Thursday, September 29, 2011

Second Verse Same As The First

Second day same as the first day, except I got a ride and didn't take the bus. Oh and no snake sightings. Damn.  More corporate speak, Power Points, high energy trainer and me yawning my head off by eight pm.


Instead of boring you to death with how I spend my afternoon/evenings and to distract you from the lack of any fibery content, I'm going to tell you a funny story.  I'm full of them.  Duane's heard all my stories hundreds of times.  Of course, we're together every day for nine years.  He tells me I need to get new stories.  Which I do, but then I tell him and then they're old by the next day, week, month, year.  So, I'm going to write them to you, to distract you from the fact that I'm seriously lacking the fiber content.  He will come by and read them.  So, actually, I'm retelling them to him too. That cracks me up. (Sorry, easily amused today. Corporate speak frying the brain cells.)

Anyway, we put this feeder up finally over the weekend.  We've had it for almost a year.  But I kept loosing the box of nectar or the feeder.  Yesterday, I noticed the hummers have found my feeder.  First two zoomed by my head and went for the feeder and zoomed off.  Then another one, zoom off.  Then another came and hovered around the bush near by.  I grabbed the camera, came back out and he seemed to have left.  Then suddenly he came up over the over side of the bush, seemed to look at me then went to the feeder.  I actually got a picture of him.  That's not the funny story.

Back in 99, I lived in a complex that was set in the woods.  Out back, I had a small wooden deck about 4 feet by 6 which I decorated with assorted plants, just like here.  A beautiful Blue Girl tea tree rose, (I won't tell the story about that plant because it ended in tears) a huge hibiscus, jasmine, gardenia, assorted hanging baskets and window boxes set on the wooden ledges.

One evening, after dinner, I'm out there watering my plants and talking to my neighbor who sitting on her deck enjoying my flowers.  She's severely allergic to flowers, but her deck was a safe enough distance that she enjoyed mine.  I walked out into the grassy area about six or ten feet away from my deck to admire the flowers, when I heard an awful loud, really loud buzzing in my ear.  Then I felt a sharp poke in the side of my head.

Oh my goodness, that a huge freaking BEE!  Side note, I'm really allergic to bees.  I might be all cool walking by a snake at night, but let me see a bee and I become an Olympic tri-athlete in a hurry.  Well, I'm running around, swatting at my head, "Shouting, it's a huge bee!  Help!! I'm being attacked by a mammoth bee!!"  That damn thing was chasing me, poking me in the head.

My neighbor is doubled over, shaking, she was laughing so hard. Tears running down her face. She said she almost wet herself watching me running around, slapping my head, waving my arms around, screaming like a crazy person.  She shouts, "Stop! It's just a hummingbird!"

I stopped, but that thing was still attacking me.  I'm still waving my arms around my head to get it to stop.  Back then, I had really dark red hair.  The sun had shone on my hair just right and it thought I was probably the biggest, tastiest flower it ever saw.   Many nights after that, I swear those little buggers were just waiting on me to come out.  Three or four of them, felt like a swarm, dive bombing me in the head.  I would have to run back inside and tie something around my head for protection.  I actually thought of sticking a cooking pot on my head for a protection helmet.

So why am I now trying to attract them to my patio?  You might have noticed in previous pictures of me on this here blog, my hair is no longer a bright, dark red.  Mostly it is various shades of grey and the rest the Tucson sun has bleached blonde.  I hope, I'm no longer a target.  I really do love hummingbirds, just not when they're attacking me.

The north western hummingbirds migrate this way in the winter, so I'm researching on how to attract them.  Thus I have a sad little hibiscus and some butterfly bush seedlings.  One site I read said, they drink the nectar to give them energy to catch bugs, their main meal.  To think of them as flying fly catchers.  That's another thing I don't like about it here.  It doesn't get very cold, so we have houseflies year round.  I tempted to invite the hummers inside for a real meal. Anything that eats bugs is a great friend to me.  I also got excited when I saw a tiny lizard hanging out in my planter.  Bug Eater!  He was gone when I came back with the camera.

To answer a question, Teresa asked about my new job.  What will my job be?  Well, I'm working for an international call center and their client is a national pharmacy chain that I'll be taking their phone calls and servicing their customers.  They make it seem like it has to be all top secret so that's all I'll say.  Except, we are supposed to promote the company for new hires.  If you  apply and put my name as a referrer, I get bonuses after you have worked there for various increments of time.  They have locations around the country US, plus various other countries and a work at home department (your computer and internet connection have to meet their requirements) (obviously mine did not).  So if you're interested, send me an e-mail and I'll tell you how to apply.

 It's said that you really have to work hard at getting fired from this company.  However, being seen on carpet with a cell phone or any recording device out and that's immediate termination.  We were all joking about taking a picture of the trainer standing by the pharmacy logo sign and posting it to Facebook. The trainer was mostly joking about it saying, you'll get us all fired.  I thought about "getting Dooced" just for saying I work there on this blog. For those that don't know, she's a now famous blogger for getting fired for blogging about her job.  Except since that's been done before, so chances are highly unlikely that I get rich and famous for being fired.

Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment.  Hopefully my little story made you giggle or at least smile.  It's funnier when I tell it in person.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck with the new job. It sounds like at least you'll have some job security.

As for the hummingbirds --- I don't want ANYTHING buzzing my head. LOL Don't blame you for swatting.

Teresa Kasner said...

Sounds like a nice job! Can you work on handwork while on the phone or between calls? Like knitting or crochet? I worked on the phone for a newspaper taking starts, stops and complaints for missed papers. The good part is we could work on handwork and I did lots of paintings and beadwork between calls. I did my 9/11 beads there. Funny story about the hummingbird attack!! LOL
((hugs)), Teresa :-)

supertinks said...

What a great story! And what strange behaviour from the humming birds.

I had a bat crash into my face once...

Dina said...

know what you mean about the little hummers...they are wicked intent when they want their nectar!

Figaro said...

I love watching the hummingbirds, the leaves are already turning up here in Canada so I think that time has past for me! Did you know that you can make your own nectar? Very easy to do-I make it as 1/4 cup sugar to 1 cup of water in a pan, heat it to dissolve the sugar then let it cool completely. Viola! Homemade hummingbird nectar! Here is a link with some more info http://birding.about.com/od/birdfeeders/a/nectarrecipe.htm They will find it without the red too! Good luck!