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I was up late. It was one of those nights you check Facebook before going to sleep, find a nifty link, and keep surfing for hours. One page I visited presented fights between animals and men. The picture comes from there.

At some point during the night, Elvi asked why I punched her in the throat. I told her I was having a dream in which I was fighting a bear and I punched it in the throat. I don’t think I made clear the manner of the combat. See the image….

I took Crash to the vet today. His Horner’s syndrome has nearly cleared up, which rules out a tumour as the cause. Other than that, and a benign basal-cell skin tumour on his head, he’s healthier than a 12-year-old dog has any right to be.

While I was paying for that news, a young couple hopped out of a cab outside the picture windows and rushed in. The man had a cardinal in his hands. It was chirping and not well. For one, the man had picked it up off the grass in a park. For another, it was dripping clear mucus from its beak.

The vet is really only a dog and cat place, but the staff were as concerned about the bird as there were incapable of caring for it. I volunteered to take the thing to the small animal vet a few blocks away.

Cynic that I am, I figured there was nothing to be done. When I was a boy, I found a struggling pigeon. I called a vet to ask what to do and was told that the pigeon had probably been poisoned by the city. I don’t think anyone poisons cardinals, but this one was struggling.

I got 50 feet along the sidewalk before it spasmed in the small cardboard box and died.

Bonus offspring news:

Child Two won a Principal’s Academic Excellence Award at a ceremony at her high school yesterday. Way to go!

And Child One worked as assistant costumer on a short film Sunday and Monday. She detested my waking her for the 5:00 a.m. call time, but by all accounts she did well. The head costumer said she’d hire Child One for paying jobs in the future.

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