All dressed up and somewhere to go!

Things are busy around Fortner's Folly today.  I'm doing laundry, making beef jerky and putting finishing touches on our costumes for tonight.  I'm also tending to a sick or injured bird, I'm not sure which, although I'm leaning toward injury.  My middle birdchild, a maroon bellied conure named Ahab, is acting squirrelly.  His little eyes are just not as bright as they usually are, he is letting me handle him much more than usual without biting, and he is dunking his food in water before he tries to eat it.  He seems not to be using the lower left side of his beak, though, so I'm wondering if he didn't bang it on something in flight or if maybe I gave him some blackeyed peas that were to hot the other day.  He is just very subdued for what is usually an exuberant little bird.  I don't know what else to do except keep him warm, feed him soft foods (I wet his cereal and cooked his veggies and may soak his pellets later) and chop his fruits up extra small.  Send up some happy thoughts for him if you think about it, please?

Activity is picking up next door, where the shenanigans will be happening around dark thirty.  If a certain someone or sometwo show up, it won't be a matter of IF the popo show up, it will be a matter of when.  Maybe I should start a sheet up at the bar...take bets on what time THE MAN will show up.  *snort*  All I know for sure is that the (not so) Innocent Bystander has a six pack of rapidly biodegradable toilet paper standing at the ready and a bottle of Hot Damn to give him the courage to use it.  It's going to be an interesting evening.

Now, as some of you may not know the circumstances that cause me to use the term 'the Great Black Hope' and may take it as a sign of racism, let me assure you that I am anything but.  Sure, I've been known to use the odd two from column b joke and I can talk like a sistah when it is relevant to the conversation, but I could give a rat's ass about what color someone's skin is in if they live in this country legally, speak the language, abide by the law (for the most part, anyway) and pay their taxes.  I ran across this at Plungergirl's site and thought I'd repost it here, because I think this angry young MAN has something to say.  Ya'll have a safe and happy Halloween.