Omens: More Annoying Than Anything

Usually, the dogs next door and across the street take turns barking at nothing to interupt the silence of the long days I work from home. Amid the hubbub of a new business (more on that at a later day), I've been working from a different place--Eddie's room, on his computer, doing different kinds of work at different times of the day. Basically, I'm ping-ponging from the front room to the back room throughout the day, switching from words to numbers and back again.

The dogs have fallen silent, or maybe it's just that I don't get distracted by them anymore. Working from Eddie's room in the back of the house, I've found in their place is Beethoven. One shrill bird calling out:

dun dun dun DUNNNNNNNNN!!!!

Over and over and over and over, breaking concentration and silence all at once. The bird will stop and I'll fall into a false security until there it is again:

dun dun dun DUNNNNNNNNN!!!!

Now it's followed to the front room, my office. Never heard it before ever and now I can't get away.


It's just the first four notes. Over and over and over.


Listen really closely. The one outside my window is much louder, so needy.


I looked up bird call Beethoven's fifth and found that it could be a skylark, a white-throated sparrow, a song sparrow that might or might not be the same thing as a white-throated sparrow, a yellowhammer if I were in the UK, a Zonotrichia albicollis or "The Beethoven Bird." Really, orinthologist? I go to the bird forums and get "The Beethoven Bird"? I could have come up with that.

Of course, the whole research thing was not my first idea. My first idea was, Omigod, I'm doomed. It's like that bird in the Bible when Jesus gets crucified (okay, I need to brush up on my Catholicism, but I do know there's a bird and it's a bad thing and it may have something to do with Jesus being crucified, or maybe just with one of the Apostles being a bad seed). It's like that bird from Julius Caesar, an owl, I think, that's just clearly a bad sign. It's like the Raven, nevermore.

When I relayed this to MS at work, he said point blank: Let's reframe this; maybe the bird wants you to listen to more classical music.

Ah. Perspective. It's a good thing.