KristyWes

Nueva York Notas

On Critters.
a) Rodents. Well, Rumsfeld violated his top-secret, double probation and showed himself again, thus forcing me to buy some traps. I baited them with tasty, reduced fat Jiff peanut butter (because choosy mouse-trappers choose Jiff!) and I check them eagerly every morning and each time I return to my apartment. So far, nothing. Sigh...

b)Pigeons. My bedroom looks out onto a courtyard. (Technically not really so much a courtyard as a dank airshaft, but whatever) Living in this space are some of the most giant pigeons I have ever seen. When they puff themselves up they are the size of basketballs, and that is only a small exageration.

These pigeons do not make the delicate coo-ing noise one might expect to hear from say, a dove. No, instead they make a hideous loud moaning noise. At first I mistook it as coming from my upstairs neighbor (who also makes a hideous loud moaning noise), but then I realized it was the birds in the airshaft.

Last week 2 pigeons, their motives yet unknown to me, decided to attack each other at 5:45am on the window sill of my bedroom. I woke up and tapped on the window. No response. I couldn't see exactly what was going on, but there were wings flailing everywhere, and occasionally one bird would body-check the other against the glass.

I pounded on the glass a little harder, and pleaded with them to shut up. Still, they refused to cease and desist. I pounded on the glass a lot harder, but they were unphased. I contemplated opening the window a crack to scare them, but that just made me scared. What if they pushed their way into my room? No, no, I would not open the window.

Finally, when it was clear they were not responding to my threats, I got up, got dressed and went for a walk. I came back - the avian war was still being waged. I showered, ate breakfast, and when I left for work, the fight continued. I never did find out who won. I lost a couple hours of sleep, though. Stupid pigeons.