This is a true story I call NOT SO DIFFERENT

Today I experienced two extreme different parts of nature – beautiful and not so beautiful.

This is a true story I call NOT SO DIFFERENT.

About a month ago I borrowed a PS4 game from a friend, this morning I went over to her house to return it. She works from home so it was no big deal going over on a weekday morning. The only catch, she asked be to come into the house through the garage, not the front door and asked me not to go onto the front porch at all.

She never said why, and I just figured she was having some work done. When I parked, she must have seen me as her garage door went up. I went inside, returned the game and never got one word in – not even hello. She grabbed the game and threw it on the kitchen counter, grabbed my arm and had something she wanted to show me.

The reason she wanted me to avoid the porch and front door.

I looked out the front window by the door with her and there it was. There is a tree to the side of the door, at the edge of the window. On the lowest hanging branch, which came just underneath the door frame, sat a Hummingbird Nest. In the nest, three baby Hummingbirds kept popping their heads in and out, looking around.

She didn’t want me to disturb the nest by accident.

Over the course of about half-an-hour of watching, momma Hummingbird flew back and forth a few times, stopping to feed her young, then flying off to find more food.

It was quite a beautiful sight. I had seen young chicks feed before, but not Hummingbirds. The amazing part to me was how fast the mother moved to feed each of the three in turn, without harming any. All one could really see was a blur.

After the little while of watching I had to leave and left through the garage. While walking to my car, I thought I should have taking pictures or some video, but then shrugged it off.

As I came to my car a noise got my attention, I looked over my shoulder toward where I thought the weird noise was coming. I saw the Not So Beautiful sight. In the space between my friend’s house and her neighbor’s two birds were fighting. Chests pumped out, wings flapping, claws slashing. This was NOT two birds playing around.

I saw feathers fly and what looked like blood. The two were clawing, scratching, smacking and even biting each other.

I grabbed a handful of rocks from her yard and threw them over at the two birds to stop the fight. Startled, both birds stopped fighting and flew off. Once they were out of sight, I walked up to where they where and found out what they were fighting over. In the yard was a discarded granola bar wrapper with bits of granola still in it.

The two birds were fighting over food.

I threw the wrapper away as I went to my car. I thought about this – watching a mother feed her young and two others fight over food – not so different from us Humans after all.

Ace.

THE GREATEST ESCAPE . . .

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Great Escape . . .

Once upon a time I had a girlfriend . . . She was kind, nice, hot and I fell in love . . . After two years we decided to get married.

Of course (thank any GOD) that never happened.

This is a true tale I call THE GREATEST ESCAPE . . .

I meet Missy when we worked in the same office. I pursued her for quite a while before we actually started dating. After a period of dating, we broke it off. After a while, we were right back on again – hotter than ever.

Things were very good for a while and we were in love (or at least lust). I know my head was messed up in this and that I was really not thinking straight – otherwise I would have noticed a number of red flags. Or, to be honest, I wouldn’t have just ignored the red flags.

Flags such as abusive ex-boyfriends, ovarian cancer that left her unable to have children and many other claims that I took as truth. The abusive tales of an ex upset me.

Things took a downward spiral after we decided, and announced, we were getting married. A number of people – co-workers who knew her longer than I did, members of her own family – warned me off of marrying her.

One Uncle literally told me: “Run now.”

Of course, I knew better. Right?

Things turn a wicked turn one evening, when she told my parents that if she ever caught me cheating, she would “Jam a steak knife threw his heart.” Yeah, that went over really well.

After that my parents wanted nothing to do with her and refused to have her in their home. She tried to play it off as a joke, but that is not really a joke. I tried mending bridges, but instead, she refused to apologize and turned the blame onto my mother who “Couldn’t take a joke.”

At this point I started having serious doubts about moving forward with this relationship – including thinking about all the stuff she told me. Especially that she wanted to have children after telling me she couldn’t.

I learned – from her father nonetheless – that what she told me was a scar from cancer surgery was actually from appendicitis. I never told him that she told me it was a cancer surgery scar.

The final straw in this, and where my Greatest Escape comes into play, came late on a Friday Night. I was split, part of me wanted to run – the other thought this could be salvaged – the decision would soon be made for me.

Missy called me, wanting to know where I was. I told her I was home, packing, we were supposed to be moving in together within days. Where was she? A party at a friend’s house two hours away, and demanded to know why I wasn’t there.

She didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t there, and wasn’t going to show up. She was pissed and issued me an ultimatum: Come to the Party, or forget everything.

Now, at this point why I was still split is beyond me. I found out she lied about the Cancer, had had two abortions and lied about her abusive exs. More than one family member of hers told me later that she accused a number of boyfriends of abuse when she couldn’t get her way.

Guess what she dropped next? Yep.

She started crying on the phone and pleaded – “Why do you do this to me?” She started accusing me of what she told me her ex’s had done. Then she said, “If you don’t want to get married just tell me.”

I hung up and never talked to her again.

Ace.