Life with birds, the flu, and missing stitches

This was the view across the street from my apartment this afternoon as I left for work. A nice greeting for my first major venture of the week, having been struck by the flu on the weekend. Nasty little bug--but quick, so I'm thankful for that. Achy throat on Saturday, chills and fever Sunday night, totally zonked out Monday, and on the mend starting Tuesday.

My favorite spring trees are in the picture. I don't know what they're called but the pink flowers appear to come directly out of the trunk and branches. They have a rejoiceful quality about them interspersed amongst the tender greens of spring.

Couscous, the little lovebird, is getting better (knock on wood). It can take a while to see improvement but I'm heartened to see that she has regained use of her forelegs. Whereas she could just flop back on her "elbows" last weekend, she can now sit herself up in the more classic bird posture. I even saw her perched on the wooden dowel in her convalescing cage the other day.

As I started to have closer interaction with her I realized--well let's say greatly surmise--that she's the same bird I had to treat for lead 4 years ago (or so). I'm quite sure of it. She did not fully recover use of her toes from that ordeal but still managed to get on quite well--unnoticably, really--since then. I have read that lead, besides affecting the neural system, also gets stored in the bones from where it can leach into the blood stream again. Perhaps this round of treatment will remove enough lead to bring her to a place better than from where she started. I will be talking with the vet tomorrow. Couscous will be relieved when she discovers that I won't be bringing her any of that awful medicine tomorrow morning. It will be so for the next five days. After that we'll probably run another 5 days on chelating agent. Fingers crossed.

While I was mending on Tuesday--and felt for the first time that I wanted to sit up for a bit--I pulled out the doily to fix what had become something of a puzzle. Oh, the best made plans--sometimes it doesn't matter! I had been proceeding well enough and had got in the habit of counting the stitches on the needles after every lace row (every other row is straight knitting) to make sure I had the correct number for the next lace row. I find, when reading knitting directions that are written out (vs. charted) I'm prone to missing a yo here or there. So counting the stitches helps ensure that I'm on track. If the stitches add up, I add the row of plain knitting and then move up the life line. So why did I come up a stitch short? I must have miscounted. And now there was no life line to help me because I'd already moved it up pass the problem. Oh oh.

So, in the "it's not that important" mood that I'm in when those nasty little bugs start taking their leave, I "un-knit" a row to see if I could discover the location of the missing stitch. Didn't see anything. So I "un-knit" another row--this one lace--and in the process must have introduced another mistake because now I was off between two, not just one, set of markers. Is this going to have a happy ending?

Yes. Going back even to the previous lace row I discovered... wait for it... a missing yo! I knew it!! I also discovered that the second discrepancy was due to the fact that I'd dropped one of the markers and put it back in the wrong place. I'll attribute that one to still being somewhat under the weather.

♥ ♥ ♥

The day started with a picture of beautiful spring exhorting us to take our time and enjoy. I'll end it with a picture of something I picked up on the street just around the corner on my way home this evening. It's garbage pick-up eve. NY streets are a veritable flea market on the night before large item pickups. I have found several wonderful items free for the taking (except, these days anything upholstered gets passed over due to the bed bug "issue"). I took this home. Not sure if I'll keep it very long. I like it because it's unusual and makes a statement. It's large!