A bird in the house

This morning a bubblebird got in through the imperfect screen in my bedroom window. These little guys are kind of a cross between a jellyfish and a pufferfish, but they live on land, not water. Their bodies consist of a clear membrane that they can fill with air, and thus float. They, ah, expel gas in order to propel themselves while they're puffed up. They can also let all the air out of the membrane and flutter down to the ground, or in this case, my window ledge, where they become small enough to fit through a little hole in the screen.

The Lenarii consider a bubblebird in the house a sign of good luck. I, who spent twenty minutes trying to chase it out the door before it sprayed its...unique...green poo all over my little cottage, consider them a sign of needing new window screens. Or possibly air conditioning. (These people invented space travel, and they can't come up with some freon?)

In a way, though, I guess it did bring me luck, because I found out at work this afternoon that my boss is sending me and a couple other translators to the northern continent next week for a business meeting. Richard Branson is aiming to start his own spaceline, and he's sending some people to negotiate for rights to a new deposit of krondalite that was found up there last year so he can use it for the ships. We're going to be there for at least a week, which means a weekend, which means I'll be there for the Festival of Lendii. I hear there's dancing, and my god, if you've never seen a Lenarii dance, it's a trip. Dor showed me one of his clan's sacred dances a few months ago, and the idea of thousands of Lenarii banding together and doing something similar sounds hilarious. I know I'm a horrible, horrible person for finding it funny, but you watch what is essentially a little fuzzy penguin with chicken feet and opposable thumbs hop around for a while, then stand on his head and wave his feet in the air while making a noise that sounds so much like a yodel that I can't believe there wasn't some intercultural contact between these people and the Swiss at some point in the distant past--and try not to laugh. I dare you.

Anyway. Aside from that, life continues as usual. I've recently become addicted to this Lenarii TV show about two detectives solving murders in La-Lor City (yes, even two thousand light years away, there are buddy cop shows) and obviously having UST liek whoa. The guy is from the Renii clan and the girl is from the Dakii clan, and it's a bit scandalous that they're being written as a potential couple. The internet is a-buzz with people talking about it. Maybe one day it'll make it to Earth, although the ratings would probably tank. Somehow I don't see a network airing a show where the episodes are three hours long and have no fewer than eight musical numbers in them...

( Wait, what? )

Cupid

( New Cupid pilot thoughts )

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I had something to say on this week's Castle as well, but I can't remember what it was. I did enjoy it, though. They should just give up on this pretense of solving cases and spend the hour making me laugh.

Paper win, Cupid lose

Three things:

1. No one has written on the spectre of divorce in The Odd Women? No one? Wow.

2. This act was totally passed ten years before the book was written, and has such OBVIOUS influence on it that I can write my paper on just that factor. How has no one else written on this before?

3. MY PAPER WILL BE AWESOME!

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The forums at TWOP tell me that Cupid came in last in the ratings last night, and lost two million people at the half-hour mark. Ouch. I guess we won't be seeing more than seven episodes...