Oy vey. What an afternoon.

I think I can safely say I am the only knitblogger to have the experience of finding a turkey vulture belly up on her roof.

I saw this bird earlier, feeding (I'll spare you the details) and thought, gee, that's interesting, in kind of a biologist way. Sort of a post-Hallowe'en thing.

I went out to run an errand, and came back to find the bird lying on its back on my roof. Breathing, but in a labored sort of way. Looking like it was in pain.

I assume that what it fed on had been poisoned. I have neighbors who will set out poison against any living thing that isn't (a) Bermuda grass, (b) the flowers they plant, or (c) their own particular pets.

So I thought, I want this bird gone. It looks bad - vultures are damn big birds. And it was suffering, or at least it looked like it was to me, and I wanted it out of its misery.

And it smelled. Did you know vultures smell? Bad enough to make you want to retch, or at least bad enough to do that to me.

So I called my colleague the ornithologist, with the offer of a fine specimen, if he would just come help me get it off the roof.

No go. He won't take vultures or corvids because they are reservoirs for West Nile, and although he didn't think that was what was wrong with this one, he didn't want to take any chances. And he told me not to go near it without gloves or a mask.

So I called Animal Control. After being disconnected eight or ten times (some of the local phones go out when it rains), I finally got through and explained. The guy on the other end said he couldn't go up on the roof for liability reasons, but if I could get the bird down, he'd come get it.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Me go up on a ladder on a wet day, with a dying bird that has a hooked beak and talons and might be laced with West Nile Virus. And that stinks to high heaven.

So I dispiritedly said "thanks, I guess I'll have to wait for it to die and then get it down." By now the smell was penetrating into my living room; I dreaded what would happen if it had to be up there for any longer.

Fortunately, it fell off on its own. It was still alive - it blinked at me. I called animal control back and they told me they'd send someone out. (This was at 2:30). I told them I had a class that started at 5 so I had to be back on campus then.

He said someone would be there.

So I settled in.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Did you know afternoon tv is just abysmal?

And waited.

And knitted some, but without much spirit.

And waited.

And wished I had brought the exams I gave this morning home to grade.

And fumed.

And waited.

And finally, was on the verge of giving up and going back to school when the Animal Control guy arrived (at about 10 minutes of four). He lassoed the bird (still alive) and it actually got up and walked back to the truck.

If it's healthy and just dazed, or just overate, I hope they don't kill it. But I kind of think there's something not right with a bird that lies on its back on a roof. So I don't know. But that's about the strangest thing that's happened to me, at least recently.

And crap, in the middle of all of this, I can't remember if I locked my front door before coming back here. Ugh.