Week 17, Day 1 (Fab day all round!)

I was feeling pretty gutted last night. One of our parrots (a sweet aviary bird, Mrs Maroon Bellied Conure, to be exact) flew into the wire when frightened by a hawk, got concussion and died from it shortly afterwards. Mr M-B Conure is feeling pretty lonely - this is the second time he's been widowed. (or is that widower-ed? Somehow I doubt the nitpicketies matter to him at this point).

Add on to that, we'd discovered that we'd actually made the mother of all eff-ups when we took out the lease on the camera. We did not know that almost every OTHER camera store in town was selling our camera with an extra telephoto lens, for a mere $100 more than the one we leased. Shit..

We discovered this wee anomaly when we looked around to find the adaptor that we'd been told was required to get our film camera's many fabulous lenses to fit the new digital camera.

Guess what... the adaptor doesn't exist (swear, stomp, scowl, pout). Actually, we're not THAT gutted - it is a shame these wonderful lenses have to now be sold as obselete to our requirements, but c'est la vie, ya know?

Our mood wasn't improved any when we found out about the telephoto lens we'd missed out on!

Back to the store - whaddya gonna do for us, HUH?? To cut a long story short, we finagled a new deal. Goodbye lease - hello HP. We also get to keep all the extras and freebies we were given on the first deal, PLUS they are throwing in the telephoto lens! We're significantly better off than before, and we'll own the whole shebang interest-free in twelve months. That works for me :-)

See what happens when you act within the seven days grace of the Credit Contracts Act. Too cool to have some power as a consumer, for once :-)

So a ratshit night dawned into a wonderful day today, although we're still very sad about the sweet little bird that died. I'll have to find him Wife #3, poor bugger.

Wayne was home with me today (well we had to spend the morning in town, so that put paid to any landscaping work), so I put him to work batching receipts for my clients. The teamwork did wonders, and by the end of the afternoon we'd almost completely caught me up with the time I lost running around this week.

A tiny snippet of praise for my man for very different reason - one of the things I admire most about Wayne is his compassion for all living things (well almost all.. he's fairly merciless with annoying insects). On our way into town today he spotted a hurt bird on the other side of the road on State Highway 1. Next thing we're doing a U-turn, and he zipped back to help the bird.

It was a fat thrush that had had a narrow escape from being roadkill. It was lightly stunned, but otherwise unhurt (wings, body, legs, neck all fine - just a bit woozy and uncoordinated, sitting on the road muttering "Anyone get the licence of that truck that whooshed me?").

If it had been unsavable, he'd have quickly put it out of its misery, but it really was just a bit stunned, so he took it into the distant shrubbery to give it some safe breathing space. No doubt passing drivers thought he was taking a leak in those bushes - but I guess they could be forgiven for thinking that ;-)

It's a totally wonderful human being that doesn't give in to apathy when a critter is suffering. Hats off to all who actively avoid hitting birds and other critters, and extra blessings to the rare few who will take a minute out of their busy lives to stop and check on a hurt little beastie.

Yeah that's my man. Any wonder why I love him so much?