I am impressed...

by me.

It's been a banner day in J-Town today, and it's only 8:36 a.m.

By the end of the day, I may have figured out the key to world peace.

This morning, bright and early, I saved a bird. It somehow mishapped into our screened-in backporch; by the time I realized it was there, the bird was seriously freaking out.

I am not scared of birds, but I don't really like sudden movements from wild animals that could poke my eyes out... so I've never really tried too hard to do more than appreciate them from afar.

(Random sidenote: we spent hours as children snuggled up in Granny B.'s back den, watching the birds at the bird feeder. We were probably the only people under 50 who could distinguish a goldfinch from a titmouse. Still -- we only looked at them from the window. No interaction.)

Anyway, when K. left for work, he wasn't too concerned. "It'll find it's way out," he said in his wise-sage voice... but it worried me that the bird couldn't seem to figure out that there was a big open space for escape (otherwise known as a door).

So, when he left, I took matters into my own hands.

Literally.

I tried, at first, to talk it out of its frenzy.

Much like my children as well as my students, it didn't listen... and my presence seemed to upset it more.

I tried opening the other door so it would have TWO avenues of escape, but that didn't seem to help, either.

Finally, I took a deep breath and channeled my inner-nature-girl.

At first, I contemplated pulling a Crocodile Hunter-like move: gently scooping it up into my bare hands and carrying it to freedom.

That vision was interrupted by a second vision of the bird tearing the flesh from my bones, so I scrapped that idea.

Finally, I settled on a compromise.

I cornered the bird into one screen pane with the mop, and then I used the dog food scoop to gently trap the frenzied beast while holding onto its tailfeathers (all the while thinking, "I am going to have to wash my hands in scalding water! Birds have all kinds of germs on their feathers!" Please remember I was raised by Mayree who harbors much disdain for all germs everywhere.).

In one swift, cat-like movement, I shoveled the bird from the screen to the open door and set it free!

(Cheers all around!)

At this point, I realized that I was stalking around my backporch in a large tshirt and my undies, so I decided to take the party inside before my neighbors called the police.

Once inside, after scalding the skin off of my arms up to my elbows to remove bird germs and celebrating my second calling as an animal rescuer, I decided to tackle another daunting task: figuring out how to connect my camcorder/digital camera to the computer.

I've been working on this one for a while, but seeing as how I misplaced some important stuff... like the instruction book, driver software, and USB cable... this has been difficult.

As of last night, I'd finally managed to gather what I thought was the right USB cable and the instruction manual.

This morning, fresh off of my bird victory, I marched upstairs to tackle the technological beast.

And I won.

Sort of.

I can at least upload pictures to my computer...

Like this one, which I snapped this weekend while on vacation @ Folly with the fam. Nothing says, "South Carolina beach" like a mullet blowing in the wind.

Now, I just have to figure out how to upload the videos. (The computer keeps saying some program doesn't recognize the video file. Pttthhhttt.)

Still, I feel like today has been a success.

Maybe not so much of a success that I'll clean out the bonus room, but still... a success overall.