This week I’m experimenting with the old “reverse weekend” concept. This is when you only work two days and take the rest of the days off, instead of vice versa. In my case, I’m currently finishing up a four-day weekend, gritting my teeth in anticipation of the next two days of work, before I sail off into a five-day weekend. It’s pretty exciting stuff. Mostly it just makes me realize that I’d be perfectly happy never going to work.

In other news, I came home from birding today to find a dead bird in my living room. WTF?? It was a Chimney Swift and it was lying right on the mat in front of the door. I have no idea how this bird got in the house, given that our fireplace is sealed shut with brick. Of course, it’s not unheard of for chimney swifts to pop down a chimney and end up in someone’s house. I mean, they LIVE in chimneys, or rather they build their nests there. Most everything else they do on the wing. But unless this one can pass through brick, I am mystified as to its presence in the house. Given that it’s highly unlikely that the bird came in the house on its own, I am forced to pin the blame on our neighbors’ cat, a known bird killer, and frequenter of our front porch. He has also been known to shove his paw through our mail slot, and so it would not be that great a leap to consider the theory that he shoved this bird through the mail slot. I mean, he does like us quite a bit, and spends at least as much time in our yard as in our neighbors’ yard. So perhaps he just wanted to give us a thank you gift. If it wasn’t so horrific it would be sweet. It’s times like this when you really wish your pets could talk. I am sure that Fiznit would have a lot to say about this dead bird. But she refused to comment.

Anyway, I have a local connection who traffics in dead birds, so I’m donating it to the Smithsonian.