In which a bird says "Welcome to spring"

It seems like every year, Seattle has a Great Spring Fakeout right in the middle of February. All of a sudden, after weeks and weeks of drizzle, mist, fog, showers, and other gray spit from the sky, there always comes a day or two of bright blue skies, 60 degree temperatures, the whole kielbasa.

This past weekend was this year's Fakeout. My yard was busting out all over: crocuses, camelias, daffodils, morning glories- they all opened up their faces and smiled at the sun. It's a good thing too. The rain has started to get to us. Whenever we go out into the rain these days I can't stop myself from saying "What a world! What a world!" (And I must say, as an aside, that when Nordic Boy knows what that quote is from and responds appropriately with "Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?" it makes me love him all the more).

Never one to miss a good Spring Fakeout, Nordic Boy and I put on our grubby clothings and went outside to frolic in the yard. If, by frolic, you mean that we pulled weeds and raked dead leaves, that is. If you recall, in the past I have had a less than cheery disposition about my yard, mostly due to its overgrown, untamable nature when we bought our house. Think of it this way: our yard was the planty equivalent of a house on Hoarders. And who wants to try and clean up that sort of mess? It's overwhelming to say the least. Over the past few years, we have toned down our front yard from the mess of our predecessors and now it actually looks, well, maybe not great, but it looks fine. (Well, our front yard looks fine. The backyard is still a horror movie). And now that the front yard looks fine, the upkeep is actually pretty non-back-breaking. I am fond of things that are not back-breaking.

So yesterday, when it was fake spring, I was actually not-overwhelmed-with-a-touch-of-irate when Nordic Boy suggested we go out and clean up a bit. I was actually happy about it.

Nordic Boy started pulling some weeds on our rock wall slope, while I started raking up pine needles from under our gigantic cedar tree. This tree is easily 40 feet tall if it's an inch, and standing under it, raking up needles under filtered warm sunbeams? NICE.

Until a bird dropped a turd right onto my forehead.

I have never had a bird poop on me before. Have you? It is, perhaps not surprisingly, not pleasant. THANK JEEBUS it didn't drip down near my eye or I might have just had to scream bloody murder.

Oh, who am I kidding. Even though it didn't drip, I still screamed bloody murder. Or should I say poopy murder?

Nordic Boy came racing over because he probably thought that I had raked my leg off accidentally or something, the way I was carrying on. He wiped it off for me (because apparently I freeze into inaction when pooped on), checked the rest of my head and shoulders for other signs of birdie defecation (will we never stop finding new definitions of love?) and called it all clear. I then went into the house and scrubbed my face/forehead. Because dudes. POOPED ON.

My enthusiasm for working in my non-messy yard would not be deterred, however. I went back outside and continued my work, albeit far away from the scene of the crap. And not twenty minutes later? Um, pooped on AGAIN.

I swear to god this bird was being a dick to me. Like, on purpose.

Has this ever happened to any of you? Double stuff poopage within the span of a half hour?

Despite that, the afternoon was lovely, as was the whole weekend. Nordic Boy and I are making progress toward re-routing the water in our kitchen in preparation for a new dishwasher, I co-threw a baby shower for my dear friends Hopscotch and Rambo on Saturday night (and didn't make anyone play any games which was mainly due to the fact that my party-throwing cohost and I couldn't think of any non-excruciating ones, but then when there were no games people throughout the party kept giving me undying gratitude for it so I felt like a hero by default), and I walked around without a coat on for the entire weekend which makes me unreasonably happy.

So to recap: pros of the weekend were successful party-throwing, sunshine, and plumbing progress. Cons were getting shat on by a feathered friend, twice. On the face. I am choosing to still call this a great weekend.