silby's bad experience

march has already been a very busy month. let's see....

last sunday jake and i went out for a bike ride around our house for some quick exercise. what was supposed to be a 40 minute ride turned into about an hour of riding, then pulling over to fix flats. both of us got a flat tire, and the second we stopped, jake looked at me like "well, you said you wanted to learn how to change a flat..." So, just as soon as I had made my resolution, i was putting it to good use! normally I would have taken a break with my cliff bar as jake changed our tires... but not this time!

the following morning, i was leaving for work and decided to get my sunglasses. i go to open our car and notice all of our stuff is everywhere - papers on the seat, whatever we had in the back seat was moved around, and there was a horrible stench of cigarette smoke. and ashes and some other gross stuff were on our brand new seats! we quickly concluded that someone broke into our car in the middle of the night.... and by broke in, i mean walked up and opened the unlocked door... yes, i think i forgot to lock it when i was unloading groceries the night before. it was a huge bummer, but we kept saying "it could have been a lot worse". at least Silby (our silver blue subaru) didn't have a window smashed or any real damage. they did steal our 2 ipods and some sunglasses though. the worst part was knowing someone was going through our stuff and just hanging out, right in front of our house. taj and zeek clearly didn't hear a peep either!

so as we're sitting there waiting for the police, our neighbor comes up and needs a jump because his battery was dead. we've seen each other briefly walking to/from our cars for about a year and had never exchanged more than a head nod. so of course we help him. we didn't want to move our car since the cops were on the way and didn't want to touch anything... so jake jumps in Doyle, his '81 toyota that is half dead sitting in our driveway. the neighbor is looking at us like "really, with that thing?" as it's trying so hard just to turn on. we had to laugh that Doyle, who is now non-operable with the dmv, taken off our insurance, can hardly idle, and is in need of some serious TLC,... here he comes to the rescue and can still jump start a honda. man that old beast really has some heart  :)

so jake leaves for work, and im sitting there waiting for the cops - still. and this boxer with a collar on comes running up to our fence, in a panic, who clearly had just escaped his house and was on the loose. i grab our dog treats and a leash and take off running after him. so here i am running like a crazy lady, in my cycling shoes, which are really annoying to walk in, let alone run. i pass several people who are like "is that your boxer? he went that way!" and i'm like it's not mine, but thanks...  a cop pulls up and sees i have a jar of treats and a dog leash, and asks if I'm looking for that boxer.... and i ask him if he can please come by my house after this to do my police report that i called in about 2 hours ago!

i guess the point of all that was that morning started off pretty crappy. there's no doubt about that. but yet somehow, just being given the opportunity to help other people always makes you feel good. and i think it's what turned that morning around. without those light-hearted moments, i think the rest of the day i would have been like "awww man, this sucks. so unfair. can't believe our car was broken into. woe is me..." but it's like we didn't even have time to think like that because other people around you need help. i think if we look for it more often, there are plenty of opportunities to stop what we're doing and help other people.

anyways, today will entail a nice bike ride with jake, and then i'm volunteering at Project Wildlife. i'm still training and there's so much to learn there, and so many species of birds i will need to become familiar with! last sunday was the first time i've held a bird that wasn't a pet. it was pretty neat. i think in the beginning it will be a lot of cage cleaning and hand feeding. but that's fine by me. it's still a great way to help. however, i was disappointed to learn i will not be snuggling with squirrels anytime soon, unless i get a $800 rabies shot.

so birds will do for now! :)