No Time, No Type

I'm baaaaack.

Everything's fine here, just exceptionally busy. I've been working like a wild woman and bouncing from helping one person to helping another. My dad's only sister is expecting a great-grandson in a few weeks. She wants handmade gifts for the baby but has Parkinson's and very limited vision. I spent all last weekend designing and sewing special outfits for him, and now I'm working on a quilt to wrap him in love when he arrives. That may sound crazy given everything else, but this woman has extreme health challenges and a husband with Alzheimer's. They lost their only child to a brain aneurysm about 14 years ago. It won't kill me to get up a little earlier and stay up a little later to make help her welcome her great-grandchild.

Besides, I'm sleeping better these days. Well...not exactly. But I expect to soon.

Remember the goose wars? The bottle rockets and air horns and slingshots? Well, the geese are trying to return and the goose haters are on full alert around the pond.

Funny thing is, one goose stayed through it all. For two years, no other geese dared land on the pond, but this one intrepid bird stuck it out. Unfortunately, it nests right under my windows and it has the loudest, most plaintive cry of any creature on God's green earth.

For two years, I have not slept through the night because IT has not slept through the night. Something rouses it and it screams for an hour. I wake, mentally shush the goose, and try to drift back to sleep despite the racket. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

All Monday afternoon, I felt unsettled. Something was wrong, but I couldn't tell what. Finally, I stopped work to pace at the windows and realized the orange-billed goose was gone. Not under my windows. Not on the banks of the pond. Not in the water. Gone, along with its incredible voice.

The first two nights I woke several times, waiting for the goose to call. Last night I slept through most of the night but woke in the wee hours, listening for the goose.

I did not love this goose. Truthfully, I hated its noise and didn't understand why the same guys who shoot off bottle rockets at the Canada geese couldn't capture this little orange-footed beauty and relocate it. Many, many times I cursed that goose under my breath during the night.

But now it's gone, and I wonder if it's all right. A silent night sounds good, but not if it's purchased at the price of an innocent goose's life.

Think I could have Stockholm Syndrome?