Murphy is Chortling

The last week of classes, which was last week, is always hectic for me, as is final exam week, which is this week.  If I only had school to concentrate on I would still be ultra-busy.  But "real" life is also going on during this time.  Last week it was real life with a vengeance. I was seriously going to be a walking, talking experiment in whether life can be sustained if you don't sleep for a week.  And to add to the bedlam, a tooth decided to act nasty and there was a wonderful--not--visit to the dentist.

On Friday I had decided to just pretend the week hadn't happened and enjoy the peace of Shabbos.  Sigh.  A bit after 5:00 central Staten Island was hit with a power outage that took out the power for 80,000 people.  Con Ed swore the power would go back on that night so we tried our best to leave switches on for lights we would need and air conditioners etc.. I lit a burner with a match and put up a blech so we could at least have some warm food.  Let me tell you, eating dinner by candlelight is only romantic in Regency novels.  Still, it was kind of nice to sit around and talk to each other, even if we were in the dark. And glory be, Con Ed came through and the electricity came back on that night.  I'll admit it was a bit odd to go from room to room and see all the clocks flashing.

Sunday brought its own weirdness, but I was hoping that would be the end of it.  Yeah, right.  I woke up early this morning and went down to my office.  A few minutes after I sat down at my desk my eye caught movement right outside.  There was a quail waving around a worm.  As I watched it snapped the worm in half sending one half to thunk up against the door.  Needless to say, I took my coffee back upstairs--nothing like a thrashing mutilated worm to start off the day.  

I ran a few errands that had to be done and afterwards came to my office to check my email.  In looking out the door, I noticed that there were now two worm carcasses right by the door.  A few minutes later what I believe was the same quail came over bearing yet another worm, and the scenario repeated itself.  I called up the SI zoo and asked to speak to someone with knowledge about birds.  The person who got on the phone said that quails that are courting frequently bring gifts of food to the object of their courting.  Say what?!  A quail was courting me?!  Then I remembered that I hadn't been there when the second worm was deposited.  When I told this to the person, he asked me if the door was solid or glass.  When I replied "glass"  he had his aha moment.  He told me that the quail was probably seeing his reflection in the glass and didn't know that.  The quail thought he was seeing another quail, hence the courting ritual.

I put some paper on the door to block the reflection--I don't think I could have dealt with another worm present.  I should have stuck with the quail.  At one and the same time somewhere along the sewer line someone was doing some digging/flushing, and all the incoming water lines were bringing in brown water.  According to the City, it could be up to 48 hours until the problem was cleared up.  I was so ready to just pack it in, head for bed and hide under the covers.  Luckily I just checked the toilets and sinks and the water is almost perfectly clear.  Thank you God for your input so I didn't completely lose my sanity.

I wish Murphy would take his law and go peddle it somewhere else.