The Scout

This female is bossy and just as protective of the feeder as any male. It sits near the boundary of the yard and watches for any interlopers.  When she sees another bird go for the nectar, it takes off and scares the other boogers away. 

On this Veteran's Day, I had an hour's drive to see the pulmonologist. He's a good guy but I only see him once or twice a year.  It's a lousy drive, much of it on two lane roads. There's always some guy tailgating because he wants to go faster than the 50mph speed limit - and I don't.
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The other night, I was invited out for a night with "the girls." I told my husband that I would be home by midnight. "I promise," were my last words.
The hours passed and the margaritas went down way too easily and around 3 a.m. we piled into a cab and headed to our respective homes, quite inebriated.
Just as I walked through the door, the cuckoo clock in the hall started up and cuckooed 3 times!  Realizing that my husband would probably wake up to this, I quickly cuckooed another 9 times. I was quite pleased with myself for coming up with such a quick witted solution to cover up my tardiness. Even with my impaired judgment, I could count 3 cuckoos plus 9 cuckoos equaled 12 cuckoos!


The next morning, my husband asked me what time I got in, and confidently, I replied, "Midnight...like I promised." He didn't even raise and eyebrow and went on reading the morning paper! Phew! Got away with that one!
After a moment, he then replied, "I think we might need a new cuckoo clock."
A bit nervously, I asked him why, to which he responded:
"Well, last night our clock cuckooed 3 times, then said, 'Oh, crap,' cuckooed 4 more times, cleared it's throat, cuckooed another 3 times, giggled, cuckooed twice more, then tripped over the coffee table and farted."