What

Aries: “I’m going to be so fucked off if we get murdered.” -alyssa

Taurus: “I think he was properly beautiful.” -alyssa

Gemini: “It’s strange. A lot of the time you don’t register the important moments as they happen. You only see that they were important when you look back.” -alyssa

Cancer: “Being with Alyssa had started to make me feel things and I didn’t like it at all.” -james

Leo: “I thought she would be interesting to kill. So I pretended to fall in love with her.” -james

Virgo: “People can’t be answers. They’re just more questions.” -alyssa

Libra: “I’m bad at apologizing to people but sometimes I know I should.” -alyssa

Scorpio: “I get these moments when I have to lie down because everything feels, sort of, too much. And I look up and see the blue or the gray or the black and I feel myself melting into it. And for, like, a split second, I feel free and happy.” -alyssa

Sagittarius: “It’s like everything shifts in a moment. You step out and you see where you are really clearly. You see yourself. And you think… Fuck. This. Shit.” -alyssa

Capricorn: “I’m trying to think what adults do in situations like this. Should we go downstairs and have a glass of wine?” -alyssa

Aquarius: “That was the day I learned that silence is really loud. When you have silence it’s hard to keep stuff out.” -james

She’s not in Medical blue, a caretaking, feminine role.  

use tools

Can be taught to speak (like parrots)

Have huge brains for birds

like seriously their brain-to-body size ratio is equal to that of a chimpanzee

They vocalize anger, sadness, or happiness in response to things

they are scary smart at solving puzzles

some crows stay with their mates until one of them dies

they can remember faces

SIDENOTE HERE BECAUSE HOLY SHIT.  They did an experiment where these guys wore masks and some of them fucked with crows.  Pretty soon the crows recognized the masks = douchebag.  But the nice guys with masks they left alone.  THEN, OH WE’RE NOT DONE, NO SIR crows that WEREN’T EVEN IN THE EXPERIMENT AND NEVER SAW THE MASK BEFORE knew about mask-dudes and attacked them on sight.  THEY PASSED ON THE FUCKING INFORMATION TO THEIR CROW BUDDIES.

They remember places where crows were killed by farmers and change their migration patterns.

Every day, I would watch Buck from my window until one day I opened it and started talking to him. He was small and gangly and he couldn’t caw right. His feathers were all over the place and I felt a kinship. So I made a deal with him. I told him that if he could do it, if he could fly, then I could find the strength to get up. Well… near the end of the season, after talking with him every day, I finally saw him get out of the nest. He went to the edge of his branch, braced himself, and jumped… and just before he hit the ground, he soared back up into the sky. I cheered harder than I ever had before.

That winter, Buck left the area. I was crestfallen. I felt like I’d lost a friend. But I was so damn proud of him. 

Cut to the next spring? I’m walking up the driveway one day when suddenly I hear a sound… a broken caw. I look up, and Buck is sitting in a tree above my head. He stared at me and puffed his feathers, then hopped down in front of me and cawed again. I was so damn thrilled, and I told him how proud I was of him. He ruffled his feathers and then soared off into his old tree. 

That summer? I heard two broken caws. One from Buck… and one from his chick.

i tried to get close and take a better look and one of them dived super low and tried to attack me. so i went back in the house and chopped some sliced raw meat and tossed it at him from a distance.

a few more times later, very soon after, they could tell i was trying to help, and did not attack me. i was “allowed” to walk up close and pick him up, he couldn’t drink water properly so i had to dip my finger in a bowl and stick it in his mouth.

i did this few times a day and it went on for about a week before he disappeared, i thought he recovered and left, but he came back the next day and lands on me, and i see him around the block quite often, and he would come sit on my shoulder for a few minutes and then fly away again. i feel like i’ve adopted a son.

As a side note, I volunteered at a rehab (Hope for Wildlife), where they were rehabbing a crow with a broken wing–who was named Russell Crow. He kept pulling his bandage off so a sleeve was cut off some old clothing and put on him like a little sweater.