Saturday morning bits

It's so quiet right now. I'm breathing it in because it most likely won't stay that way much longer.

It looks like the people who lived in the mobile home on the street behind my backyard and who liked loud music and loud yelling are gone. There is a monstrous pile of belongings on the street in front of the fence, although the huge pile of garbage by the front steps is still there. I guess they didn't pay their trash bill so they just kept throwing their garbage out front by the steps. How lovely . . . and sanitary.

Yesterday I saw a beautiful male cardinal with such a fat red belly. Someone's been eating well.

The other day a falcon swooped in front of my car, down near the grass, and then perched on a wood fence. He/she didn't move as I stopped my car and rolled down the window to get a better look. A few days ago I saw two white Ibis snacking on bugs and lizards in a very small patch of grass and bushes surrounded by parking lots, retail outlets, banks and restaurants at the corner of a super busy intersection. Last week I saw a father, mother and baby crane pecking at the grass strip by the side of a very hectic road. I'm always amazed at how wildlife lives in the midst of all our human paved-over bigness and loudness and busyness. So I figure if they can do it, I can do it. I can live in our fast-paced, frenzied human world without wanting to scream. Right?

It's about 10:30am and it's already getting hot. What happened to spring when you can open your windows all day and a fresh coolish breeze will waft through your house? The weather went from winter to summer, just like that. There is definitely some sort of climate change happening on this planet. It's supposed to be 87 degrees today. This is mid-April. We shouldn't see 87 degrees until mid-May. It was in the 30s at night and 60s in the day at the end of March and now a few weeks later the temperature is in the high 80s. Weird.

Last week someone stole my debit card number and went shopping (with a real card) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Someone also bought a lunch at a Thrifty Motel in Colorado with a real card with my number on it. Someone (perhaps the same person) tried to book a room at five different hotels in the U.S. All of this on the same day. Busy little debit card, don't you think? My bank caught it right away, of course, because, unless you have superpowers, it's impossible for a debit card to be used in two different continents on the same day within a short period of time. One charge went through (probably the first one) before my bank caught it, but I've been reimbursed. There's no telling how the thief got my card number. I surmise it was probably gleaned from a local merchant that may not have the best online security. But who knows. It could be have been stolen from the big box stores as well. If my bank finds out how the perpetrator is, I hope I get a chance to strangle the damn thief.

I'm almost finished with my Master's degree in Library and Information Science. Two more weeks and it's all over. Yay! It's been a long, fun, exciting, arduous, and educational trip but I'm happy that it's over, although I have to confess that I'm considering going for a low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Tampa. But not right now. No more schooling for awhile. Jobs? Well, that's another trip. No job offer yet. Not even a request for an interview. Guess I'm gonna have to think outside the box. There are some cool outside-the-box jobs on ineedalibraryjob.com. 

I have a question: Whose idea was it to tell women that they need 4-inch heels? I see all these cute shoes but they have 3-1/2 to 4 inch heels. Why? Even TOMS boots for women are about 3-1/2 inches. My thought on this is it's a way to keep women subjugated in a sense because how can a woman walk with confidence if she's toppling on such high heels? There are women who can pull it off and part of me admires that, but I would rather walk closer to the ground, thank you very much. 

Well, that's it. It's after 11:00am and I haven't eaten breakfast yet. I'm hungry. And it's still quiet in the neighborhood. Hallelujah.