The tale of an unexpected house guest
Dear lovely wild birds in my backyard: just because there is an open door, it does not mean you need to fly in and explore my home. I definitely won’t hurt you, as you simply found yourself in the wrong place, and the open door was completely my fault. But you really must leave!
This was my experience the other morning.
As I am in my late 40s and dealing with the onset of menopause, I have been getting terrible hot flashes in the morning. I’ve grown accustomed to opening the door to the back porch while I eat my breakfast, getting a bit of relief from the inferno that is my hormonal body while the air is still cool in the dawn hours.
I certainly didn’t expect company to invite themselves in, especially in the form of a bird. Not just any bird, but a tufted titmouse.
What’s a tufted titmouse, you ask? It’s about the size of a cardinal, but two shades of grey, and with a crest similar to the red bird.
My dog and cat were delighted with the entertainment from our unintended guest. My cat especially was like, “I got this, Mom! I will get him for you!” chasing that poor bird to exhaustion. And my dog insisted on helping the cat, who has on occasion lived up to the promise of catching said bird.
In the few minutes that this scenario played out, I was sure I would have to call work to let them know I’d be late. What a most unusual excuse for tardiness! I don’t think there’s a checkmark for “flying bird stuck in employee’s house.”
The only thing I could think to do initially was to open all of the doors on the first floor and hope the poor bird would find his way out. I kept following him around the house until eventually, he made his great escape through the front door.
I suppose I could have gotten a net out of the garage to try to catch him as my plan B, but fortunately, plan A worked! Plus, the net may have harmed him.
The best part of the story is that the bird escaped to live another day. But the second best part was having a great tale to tell my patients at work, and this was a particularly entertaining one!
But I will absolutely have to reassess my strategy for managing hot flashes.
I think I will simply eat my breakfast on the back porch from now on!
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I’m completely overwhelmed with how hot I get during these episodes! I don’t know what I’m going to do once it’s hot in the summer, too! Does anyone have any tips for managing these? I’d love to hear about it!
As always, I hope you all are safe and healthy.
Anne the Vegan 