Ha! Someday, I'm going to freak someone out with that sentence. No, really, Cassie was molting. And I knew she was molting -- I could see the new feathers growing in. It just didn't occur to me that her inability to fly might have something to do with the molting. She's never had that particular problem before. But if you're a bird, and you're losing your feathers, including the ones you use in order to fly, it stands to reason you might have a problem with flying.

Duh.

So when I saw that she had lost her long tail feather, I put two and two together. Of course, that was after I came home today, and it was already too late: I went to work today and earned $30; then I went to the pet store and spent $31. Thinking Cassie might be sick, I bought vitamins and antibiotics. I also decided the birds needed a new toy. And treats. Two kinds: honey orange and tropical fruit. And also "stress" seeds with extra nutrients (it helps during molting, which is a plus). Also another water dish, for the chamomile tea I brewed them while at work. (This is supposed to help sick birds or something.)

I know I was being reactionary, but I couldn't help it. They're a spoiled pair of parakeets, that's for damn sure.

I think there's something to this "spring cleaning" concept. Today when I came home from work, I was possessed with an overwhelming urge to clean.

I started with the bird cage, because I had all this stuff to organize inside of it. I finally put Pigwidgeon's original cage in my closet (more of a storage space, really) and squeaky cleaned the cage. Then I started cleaning the rest of the room, vacuuming as I went.

My housemates are wonderful people, and they loaned me a vacuum on the very first day I moved in. But tonight, it seemed like it was less of a vacuum cleaner and more of a mover of dirt arbitrarily around the carpet. And you know what? My birds are perfectly capable of moving dirt around arbitrarily, just by flying over it.

Well, it was very frustrating. And ninety percent of the dirt is just birdseed. Which leads to the obvious conclusion: the birds just can't eat anymore. They're going to have to find something else to do with their time, because picking up birdseed shells off the carpet one by one is not my idea of a fun Friday night.

So that's it. No more food for them. It's a simple solution. Too bad I didn't come up with it before I spent $31 on bird treats.

It took me three hours to clean my room, with the sucky (or non-sucky, as the case may be) vacuum. And my room is very, very small. In fact, here is the replica of my room that I made in The Sims.

This is a scary use of my time.

Yes, I tried to make a faithful replica of my apartment. It's the Pie family, with Mo as the only resident. So I set up two more families in the neighborhood: the Famous family and the Journaler family. After all, little Mo Pie needed company of some sort.

My favorite thing was when John Scalzi and Mr. Miyagi came to visit at the same time and then they started swing dancing with each other. Do I sense a budding romance? Unfortunately, the picture seems to have spontaneously deleted. That's a crying shame.

I also bought Mo Pie a genie, just to make life interesting. On the first day, the genie gave her roaches. On the second day, she got a pot of gold. On the third day, he cast a hate spell on Mar Journaler, who decided she hated Mo Pie, despite a bribe of pizza.

Make love, not pizza, says Mar Journaler.

On the fifth day, the genie cast a love spell. Kate Winslet Famous is now in love with Mo Pie. I thought Jen Journaler had a thing going with Kate but I guess not.

Kate Winslet Famous, wearing adorable English riding boots, is smitten. Will Mo Pie break her heart?

Here's the best part. Mo Pie picked up the newspaper on her first day to find a job, and you know what career track she's in? The "Slacker" career track. A more perfect career for Mo Pie, I can not imagine.

Now I just need Sim parakeets, and I'm all set.

Sometimes, when I'm drifting off to sleep, I have weird thoughts. You know what I was thinking about last night? I wonder why I don't have any black friends.

I know. Where the hell did that thought come from, right? It just seems really odd. The web is largely color blind, and yet, the vast majority of my online friends are white. And all of the people I would consider really close friends are white. Why is this? I feel so sheltered and homogenous.

I know this is totally not PC, and it's really stupid to even think about, but oh well. I haven't had a really close black friend since I was about eight years old. I probably won't implement an affirmative action program in my friendships, but it is disappointing.

I guess that must be why I made a Sim named Black Corina. Sorry, Corina. In my world, you're my black friend.

Mo Pie introduces herself to Black Corina Journaler

"Sometimes I feel like Weezie and George Jefferson, before they got a piece of the pie."