Okay…so…my pigeon enforcer was a dud. As you know, my AC units are sealed (SEE Pigeon Sex BLOG ENTRY) into my windows and access to my ledges (where the pigeon families dwell) must be from outside and up a ladder.
Well in keeping with my building’s fine maintenance record, the enforcer arrives. Fool! He insists that he can do this from inside my apartment. HELLO! The windows are sealed shut with the AC unit…He comes in. He walks to the window. He looks at it. He coos at the presence of the Pigeon family. (!!!) He says he has to access the windows from outside and has no ladder. (duh!) He leaves and has never returned. I am stunned. Did I mention that there are now mice in my place? Very small, very cute. I blame this on my neighbor Brenda who constantly recieves large boxes of vintage lamps for her store at her place.
…I must note here that there is no evidence to support this position but it offers some sort of comfort to me.
I hate the mice because they eat my potato chips and they leave little turds (droppings) and I believe they carry germs. As I look around my filthy apartment I can’t imagine they can make things any worse… Back to the pigeons: So I am stuck with them. The offspring grew up and eventually ventured out of the nest. They were not cute. They had little bumps on the bridge of their beaks which gave them the appearance of little vulture’s but only beak-wise. I called them Hookbeaks. YECH! It was funny watching them learn to fly. At first they hopped around outside the nest. Then one day they just started flying. At this point the parents were hardly ever seen. The father was long gone before the mama pigeon. Shut up! I knew which was which because the male would haul ass and fly off when I banged on the window in the early nesting days. Whilst the female would only hop off the nest and hover a few inches near by. Plus the female had specific markings on her neck.
Anyway, the twins grew up and started to fly off and return to the nest. If I banged on the window they were not confident enough to fly off. They would hang onto the ledge with their little claws and teeter back and forth until the nerve to take off would come. Again, I felt badly: Horrid human! Reconcile to your fate! You must coexist with these creatures!
Then one day one of the little bastards flew off the nest (they had taken to sitting on the nest on occasion) and there it was: another egg! I was shocked. I looked at the two birds. Pigeon Incest? EU!!! Tme would tell me that it wasn’t pigeon incest. I reckon the last offspring were just egg sitting whilst the new parents went to the movies or something. Because after about two days I never saw hook beaks again. The first set of offspring (Hookbeaks) had flown the coop–so to speak. The new couple/parents moved in. This new couple both had white markings on their faces.
Well, it seemed this latest brats hatched in about a minute. They are much cuter than the last batch and very active: well mostly quick breathing. They were born with yellow fuzz but not nearly as hideous as Hookbeaks. I wonder if my torturing the previous mother before hatching had something to do with their hideousness.
I hate to disgust the reader here, but you can imagine that the view by this time has become rather obscured by… well … excrement. In fact one of my more colorful boyfriends calls the view a “shit aquarium”
In fact our building has become “Wild Kingdom” My new neighbors (two very young kids-aged 22 or so- remember I’m old) have a dog walking service so there’s about two thousand canines next door barking up a storm at every sound in the stairwell. They announce my late night adventures quite markedly every morning at about five to six AM. Grrrr.
I share a front porch with my next door neighbors and so we have a rather big space out there. Last month I noticed that my neighbors (the dog walkers) had placed a big plastic turtle on the porch. I was so delighted! I mean I have a rubber goldfish and several other resin, rubber and plastic reptiles all over my place. (I worked at a store called Possibilities and they sold crazy shit including lifelike plastic reptiles, insects and miniature body organs on occasion) I thought to myself: “How cool to have such a thing in common!” I would go out and see the turtle, even greet him: “Hey Mr. Turtle!” I even brought out my plastic turtle and placed him on my side of the porch. HEE HEE! Their turtle however was intense…more like a tortoise with horny layers on its legs and a big shell. The head was molded in an outstetched position and just looked positively prehistoric! Then one day about a month later, I go outside to smoke a fag (a cigarette you freaks! No, I was not barbecuing homosexuals!) and I give my usual: “Hello Mr. Turtle!” And the bitch moved its head!!! It wasn’t a plastic turtle at all!
That bitch was real and proceeded to follow me all over the porch. Thank God they move slowly! I swear to you that creature never moved for an entire month. She was posed in the same position – frozen! Then on this day (and every day since) it’s like she’s (her name is Joanna) riding a motorcycle – albeit very slowly – around the porch: just full of action and movement: eating carrots, drinking water, knocking over shit as she trues to negotiate her big assed shell between my pots on the porch. And often she waits at my patio door for me to come out and then follows me all over the place. GEEZ!! Who am I – Dr. Fucking Doolittle? Actually, I like the turtle, I mean tortoise. They are unusual creatures and this one is so fucking big! Life in the big city! It’s fucking Wild Kingdom!
