Category Archives: humor

OCCUPIED: Day 7

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7

Legal strategies will rid my property of the unwanted self-proclaimed caretaker who takes no care. I will tell you about them later. Meanwhile, something strange and a little awful is happening.

That this guy has spread toxins in my house is certain, including fecal matter and powder residue of indeterminate chemical make-up. It will require a massive and expensive clean-up, but the mess can be remediated.

This guy has spread toxins into my friendships. The woman who introduced me to him, assured me he was a good bet, and then tried to negotiate him staying after the first eviction notice because “nobody wants to throw somebody out with winter coming”? She used to be a good friend of mine. Now I can’t stand to see her. It’s like a divorce story. She has chosen sides, and that includes free warm housing for her golden boy no matter what. I wound up telling her that boundaries were God’s way of protecting us from ourselves, that her setting herself on fire to warm someone else was unhealthy but her decision, but setting me on fire to do it was unacceptable. I doubt our friendship will survive, and she comes with a few hangers-on who will make decisions based on hers. For now, let it ride. Friendships based in reality usually heal. Eventually.

This guy has spread toxins into my personality. Wait. Whoa. No. You do not get my soul.

I volunteer regularly at our town’s Friday food pantry, where a woman we can call Lucy is a regular. Lucy lives in a motel room with a moving target number of cats. She cannot get an apartment from sheltered housing because she won’t give up the cats. She’s in constant danger of eviction from the motel because the goal of the org providing the motel funding is to get you into a long-term apartment. And because the motel doesn’t like the cat smell any more than the people at the Friday market. Lucy tends to have a little space around her.

Lucy likes me because, in her words, I have a “sweet, cheerful soul” and am “not condescending-kind but friendly-kind.” I pretend to juggle apples. I tell people which foods they can eat without a microwave and how to heat them safely over a fire if they’re living rough. I tell them how to cook chickpeas so they taste good. I’m the NICE one. (We’re all nice, you understand.)

Friday past, Lucy started telling me her eviction was imminent and illegal. Those words slammed into me and heated my blood to instant boil.

I snapped at her, “I don’t want to hear it, Lucy. I can’t help you and I’m not gonna listen.”

Lucy is hard of hearing, and she said, “Thank you. You always listen to me and I appreciate it.” And kept talking.

I walked away from her, and she was so astonished she started to cry.

This will not do. Dude, you can burn my house down or freeze its pipes until I have to raze the place myself. You might end friendships that may or may not have been based on usury and usefulness. But Dude, you do not get my personality, my soul, whatever you call that thing God has spent 58 years cultivating in me just so I can see His light and promise in even assholes like you.

You are taking advantage of me. I get that. But you cannot now, and never will, be able to teach me kindness should not be extended. You will only be allowed to teach me that it must be extended with the careful boundaries that were missing in unverified trust at the beginning of this mess you appear to delight in being able to cause.

I picked up a fruit tray, walked back to Lucy, and lied like a rug. “Oh, hun, I’m sorry. I was listening. I just wanted to make sure you got this because it’s the last one and I know how much you like them. Now, where were we?”

You don’t get to live rent-free inside me, Dude. Just the house.

Operation Feather Ruffle

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6

It was bittersweet, but it had to be done. My six chickens and five guineas needed to be rehomed.

I travel a good deal for my day job, plus book stuff, so I was constantly having to network friends to open the chicken pen after sunrise and close it at sunset. This takes some doing because all my women friends are as busy as I am.

If our handyman had not blown out, or if Jack were living here, keeping them would have been no issue. But flying solo in bird care was not to be, and so Operation Feather Ruffle was born. A friend messaged some family members that the birds were available, along with all their supplies, in return for “free eggs for life.”

At first Tristi (matriarch of aforementioned family) only wanted my docile and pretty Barred Rocks (black and white speckles) and Midnight Majestics (black all the way down to their feathered feet). But her husband’s dad had raised guineas as a child and when he discovered there were five for the taking, he made his case. So the whole flying family would move together.

But, how? They had a trailer to haul the coop and barrel of food, but what about the pickup bed as the place the chickens traveled in? Cat carriers, cardboard boxes? In the end we decided the bed itself, with a locking cover and tailgate, would be best.

So Tristi, her father-in-law, and her brother-in-law, arrived with the truck and trailer. I borrowed a small dog crate from a friend, and we began, ehm, moving the birds.

Have you ever heard a frightened guinea? They sound like malfunctioning typewriters and look like lethal feather dusters: all movement and noise, and there is no reasoning with them. After a couple of futile attempts at soft talk, we cornered three in the coop and left them no egress but the cage door. That was the first three.

And they had a lot to say about it, which agitated their colleagues back in the coop.

Next round, we cornered some inside the actual henhouse inside the wire enclosure. Which meant moving the ladder by which they entered. Which meant my hand collided with very fresh poop from a frightened chicken. I swear one of them snickered as we closed the hen house door. Revenge is sweet, even for poultry.

We extracted three more via the egg box lid, Tristi sticking her hand through the door until the chickens backed far enough away from it that I could grasp them.

They did not like this. But it was done safely.

And then, as we tried using the poop-covered ladder to corner two more guineas, one of the hens got loose. She streaked across the yard and efforts to catch her suggested she might actually try flying over our fence, so we went back to extracting the others in the pen. At one point I got a mouthful of guinea feathers as she decided her best bet was to attack full frontal, but her rather sharp guinea toes did no damage to my sweatshirt and soon she too was in the pickup.

As we trudged back from loading all but the escapee, we pondered strategy. A net? A human cordon? Then the brother-in-law, a lad of about 15, said, “What’s that noise?”

The escaped chicken had secreted herself inside the wee hen house in our absence, her place of safety.

Tristi reached in, hauled her out, and cuddled her as she squawked for help. “Hey there, missy. No, it’s okay, you’re safe, calm down,” she crooned, stroking the bird nestled against her chest.

And the bird did. Turned her head and looked Tristi and the eye and you could see her little bird brain working. “Might not be so bad, better than staying here by myself. Ok, lady, let’s go.”

Tristi carried her to the truck in her arms, where her sisters looked annoyed as she joined them. “How do YOU rate?” they seemed to say.

Thus were my sweet babies rehomed. And I know it is the best thing for them, but I admit to a good cry after they left. Tristi promises to share their school report cards, and let me know if any of them get merit badges in their Scouts program, handicrafts, physical sports, that sort of thing. I am assured of a Christmas card.

So there we are. The chickens and guineas are living in a Fowl Paradise. Tristi already had a dozen birds, plus some baby ducks. She sent pictures of my former girls’ accommodations. And reported that evening that they were tucking into the grain supply and the mealworm treats without a care in the world.

Sigh. It’s not exactly that I wanted them to miss me, you understand, but the yard seems empty this morning.