Ivy . . .

I can’t do a Christmas song in the side box today.  I have no Christmas cheer.  I have no happiness right now, just a cloud of depression and tears . . .

When I woke up this morning, I came downstairs, and was juts kind of vegging on the couch.  Okay, it was afternoon, but still.  Anyway, at one point, it occured to me that in yesterday’s entry, I didn’t even mentioned that it was the one year anniversary of Rusty’s death.  I felt bad about that, and worse about the fact that I don’t even think I remembered that yesterday.

Well, I went upsides and took a shower, and went into my room.  Ivy was at the bottom of her cage, just sitting there in a nesting kind of position, sort of fluffed up.  I scratched her head, and tried to get her to step up on my finger, but she didn’t.  She did her little hissy thing at me, and I took my hand away, but scratched her head agin.  I checked on her about fifteen minutes later, and she was in a different part of the bottom of the cage.  So, I reached my hand in again, and tried to get her to step up.  But this time, I realized that it loked like she had hurt her foot, because she didn’t want to put her weight onto the left one.  So, I took my hand away, scratched her head again, and told her she’d be okay, and I’d see her later.

I went downstairs, and fixed myself something to eat, as well as wrote Mike a letter, telling him to check on her, and see if he could pick her up and hold her for a bit.  Then, that she’d probably be all right till I got home, but that when I got off work, I wanted to clean the cage, and place her food and water on the bottom, so she could get to them, since if she hurt her foot, she couldn’t climb up to get to the dishes.  I didn’t want her to starve.  And I taped the note to his bedroom door.

I ate, and left for work, with some clementines and a plate of cookies and whatnot that my mom’s made already.  Work was fine, I was actually working with Shanna again, which was cool.  And I was at register, which is always nice.  So, it was about quarter to five when I decided to find out if Mike was back at the house yet, and if he’d gotten my note, because I asked him in it to come to the store as soon as he checked on Ivy.

So, I called, Dad answered, which was no surpirse, and I aksed if Mike was there.  He said no, that Mike had called from work, and apparently, his family had come down to Staples and picked him up, and he’d be back by six or eight.  So, I got off the phone, absolutely seething, slammed my hand down on the counter, and of course, there’s a customer at the counter.  So, I put aside that growing anger, was polite and friendly to the customer, and then asked if I could leave really quick, go back to my house, and find out whta was up.  I didn;t wanted to call Mike’s grandma’s from work, since it’s a toll call, and plus, I wasn’t completely sure of the number.  So, I left, (there are advantages to working five minutes from home,) ran back to the house, grabbed my mom’s adressbook, and called up there.  I got the machine, because no one in that house ever thinks, hey, maybe it’s a good idea to pick up the damned phone!  And I left a message basically saying for Mike to call when he got the message, and that I was not happy.

Then, I figured, “All right, since he didn;t come back here, let me go upstairs and check on Ivy.”  I hung up the phone, and went upstairs to my room.  I went in, and over to her cage, knelt down in front of it, and saw her, in the lefthand front corner, just lying still.  As soon as I saw her, I knew.  But I reached in and picked her up, and she was stiff.  She had died.

I started crying right there, and also knew right then that I couldn’t go back to work.  I knew I had to tell Marjan that, I couldn’t just not go back tonight, but I was in no condition to go back and actually be able to do a good job.

I walked out of the house, and back over there, still crying, and let her know what happened.  She said I could go, and I grabbed my jacket and went.  I figured Mike and the rest of them had gone to his grandma’s, so that’s where I headed after coming back to the house and getting my purse and keys.  Most of the way up there, I was crying.  And also thinking, “What is it with me drving up the Parkway in tears?”  And being glad that it wasn’t raining.  And wondring why it was that whenever I was woried about Jason, or really thinking about him, that seemed to bring tragedy to the animals of this house?

Anyway.  I have no idea where Mike is, because no one was at his grandma’s house.  Her car wasn’t even there, which strikes me as odd.  Because she doesn’t drive on the Parkway anymore, so it couldn’t have been her who drove down to pick him up from work.  But then, she could have been out somewhere else, I suppose.  I left there, and came back down the Parkway, Route 9, and Hwy 35, and came home.  And now I’m sitting here, typing this, still having no idea where Mike is, and pissed as Hell at his family for doing this.

It’s not the fact that Mike wasn’t here to check on Ivy.  As far as I can tell, she died because one of her eggs got stuck, and burst inside her.  That can kill female birds.  Mike’s heard of that happening before, and that was actually what killed another bird that my mom knows of.  So, literally, Ivy could have died when I was still here at the house before leaving for work.  Or she could have died five minutes before I came upstairs to check on her.  Or anywhere inbetween.  If we’d known, and gotten her to the vet in time, she could ahve been saved.  But then it would have depended on if she’d made it to the vet’s office.

Anyway . . .  I’m not pissed off because Mike wasn’t here.  I’m pissed off because he’d already made plans today.  He was going to play Mike Keller in that card game thingy that he’s involved in, since he missed doing it on Saturday.  And, no.  It’s not just a matter of playing some dumb card game.  This is some kind of bigger thing, that Mike actually signed an agreement to do.  And twice, he’s shirked his responsibility to do that.  I’m pissed off because once again, his family is proving they have no sense of responsibility, because they can’t even pick up a Goddamn phone and Goddamn CALL him, for Christ’s sake!!  No, instead, he’s meant to drop whatever plans he has for the day and go spend it with them!  I don’t care WHO the person or people are, NO ONE should pull that.  But will he f*ckin’ see it that way?  No!!  He’ll probably just lok at me and say that it’s no big deal.  Well, you know what???  It IS  a f*ckin’ big deal, because it’s called common COURTESY and MANNERS!!!  You CALL before you just drop in and automatically ASSUME that someone doesn

‘t have anything else to do, nowhere he has to be, nothing he has to take care of, no one he has to meet.

No, I don’t blame him for this.  Because even if he’d been there for me to talk to, there’s no guarantee that we would have guessed that Ivy was having trouble egging.  And even if we had, there’d still be the question of if we would have been able to get her somewhere in time.  I’m pissed off at, and downright blame whoever it was who had the “brilliant” idea to come down and whisk him away after work.

Ivy wasn’t even two . . .  I’ve only had her a year and a half . . .

I want my birdie back . . .