we had these stuffed animal chicks that someone gave us last Easter and that I promptly tossed in the cabinet and forgot about. They make chirping noises when you hold them. I guess the batteries were dying and much like a smoke alarm in that situation, they just started chirping. It took 15 minutes of jamming it with a screwdriver to make it stop. (We were tempted to just bash it open with a hammer, but God forbid, we disturb any of our neighbors.)