I have a satellite dish on my roof.
I did not pay for the satellite dish.
Well, the previous owner had it on the roof when I bought the house, so I guess that counts.
Yesterday ants started streaming through the ceiling in our kitchen. (Which happens to be near where the satellite dish is.)
A couple of days ago our DVR recorded So You Think You Can Dance, but left off all of the audio. It makes for a pretty confusing dance show without any music. (Sad, I know, because I hear it was bucc.) My pirate creative mind started thinking through how to steal a satellite signal without paying for it.
How do ants and dancing connect? (Aside from the obvious Dave Matthews reference…(“Dave Matthews GPS”))
I’ve been diagnosed with a blood disease called “sin”. One of the effects of this sickness is that it burrows down deep within my body and tries to hide so that it can’t be removed.
Kinda like a bird burrowing into my attic to make a nest.

Seriously, the poor bird was probably in a storm and needed shelter. There were even eggs in the nest.
All had been dead for quite some time.
The bird had crawled in through where the satellite dish cord comes into the house. The install guy from before we had moved in years ago had not replaced the screen over a venting. This hole looked surprisingly similar to a hole for a bird house. We’ve been in this house since before my oldest child was born. The nest was of a size that Jeremy and I think it had been in there for quite some time.
I could go on treating the symptoms, spraying ants in the kitchen (did you know Clorox stops the ants without being too nerve-damaging humans?). But until the deep rooted cause of the ants, a dead bird in the attic, was removed, the symptoms would return from time to time when I least expected them. It’s like how my interactions with people sometimes get strained – it’s not the people that are the problem, it’s really the decaying, nasty stuff inside of me that taints those conversations. (See my other spiritual metaphor for another reference point.) Gotta get that junk out. Know what I’m saying?
Now, while two large men wielding a rake and a Shop Vac in an attic is rather hilarious (“fat guy in a little coat“), I know that there is part of the nest that we won’t be able to get. We removed the main cause, but some dead grass remains.
There’s only one surgeon I know that can remove the decay perfectly every time.
Slade and Mike, this photo explains my comment that warrants a bigger boat.

“That, boys, is a perimeter.”
The next picture may not be suitable for all audiences. I feel bad for the bird and the second picture spurs compassion in me, but I know it’s not for everyone.
That in mind, I will put a pretty (non-disturbing) picture first as a consideration for you.

and then a reminder of my own temporalness:
