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Update: Deborah has totally correctly identified the bird as a red-winged blackbird.

I went to a friend’s house warming party in New Paltz and there was this great pond across the street where I saw the bird in the second shot, which I couldn’t identify, and this one, which is a heron, but the only reason I know that is because someone walked by and told me it was a heron. He stood so still that at first I thought he wasn’t real. I thought he was a statue that someone placed in the pond. (Really. I thought that.)

The second bird was black with an orange spot. Does anyone know what kind of bird he is?

– T-shirt.
– Socks.
– Goggles.
– Goggles with lights.
– Flashlight. (Actually I moved that to my daily backpack after seeing the movie Cloverfield. Now, when a monster rampages New York and I am hiding in a subway, I will be able to see the smaller monsters that fell from the big monster when they come after me.)
– Toilet paper.
– Duct tape.
– Face mask thing.
– Matches.
– A tube of first aid stuff that they gave away at some City thing I went to on emergency preparedness. Not sure what is in there. It will be a surprise.
– Extra pair of glasses.
– Scissors.
– Screwdriver.
– Sharpie pen.
– Power bars.
– First Aid manual.
– A whistle.
– $100 in mostly small bills, because stores may not have change in an emergency.
– Gauze pads.
– A plastic bag containing info about my cats, out-dated forms that say they had their rabies shots (must get current forms) and a list of hotels that take cats.
– Tags with my cats name on them and my name and cellphone number.
– A plastic bag with info about me, birth certificate, social security number, phone numbers of family, friends, doctors.
– First aid kit, the zipper on the bag is broken. It’s got prescriptions, girl stuff, sun block, toothbrush, floss, Motrin, more gauze, bandaids, and lots of Imodium because my worst fear in a terrorist attack or tornado is to have bathroom issues and no bathroom.

I used to have an extra pair of sneakers and a pair of jeans in there, but I don’t currently have extra sneakers or jeans to spare.

That’s a shot of the Verrazano Bridge taken from a street in Sunset Park, Queens (where I now want to live). I love that bridge. UPDATE Sunset Park is in Brooklyn. I must have been suffering from cleaning exhaustion when I wrote that.

So today should be the last day of my Spring cleaning, and all that will be left is the return of my freshly cleaned livingroom rug. Oh, the bliss I will feel then. I will get a pedicure and walk barefoot on my nice clean rug while looking around and admiring my work.

I had a horrible horrible day yesterday due to this company that I had hired to reinstall my air conditioner for me. They are called Airwave, and they have a good reputation in the city, but they were just an absolute nightmare. I will post the story tomorrow after I’ve recovered from the post-traumatic stress of it all. But briefly, they had charged me an arm and a leg to reinstall my air conditioner so that it could be taken in and out of the window easily, but when the window cleaners and I tried to take it out, it wouldn’t come out. I called Airwave and asked them how to do it, and they say it’s easy, but then they were unable to tell me how, and then they wanted to charge me another $100 to take it out for me, and then another $100 to put it back in. Can you believe it? It actually gets worse.

The window cleaners and upholstery cleaners come this morning! Soon my apartment will be sparkly fresh and spring clean. And now, a Spring photograph. These are cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Which reminds me, can someone tell me why flowers don’t smell as strongly as they used to? We walked through a row of lilac bushes and the smell should have knocked us unconscious, but I could barely smell them.

– Bathroom painted, everything in the room washed, replacement wall shelves ordered.

– Bedroom curtains washed, blinds cleaned, rug shook out on roof, pad underneath the rug replaced.

– Plants dusted, pruned, soil added.

– Bus tickets to Boston ordered for June 2 (my reward/birthday thing). Along those lines, started picking up what I need to give myself a little sprucing up, starting with good scissors to cut my bangs.

– Arranged for upholstery cleaning guys to come in tomorrow to do the couch and my office chair.

– Tomorrow and Thursday will be the major cleaning days. The window guys will be here to do the windows (while I hide the cats and myself, I can’t bear to watch, their balancing act while washing the windows is too scary).