I know. I do lots of stuff to avoid it, like sparkly things in the windows. But this one was just nuts. There was a whole gigantic flock. Like, hundreds. And something scared them, east of the house, and they all flew toward the house, scaring the crap out of me and the dog in my west-facing office. And then they sat contentedly on my kennel fence and surrounding trees for a few minutes. And then they all left.

Storm birds, flocking ahead of whatever front is presumably about to dump all that rain on you. Though that shouldn't make them bump into your house.

Oh, you're right. They were probably parked in the trees on the crest of the hill, maybe for the evening, and then had a predator fly over or something.

I am sorry about Kuma, Kat, and about the bad days Sparly and Consuela and other people I am undoubtedly missing.

So the saga of my former youth group leader and former family friend continues. Apparently the judge called a mistrial because . . . I'm not sure why. The mom of the victim on the stand was "combative" or something, or hadn't been coached, and said shit the jury couldn't unhear. And now it's up to the family if they want to continue to pursue the case. Hopefully they do. Fucker still has a court date about the child pornography possession, which will hopefully bear more weight in a second trial.

I told my mom that this was the first time in my life that I was glad that I am and have always been a bitch of a girl. She replied that she was thinking about it the other day, and agreed that he'd never have had a chance with the surly kid!me.

God, I want him to die in a fire and go away forever. And his wife and his church who covered this shit up.

I fondly remember Kuma's obsession with the red dot, wet hair and how the nutty beast refused to sit down the curvy road up to Big Bear in Hank (lori's land rover.) That dog bounced his pointy self all over me and Bear and the best I could manage was to hang onto him while he stood on my lap.

Devi Update: TL;DR version- she got a chest xray, no sedation and a steroid shot that may or may not help. No firm diag. I'm going minimal Devi-torture. It looks like if this doesn't clear it up, we'll just keep on going on until she's suffering.

I hope the steroid shot helps, sarameg.

ION, now that it is painfully cold out, my kitties decided that they need to be outside ALL THE TIME and I need to physically grab Ply to get her in at night. Yet, when I had to close my windows and it was still a balmy 40 or 50 degrees out, I couldn't get them out the door with a cattle prod.

Fire update: still burning.

They've torn it half down but it's still going.

Does anyone else think Jeremy Renner looks a lot like Kate Hudson in the picture on the far right?

SO VERY