The tools of trade

[Sheaya]

What to know about me Notes * I struggle with a list of learning disabilities, so please bare with my writing. If you see something in my writing that is absolutely bugging you, just let me know the issue. There is a good chance I can't see the issues and someone pointing it out is usually the only way I become aware of it. I am eager to learn and hone my craft as a writer, so I really don't mind constructive criticism. Over all this page is a WIP again...

[Sheaya]

I had a long shift at the desk today, so I doodled my Benshira while waiting to serve people... Secret :

[Sheaya]

I won't even try and deny that I'm a coffee addict... I was seriously drinking the stuff since I was 3, perhaps younger when I started liking it. I would spend a lot of time at my grandma's house, and apparently every time she sat her coffee cup down I would swarm it and drain anything in it. That love for the bitter mistress known as coffee has only grown as I grew older. It brought my uncle and I closer together, and we will forever be coffee buddies, he taught me how to properly brew a cup of coffee black, balanced, and strong. To this day I feel it's not a cup of coffee unless it hot and black. In the height of my coffee addiction I was drinking 2-4 pots of coffee by myself. I didn't drink it for the caffeine boost, I drank it because I honestly love the flavor. I don't drink that much any more, but I do still love it and feel like I'm missing something when I've not had any coffee. The one thing that really curbed how many cups I was drinking a day was when I bought myself a Kureg brewer. I've really limited myself down using that where I'm drinking only one or two cups, it really is a big difference. A few Christmases ago my coffee buddy uncle gave me a travel mug. It really is neat and easy to clean. It has a nice ceramic body with silicone grip and lid. With it being my special cup that retained heat well I would rinse it out before every use and brew my cup into that. I did this for quite some time and never had any issues. Honestly I do that a lot with my favored cups. Use them for every cup and rinse between washings... One Sunday morning I got up to make my morning coffee into my travel cup to start getting me up and going for that day before church that morning while I blogged. I was near the end of my cup when I took a swig and realized I wasn't getting a smooth mouthful. If anything, it felt really wrong. I thought I had taken a swig of tea leaves which wouldn't be too unreasonable as I do steep loose teas, but I knew something wasn't right as there shouldn't have any tea leaves near my coffee after all. As I sat there with my laptop in front on me, holding the coffee swig and foreign substance in my mouth, I was left wondering what I had in my mouth. Part of it was dangling out of my mouth, I could feel it on my lips so I glanced down where it looked like I did indeed have some sort of weed in my mouth. Very carefully I tugged on one of the dangly bits to see what I had in my mouth and what I saw made me spew my coffee right back out of my mouth. I had taken a swig of a full grown wolf spider. I can only imagine that the spider had been hiding in the lid of my coffee cup as I only lightly rinse that piece, and as it's black and how dark the spider was. I was really put off from coffee for the rest of the day to have a drowned, coffee soaked spider in my drink. I screamed I'll admit and freaked out a great deal over my little find. To this day I always thoroughly check my cups before I brew my coffee, and let this serve as a warning to you to do the same.

[Sheaya]

Sparrows Today was a little bit of a heart clincher today and it really reminded me how much I do love animals. On my lunch break today I drove out to my parents to eat there and see my siblings as my little sis who is married is down this week. They live on the edge of town, so they get the perks of being in town like city water/trash, but your surrounded by nature still and it's not very crowded. We're use to seeing wild animals out there day and night ranger from rabbits and deer to bobcats and mountain lions. Anyway, on the way out to their place I was two houses away from my parents when I saw a bird almost in the middle of the road. I slowed down and moved to the side, giving it space in case it didn't have time to fly off, but as I slowly rolled by I notice it wasn't moving. So after driving past I realized something was wrong and backed up so I could pull up beside it and check on it. The poor thing looked blind, he was a little male sparrow fledgling just sitting in the road, not even startled that I had drove past him twice and opened my car door beside him. I spoke to him calmly, seeing if he would move or anything but he didn't even attempt to fly. So best thing I could think to do was grab an unused napkin out of my car (Starbucks always gives me plenty with my coffee after all) and blanket him in it and use it as a blinder as well to keep him calm. I just wanted to drive him up to the house so I could check on him better and decide what to do if he was hurt. Looking him over it looked like he was actually born without one eye. The other one was fairly bright and clear, but the other one was either so sealed shut that I couldn't even tell any more or it was just naturally sealed like he had never had it. The little guy also had one toe on just one of his feet that was almost double the size of the matching one on the other side. I would have thought he had been kicked out of his next for being a weakling if it hadn't been for the fact he was nearly fully grown. He appeared to have all his flight feathers, and I didn't see anything that I associated with baby feathers. Not to mention where I found him there were no trees near by or even parent birds near by, watching him if he was their baby who had fallen out. He was able to move his wings, and his flight feathers looked okay and no evident parasites on him (perhaps a little preening just to make his feathers top notch?) and I didn't feel any broken bones. It was just his eye and his unusually calm nature that had me worried as well as that one toe. There was little I knew I could do, and I knew him being a wild animal I couldn't keep him or take him to a local vet, so I did the next best thing I could think of. I helped him get perched in a nearby tree that would be near where I had found him in case he did have a family near by, and I let him sit there while I ate and looked up local wildlife rehabs just for safe measures as well as to look up laws on this sorta thing (Don't wanna get in trouble). It really was eery to see how calm he was with me when I was standing there eye level with him on that branch. He was able to sit really well even with that abnormally long toe, but he just acted very unresponsive for a wild young bird. I would have thought he would have had enough instinct to fear me a little bit when he was facing me like that. Towards the end of my break when I started to leave I went to check the tree and check on the little guy. He was no longer in the tree from what I could see and I saw him no where around on the ground. I can only assume he was able to finally fly off after coming to his senses, but I have no definitive proof of that. I'll just have to hope that is the case and that he will be okay, but I'll probably always wonder about that bird....