31 March 2008

nevermore

I am really, really afraid of birds. REALLY afraid. I don't feel safe walking past one (let alone a group) without my glasses or sunglasses on my face and protecting my baby blues. This fear started when I read The Last Battle at a tender age (An eagle pecks out people's eyes. It was a good eagle, but still...It was too much for visual, imaginative me.) and was reinforced by the movie The Birds in junior high. You need to understand this to appreciate the creepiness of the following story:

I cannot find good, canned-in-water, white tuna here. (Creepy, eh?) I have tried and have only found what would qualify as cat food. I can get a tuna steak, but I don't like tuna salad enough to go that route. Knowing I'd forget which brands I'd tried, I decided to buy one can of each and bring them all home. Our one springlike day last week made me want a tuna sandwich. I had pita bread and olive-based mayo. I just needed the tuna. So, I started opening can after can after can.

The cans are kept in the refrigerated section of the supermarket, so I followed suit at home. Yes, it seemed ridiculous to refrigerate sealed cans, but I thought maybe they knew something about the Russian canning process that I didn't. Seeing the congealed oil and cat-food-grade tuna in can after can was disheartening. And smelly. I didn't want to put them in the trash, so I set them outside on the window ledge until I was going down to the street. I thought about pitching them out the window and hoping to hit the dumpster below, but as I did not have success with that when I tried it with a friend's baby's diapers on a previous occasion, I decided against that.

While watching tv later, I heard a Poe-esque tapping at my window. There, not five feet from me, was a rook! Rooks are horrible, horrible scary birds. They're so scary that I don't even have a picture to show you. I've never taken one. They're all over the place here. They're fearless and tenacious. They have long, cruel beaks, strong claws, and malicious, mocking, glittering, black eyes. They look like ravens wearing grey waistcoats. I shudder just writing this.

It took a bit of tuna, fixed me with a wicked glance, and then flew away. I was creeped out and didn't do anything. I hoped it would just leave. I feared it would return with a flock of other huge, scary, carnivorous birds. It came back and I knew I had to do something. This was the stuff nightmares are made of, and I have been sleepless enough. (Beazy, nach, was nowhere to be seen.) So, I banged on the window and then quickly gathered up the tuna when it flew away. There was a tense moment when I was exposed--the screenless window was wide open as I gathered the malodorous cans--trying to avoid both (possibly) returning rooks and spilled tuna juice. Fortunately, as the presence of this post attests, I survived to blog another day. Those cans stayed inside until I made it down to the dumpster.

So there you have it. Not earth shattering. But, the bloggy blurb over at the top doesn't promise eath shattering--only what daily life is like for me here. Bad tuna and rooks. That's daily life.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would be happy to send you tuna in the pouch if you are that needy...I don't want you to have more bird issues...Debi

Lauri said...

I can also send you pouch tuna as well, would be a breeze to ship off


those birds sound creepy

Annie said...

I am SO afraid of spiders that I can understand your situation. Yikes! If I did something that actually ATTRACTED spiders to my area, I'd go mad! Though I don't know that I can even consider spiders enough to write a description of them... You're bolder than I am in that way!

Annie said...

Fish in Russia is far more "fishy"; I can see why nice white tuna in water would seem unpalatable in comparison. Meanwhile, my kids look at my cans of tuna very much askance. I wouldn't be surprised to find them gathering at the cat's bowl for a snack! They like all this Russian canned fish that looks like sludge from the bottom of a fishing vessel. I generally love Russian food, but this is where I am stopped in my tracks.

votemom said...

i saw TheBirds for the first time last year. what a creepy movie. but the ending really annoyed the heck out of me. i saw thru that whole thing only to have the birds just randomly leave the town?

i'm glad you were not pecked.

Tami said...

The mental image of that bird on your window sill giving you the evil eye just about creeped me out! And I'm not even afraid of birds!!! YUCK!

Melissa said...

Yikes! It took me a second to visualize just what sort if bird you were referring to and then I remembered! Like the bird on the back of the aptly named card game! Birds don't bother me but like annie, put a spider anywhere close and I totally freak out!

Glad you lived through the horror to tell about it! :)

Deb said...

LOL!!! I'm so sorry but thanks for a great laugh. I can just picture the scene.
But I'm really glad that you are safe. And I'm wondering if tuna would be any good if I shipped it to you...

Tammy said...

LOL Kate! You sound like me when I found a bumble bee dying in my bedroom. I freaked out in the same way. Called my mom - kept her on the phone for about 45 min. trying to work up the courage to pick it up and throw it in the toilet. She only lives 5 min. away and probably would have been better off just coming over and doing it herself. But that would have taken away from the drama. I finally used a glass and fly swatter to trap it and dump it in the toilet. Needless to say, he was dying and probably very glad I put him out of his misery. But it was a very scary time for me nonetheless and it gives me the creeps just thinking about that horrible night!! I can relate to your useless fears!!

Tina in CT said...

I can't even look at a picture of a snake. I am petrified of them. When I was in elementary school, the boy next door buried one (don't know if he killed it or found it dead). Then he unburied it and chased me with it. I remember running up to his kitchen door screaming like I was being murdered. His mother really let him have it. I was so traumatized that I've never gotten over my fear of snakes.

That bird on the window sill would have freaked me out too.

Unknown said...

I am so with you, sistah! I really hate birds. Ex-husband had a cockatiel named Casper (WHY OH WHY did I marry this man) and it just sat on a perch with NO CAGE (horrors) and when he would go to work the bird would hop off and hop around the apartment, usually ending with me locking myself in the bathroom with the cell phone to call him to come HOME AND GET HIS BIRD AWAY FROM ME.

kim said...

That cracks me up. (Sorry to laugh at your expense, but I understand your fear.) You are the only other person I know of besides my mom who has this crazy fear of birds. She was flocked by a mother hen when she was a little girl b/c she was playing with the chicks... hers it true heart-failure fear. Maybe we need to start a tuna campaign for you?

Unknown said...

I liked reading about daily life in Russia. I don't envy you the rooks and the tuna, but otherwise being a single expat in Russia doesn't seem like a bad life!

votemom said...

hhaha - guess what movie was on tv tonight?! yep!