The Bird Plague

A few months ago I attended a workshop in Wichita as part of my yearly ethics training which is necessary to renew my social work license every two years.  Usually these aren't the most spellbinding of workshops, but this one was fairly entertaining.  One thing I did take away from the workshop was the idea to start a gratitude journal, listing at least five things you are grateful for everyday, to help recognize the little things in everyday life.  In the profession of social work, and child welfare in particular, it's very easy to get caught up in the negative, cruel, and distressing moments of each day, and let anything positive get lost in the shuffle.  So for several reasons, I decided the idea of a gratitude journal was a good fit for me.  Today I would like to share with the blogshpere something I am grateful for today. 

Today, January 3, 2011, I am grateful for the simple fact I do no live anywhere remotely close to Beebe, Arkansas.  (I suppose I should be grateful that on December 31, 2010 I was not remotely close to Beebe, Arkansas, but I just heard the story today.)  For those of you who have not heard, in the hours before the New Year, thousand of dead black birds rained from the sky in Beebe, Arkansas.  Thousands of dead birds!  It's like the reality of Hitchcock or Poe.  Dead black birds covering people's lawns, roofs, the town streets, a black bird massacre, and the reason for this is completely unknown to the people who are paid to know these things.

I cannot even begin to imagine being outside at the time of the black bird invasion.  I likely would have suffered an asthma/panic attack and passed out in the middle of the raining of the birds.  I am terrified of birds.  Terrified.  The evil eyes, the pointed beaks and claws, and the horrible sound of those flapping wings, it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. Yuck, yuck, yuck!

So today, I am grateful to live in a community where men in hazmat suits are not walking around the town picking up thousands of dead black birds, bagging them, and sending them off to be examined for cause of death.  The pigeon who did not fly off as quickly I wish it would of when I was walking to the courthouse today was enough bird drama for one day.