I did nothing this weekend. And then I took Monday off, and did nothing some more.

Yesterday, I had every intention of crossing things off my "to do" list. After two days of utter laziness, I figured I'd finally get in gear. But then I got the list out, and looked at it, and thought, "Naah, I don't need to do that anymore" or "I still have time for that" or "I'll do that tomorrow." The stuff that has seemed so pressing for weeks suddenly seemed woefully unimportant, and a lot of it is contingent on living arrangements that have yet to be decided.

So I updated my burb, and I read a book, and I played a computer game.

Hang on. Am I damaging my reputation for frenetic hipness? Is this the impression I want to leave you with? I think not. In that case, let me say that I did do some fun things this weekend. On Saturday, I went to dinner with Tim, and to see Scary Movie with Tim and Matt. This venture was fully funded by Tim: how sweet! And on Friday night, we went to Barnes and Noble at midnight for the release of Harry Potter.

It was really wonderful to see all that enthusiasm over a book. Kids, grownups, a line around the store-- all for a book that's upwards of 700 pages long. It practically put a lump in my throat, it was so inspiring. And so exciting. And I finished the book this weekend and it's wonderful. Totally satisfying.

The excitement yesterday came from the Freak with a Beak herself. You see, the manager of our building came up a couple of weeks ago with a huge white birdcage. She used to have a parrot, but she had to get rid of it; it was ill-tempered and made too much noise. She said, "I know you have a bird, and maybe you'd like this cage...?" I thanked her and brought the cage in.

Immediately, I could see two problems. One problem is that it's a cage designed for a large bird. I was worried that Cassie wouldn't be able to sit on the bars comfortably as a result. The second problem is that her current cage used to belong to Gumdrop, my parakeet friend of childhood. My (dead) grandpa bought me that cage when I was eight years old. Sentimental value, much?

So, I sat this large cage down in front of Cassie's current cage, to see what she'd do. She mostly ignored it, until this weekend. She's a very curious bird, and I caught her climbing around on the top of it, tilting her head, with her trademark "What the fuck?" look on her face.

So, I decided to give it a whirl. We put the cage up on a table, sort of facing her old cage. I threw out the huge, poop-crusted perches that came with the cage, and Matt used a saw to cut some grooves in a small perch, which we fit into the cage. I then put some of her toys and stuff in there-- her dangling bells, one of her mirrors, one of her cuttle bones and some bird treats.

Matt thought we should just stick everything in her new cage and be done with it. Of course, since I project my own personality onto the bird, I insisted that we had to let her acclimate. "We'll see which one she likes better," I said. "If she starts hanging out in the new one, we can switch. Once she sees how much bigger and nicer it is, maybe she'll want to move."

"She's a bird, honey," he replied with amusement. "She doesn't understand that. She isn't going to want to move just for the hell of it. She's never going to get in that cage unless you put her there."

To which I say: HA. I left her alone and within half an hour, she was sitting in the new cage.

She climbed around the entire perimeter, and explored it from top to bottom. The funniest part about this is that the top of the cage is sort of curved. It's hard to explain. If I knew the name of the Greek symbol that looks like a horseshoe I would say it looks like that. (Or I could just say it looks like a horseshoe.) It's got square edges, but then a large dome sort of curves up.

Anyway, as she was climbing around it, she kept getting to the curved parts, trying to grip onto them and sliding down instead. She ended up dangling upside down from the bottom of these curves, with nowhere to go. It was really amusing. Then she found the hole where her food and water dishes should go, and started using it as a little door to move in and out of the cage.

Oh, it was cute.

So now, I'm going to head to the pet store at lunch and get her a couple more of those ergonomic perches, and maybe find a food dish that will fit the new cage. She seems to like it, and it's much bigger and nicer than her old one. I'm still going to phase out the old cage slowly, though. Probably more for my sake than hers.

Abby is currently on her New York/St. Martin trip with her lesbian sugar mamma. At the same time, Lucy is getting ready to drive across the country with her boyfriend and designated devirginizer, K. We're calling it "Cobweb Tour 2000" based on a running joke that he's going to "clear out the cobwebs" when they have sex.

Abby doesn't like the idea of Lucy having sex. (All things considered, she's awfully squeamish about Lucy's sexuality.) Lucy joked that when she meets up with Abby in New York, she should get off the plane limping, like she just got off a horse.

Here's another amusing portion of our conversation:

If you watch the movie, there's a scene where various groups of people are watching the main character on the Internet. There's one group of four girls. Lucy is the one sitting on the couch.