I've got the UV light hooked up, the medicine in the water, and I've closed the cage so she can't fly around, even if she wants to. She looks fairly happy, and I'm reasonably confident she'll be okay. But I worry anyway.

Beth wrote a very touching entry about her dogs a couple of days ago. It reminded me about how I feel about my birds. Pigwidgeon is adorable, and I love him to pieces. I'd be heartbroken if something happened to him. But Cassie is my little friend. She's been with me for a long time, about two years now. I depend on her for my emotional well being.

Yesterday, she crashed into the wall behind the desk and started screeching. I stuck my hand back there. Normally, a parakeet's instinct will be to bite, even if you're trying to help. But Cassie just lightly bit my finger, just enough to get herself some leverage so she could climb up onto my finger. And then she didn't want to go back to her cage. She stayed on my finger. So we just stood there, me asking her what was wrong, and her tilting her head at me, I guess wanting me to fix it.

I'll do my best, little girl. I'll do my best.

So, my little sister called me a week or so ago, freaked out beyond belief.

One day, she noticed that my old bedroom window had some writing on it, writing that looked like it had been scribbled on with a finger when the window was fogged. She could make out the words, "HELP, TRAPPED IN W--" and then some illegible stuff.

The writing was mysterious in origin. It had been written on the outside of the window, which is in the backyard of our house. You would have to physically be in our backyard in order to write it. Also, it had been raining lately. It seemed unlikely that the writing was old. Nobody admitted to having written it.

Abby had been sensing the spirit of Grandma around her. She thought it might be supernatural, a message from Grandma, something along the lines of, "Help, trapped in world" or "trapped in the world." There was definitely a W in there.

Then she saw a little scribble at the bottom, which said, "CALL" and then some more writing with an SSI in it. "Call for assistance" maybe? She wasn't sure. A spirit seemed to be crying out for help, and she couldn't figure it out.

When she told me about this, it sent sort of a chill up my spine. It was definitely mysterious. Who, or What, could have written the message?

She decided to have a séance to try and contact the spirit of Grandma. She made a pentacle on the floor, and got her friends together, and tried to release Grandma's spirit into the white light. She also pulled out the dictionary and tried to find words that contained SSI. It looked like a five letter word. But she couldn't find anything, and she has a superstitious streak, and she was seriously freaking out.

Until a few days ago, when one of her friends came over to see the message. "Look," Abby said. "It says, 'HELP, TRAPPED IN W--, CALL --SSI--.' Isn't that scary? What do you think it could mean? Do you think it's a spirit?"

Her friend cracked up. "Um, Abby? Can't you read?" Once her friend pointed it out to her, Abby saw the message clearly.

It said "HELP, TRAPPED IN WELL. CALL LASSIE."

"I now have a blue bruise on my thigh, which I frantically banged against the steering wheel in order to avoid getting trapped in the grand prix car, like: 'Look at the fat girl stuck in the car! Get out the camera, Ned!'"