Just in time for the weekend, a new release that’ll have you flocking to the theaters! Film Week says “Two Claws Up For “Chicks Cheeping!” Time Magazine calls it “An Emotional Migration.” The New York Times gushes:

“Chicks Cheeping is a film so existentially disturbing, so visually sweeping, and so viscerally moving that you’ll leave the theater and almost certainly lay an egg.”

OK, so whatever. End of sarcasm. New paragraph.

It’s just a video of some baby birds tweeting. Or, more specifically, a video of the tree from whence the baby birds who have been torturing me all week have been tweeting. You can’t actually see them. And there is some audio, but it doesn’t really start ’til halfway through the clip. Which is just over a minute long. So essentially it’s a video of a tree, seen through a window. Then you’ll hear some tweets. OK, fine — it’s like watching viscous mud dry. But at least it’s quick. And c’mon. Listen to the sound of those little fuckers! Multiply it by alllllllllll day. Tell me you might not get a little bugged. Tell me, too, that it was not worth documenting, to prove to some doubters, (read husbands), that my audio travails were not fabricated.

Which didn’t work, incidentally. Mike is unimpressed. He refuses to be disturbed by the noise. The most he will acknowledge is that I — me! — am auditorially sensitive. (Those are my words. He would probably use “nuts.”) But — to his mind — I am the only one with this rare and distracting condition. And, at least in my house, that is probably true. Still, his lack of sympathy is disheartening.

As is his lack of humor — at least on this subject. Case in point: I woke up this morning and looked out the window to see that the two baby birds were, for the first time, visible through the branches of the lemon tree. Until now we’ve been unable to see them through its basically impenetrable foliage. Anyway, suddenly there they were, two little fledglings — admittedly cute — sitting rotundly on a branch right near my window. They must have outgrown their nest, I reasoned. Or fought with their parents. Or stepped out to smoke. What do I know from birds? Anyway, they were there. I knew MJ would love to see them. I also knew the slightest noise would send them back “to the mattresses,” so to speak. So I crept into the living room, where MJ and Mike were playing with legos, and gestured for them to come. Simultaneously I put a finger to my lips.

“The babies are out,” I whispered. “You can see them if you hurry.”

Mike and MJ followed me into the bedroom. Smiling, I picked MJ up and showed her the chicks. She was entranced. I turned to Mike, with an “isn’t it magical?” look on my face.

He gazed back at me flatly. “Isn’t this when you’re supposed to kill them?” he said.

Sheesh. Tough crowd. I was only kidding about that.

Anyway, enjoy the footage. There’s a short appearance by one of the grown-ups at the very end. I think I scared it off. Avian-hit-women will do that, apparently.