Instead, I'd like to tell you about a friend of mine. He is a big, muscly neuroscientist who cannot bear the thought of animals being cold in the winter. He once confessed to me that it worried him to think of the squirrels and birds shivering in parks during the cold months. This peculiar compassion is one of his most endearing traits.
During this particular hot spell, I've been too busy taking cold baths and squirting my face with water to worry too much about the animals. This morning, however, as I was trudging to work, I encountered a tiny baby chickadee sitting on the sidewalk. Its mother (I presume) was squawking away in a nearby bush. "Good lord," I thought to myself, "the adorable baby animals are dying from the heat! Only I can save them!"
Baby chickadee in (assumed) distress. It was the size of a walnut.
I went back home and filled a plastic, disposable bowl (left over from a recent camping trip) with water, and grabbed my trusty squirt bottle. I returned to the chickadee 'hood, but there were no baby birds to be seen. I still heard the very recognizable "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" call from a nearby tree, so I left the bowl of water in the bushes, squirted my face with water, and continued on my way.
It occurred to me, as I was trudging along, that bringing one of those babies home would have made my heat-exhausted cat very happy. I quickly banished the thought.
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