Has it really been so long since I've been here?...........
No wonder I'm feeling so "all out of sorts". Apparently, I am not alone in that..........

The Virgin Queen (that would be Penelope for those of you who didn't know, had forgotten or just can't keep up *smile*) has finally blown her last brain cell, fried her circuit-board, flipped her lid, gone round the very last bend, blasted off to "La-La-Land" and forwarded her mail, possessions and all her loose feathers to the people wearing white coats, in charge of the "rubber room" facilities where all the pets go when they finally lose the last of their marbles........

I know, I know......... "What the hell does that mean Janine and could you ever manage to just get to the point without all the ridiculous posturing (in this case VERBAL posturing), flowery prose and nonsensical (I used nonsensical on your behalf and you're welcome!) descriptors?!!!!!" Well NO actually; I can't! And if you're still reading my journal entries and/or have been for any length of time AT ALL.....
you would know that I don't do ANYTHING without an incredible amount of build-up and as much fanfare/hysteria as is humanly (or, perhaps in my case SUPERHUMANLY possible!)......................
Now can I get back to the story?! Explaining my explanations is far too time-consuming and completely off-topic! So........ where was I?......


Penelope, The Virgin Queen, has FINALLY cracked her last nut, has stopped playing with the (almost) full deck she was dealt, has gotten on the elevator that doesn't quite make it to the top.............
(feel free to insert your own descriptors here and trust me on this....
it's actually kinda fun!) SHE'S WHACKO! Christopher left on Wednesday so naturally she had her regular "HE LEFT ME" meltdown and then Thursday night she flew up to her "Happy Place" (The bottom of a big cardboard box in a "cubby" of sorts within a huge, sectioned bookshelf we have mounted on the wall in our office) where she proceeded to tear up more of the paper from the small spiral notebooks (old ones hubby used to keep track of mileage when he was on the road) and lay another egg..............
In and of itself, the whole egg thing is becoming more-or-less routine. But this time................ (you have to imagine a drum roll here)............... SHE DECIDED TO HEAT/HATCH IT!!!!!.........
(somehow that seems kinda anticlimactic after that great big, huge, enormous build-up...... doesn't it?) and she's been up there ever since............ Ok, until this morning which is the second part of the story (and if you'll bear with me here I'll try to be a little more succinct and to-the-point.......... if I can!)

So this morning, I finally went up to get her. I had put her cage upstairs in the office on Friday before I left for work because I wanted her to have food and water. She hadn't had much of either since Thursday and dehydration is an issue for all living things.....
I reached up on my tippy-toes (and no "Midget" was one of Molly's nicknames and not an adjective you can use to describe me.....
the bookshelves are just mounted high up on the wall and her "cubby" is in a top corner of it) to slide the box out and get her out of it and off of her virgin egg (it hasn't been fertilized remember?). I brought her downstairs to where I had relocated her cage in it's appropriate position (and yeah, I KNOW you want pictures and I'm working on it OK?) where she did, in fact, finally take in some nourishment. Problem solved right?......... Oh, did I mention that when I got her out of the box that I surreptitiously slipped the egg out of it as well?........... Well I did. So she's downstairs eating and drinking and I'm thinking "problem solved" and I pick her up to bring her over to the sofa with me when I feel something warm next to my hand. Bless her feathery little heart she had dropped a MASSIVE "blob" (birds urinate and defecate in one fell "swoop" as it were, which is why the "matter" is both green and white separate but together) off of my hand and onto the carpet....... and how she managed to do it without hitting me is more than I will EVER know. But it goes without saying that (hmmmmm...
maybe nothing really goes without saying in my case!) this event is forcing me to rethink the whole "birds pooping UP under the eaves thing and I'll let you know when I reach any kind of a conclusion!
The thing is........ now I know why she's never pooped in her "happy place"............. It's become her nest! It would seem that birds just "hold it" while they're nesting and doesn't that kinda make sense when you think about the fact that women have ALWAYS been able to "hold it" while men have to whip it out and go in a trough on just a moments notice?!!!

Now you'll have to excuse me for a bit........
I'm fighting some kind of a bug (and you'll LOVE the irony here), am on the verge of loosing my voice, have a big rash on my chest and think I need a warm cup of tea and a nap. I'll be back later over the course of the week-end to check up on everybody and continue the saga of "Pet-on Place" (a reference to the soap opera/movie called "Peyton Place" for those of you too young to remember!)

I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!