Tropical Storm

Do you ever have times in your life when things get so busy you have to think about finding the time to get even the most mundane things done? The work and “busy stuff” that needs to get done comes pouring in a like a thunderstorm. Welcome to my world lately!

Good God! I’ll admit I’m not the most organized person in the world. I have a tendency to become single minded when it comes to getting any writing projects done before anything else. Recently I was even tempted to give up one of my trips to Ecuador because of all of the writing projects I had to complete.  And in tandem with all of this, I still have to look after my birds, my dog Mattie, get the laundry done, and keep my home somewhat presentable; no easy task when you  have birds. My birds are complete slobs and would just as soon toss their breakfast all over the floor as look at it. Sometimes I need to run to one of my local bird stores to get some shopping done for the birds. I run over to “Chippy the Pirate” for all things “Parrot” and pay my friend Clive Waterhouse and his birds a visit:

I like having a clean floor. One of the reasons for this is because even though I have an office, I write in the living room where my birds are. When there’s stuff on the floor, it gets in my “eye line” while I’m writing and it irritates me.  I have no idea why. There’s a television out there, but I rarely turn it on. There I sit, hunched over my laptop tapping away, and zooming around the internet trying to learn something about what I need to know to complete a writing project. Lately, I’ve been researching and trying to understand the “binomial nomenclature” of birds. In other words, I should have been wearing this while doing this research:

Normally, I initially look at this sort of research with a raised eyebrow and I’m thinking, “Yeah. Sure. I’ll never understand all of this.” And then I dive in hoping beyond all hope that eventually I’ll comprehend enough of it to find what I need for an article I’m writing. Please understand that sometimes I have to do research for some obscure fact in just one sentence. I had to get all of this “Family-Genus-Species” business figured out well enough in order to explain something in an article I’m writing. And it’s times like these that I’m happy as hell that I make “Chop,” my frozen vegetable mix for my birds. If I didn’t have a bunch of that tucked away in the freezer, I’d probably never survive. I have literally gone three or four days when the only time I went out the front door was to pick up the mail, take the dog out or take out the garbage. I’m not complaining, mind you! I love my writing career as small as it is, and wouldn’t give it up for anything. It’s enormously satisfying to write something that people will either learn something from it or get a laugh. Personally I love to laugh and if I can give that gift to someone else, then well, hurray. In the meantime, I’ll be sitting up here quietly tapping away and occasionally getting up to vacuum the floor.