Isabella

Isabella showed up today alone.

With the heatwave and the state of Rodrigo’s infection, I think he’s gone because they were inseperable, often preening each other and canoodling. Certainly he would have joined her, as he was flying beautifully on Friday and mated with her on the rail, and when I saw them later that evening, he was courting and escorting her as male Pigeons do. That was the last time I saw either of them until Isabella returned today.

When I peeked out from beneath the shade, she saw me and studied me for a moment. She looked a bit thinner than usual and seemed ravenous, more signs to suggest that Rodrigo is gone. If she was mourning, she may have stayed by his body and not eaten for a few days. Like all birds, Pidges have emotions and personalities that affect their behavior and make their relationships as real and as true as any of ours. If Rodrigo is gone, Isabella has known sorrow.

She walked along the concrete on my side of the railing, stopping between each pair of bars for a second before stepping through the widest space at the end and flying off. True to her species, she’s intelligent in ways humans rarely give anyone but themselves credit for. She’s also young and strong, and with that comes resilience. She’ll eventually find a new mate, though it may take some time, and though she has a flock for social interaction, she’s likely coming here to flee from new suitors as much as for food and water. For now she’s doing her best to survive by herself in a world not built for her, but at least she has a haven on my balcony, where I often stand at sunset figuring out how to do the same.

A pigeon sitting on a ledge in front of a balcony railing.
Isabella, May 2026

The Plight of the Pigeons

Meet Rodrigo:

A one-legged pigeon standing on a ledge
Rodrigo, June 2026

His wife Isabella has been coming to my balcony since early May, and he joined her a few weeks ago. Here they are together on Friday:

Two pigeons standing on a ledge. The one on the right is preening the one on the left.
Rodrigo and Isabella, June 2026

If you look closely at the first pic, you’ll see he’s standing on one leg. That’s because he’s wounded and holding the other one up. It looks like he has stringfoot, a condition where string or hair gets wrapped around a bird’s leg, foot, or toes and cuts off the circulation. They can’t get it off, and they can lose toes or feet to it, or get infections. He had already lost two toes and it looked like he was about to lose what remained of his rear-facing toe. In addition, his leg was swollen compared to his other one, and the nail had already started to separate from the remaining forward-facing toe. It looks like there may be black thread around the upper part of his leg, just under his body feathers.

A close-up of a pigeon's wounded foot.
Rodrigo’s injury, June 2026

I called Inigo’s old vet and they said they’d be happy to look at him and go from there if I could catch him. Once the couple flew off on Friday, they didn’t come back to the balcony. I saw them a couple of blocks away at the metro station a few hours later while I was out running errands, but I didn’t have the right gear with me to catch him.

On Saturday I went to the station with some feed, towels, gloves, large grocery bag, etc., but even though I got a bit mobbed by the flock, many stayed up on the ledges of the tall buildings and I didn’t see Rodrigo and Isabella. I tried to capture another Pidge who had some hair around her ankles and couldn’t walk in her full stride, but I only succeeded in getting pooped on by one of the other Pidges in the mob. Goodness, they’re fast when they want to be!

Neither Rodrigo nor Isabella came to the balcony Saturday, Sunday, or today. Given that they had been coming every day for a few weeks, I fear he may have succumbed to an infection and she is by his body grieving. However, I will continue to put birdseed out as other birds also come around, and if I can get him, I’ll give the vet a call. The woman who used to drive Inigo and me to his appointments is standing by to give us a ride down to Fairfax. I know Pidges can manage with one toe, or even no toes. I’ve seen plenty like that. But again, his foot looked rough and possibly infected.

I really hate how Pigeons are treated. We domesticated them and then when they were no longer useful to us, we abandoned them. They’re gentle, sweet, social birds, as all birds in the Columbidae (dove) family are, and despite a common misbelief, they are very clean if they have access to water.

Because Pidges are feral and not wild, they cannot survive on their own, which is why they don’t just fly out to the woods. They live in urban settings because that’s where we are, and they rely on us, our trash, and our mercy to survive. They are not pests or “flying rats.” They are homeless. They deserve our respect and compassion, as all living things do, but they deserve extra from us because their situation is our fault. So please, be kind to them.

Meh-ry Christmas

After dealing with several days of aggravation regarding a lease that had discrepancies compared with what I had discussed with the leasing agent, fees that were not mentioned, and requirements he did not tell me about (i.e., needing to cover 75% of the wood flooring with rugs, when of course the ones I already have aren’t the right sizes), all I wanted after I got home from my office holiday party this afternoon was to turn on my tree, have a mug of peppermint tea, and relax in the soft, pinkish glow of the lights.

Except the tree was already plugged in.

And the lights were all off.

I would not leave the tree lit overnight, so it must have blown while I was in the home office writing before I went to bed, and I didn’t unplug it, thinking I had already pulled the plug.

I had extra lights, so I thought I would just take everything off the tree, put fresh lights on, and redecorate.

And then taking the lights off became like a cage match, so I quite literally cut the lights off the tree, being that they aren’t working anymore anyway.

And then I saw that the tree was shedding like a real one that had been kept up for three months and carted to the curb in February.

And then I was done. Done with 2025. Done with smarmy landlords. Done with packing and making arrangements and worrying about where I’m going to be living two weeks from Monday. Done with everything.

I cut the lights off the tree, stuffed the tree in the box, and threw it all into a dumpster, which I then proceeded to half-fill with all kinds of crap. Journals with the first ten pages torn out after I gave up writing in the things by the first weekend in January. Old clothes. Old sheets. Old towels except for some of the little ones that I used for Inigo’s bed on his shelf in his cage and for him to stand on when I gave him a bath so he wouldn’t slip off my finger. Kitchen gadgets I was given in the 90s that I haven’t used in at least 15 years that I keep lugging from apartment to apartment. Five years of Forks Over Knives, from which I made approximately two recipes. Vegan protein powder because let’s face it, it’s gross. The half-full bag of Inigo’s food, that I bought about a month before our goodbye in March 2023, which had expired a year ago but I just couldn’t bear to part with because the smell reminded me of him. Jigsaw puzzles I put together once and knew I wouldn’t put together again, though I kept the bird-themed ones friends have given me because I haven’t put them together yet.

There will probably be at least another half-dumpster full of stuff to throw out, but I’ll get to that this weekend.

At any rate, I still haven’t signed the lease and I’m about to apply for another apartment tomorrow but I want to take another look at it on my lunch break. If I had any courage at all, I would throw out every dang thing I own except for some clothes, mementos, documents, and cherished feathers, and go live off-grid in a yurt. Seriously, I’m just that done with everything.

So here are all of my ornaments, which I will pack up tomorrow.

A pile of Christmas ornaments.

I did go to see the State Christmas trees on Sunday, though I couldn’t get all the pictures I wanted because the Forest Service police ran everyone out of there as soon as the sun set. I don’t know if it was because a crew was still taking the scaffolding from last Friday’s ceremony down, which wouldn’t make sense because it was far from the trees, or if it’s some kind of Trumpian bullshit to go along with the roving quartets of National Guardsmen in D.C., but it put a damper on things. The little kiosk shop where they sell the White House ornaments was closed, too, so I wasn’t able to get this year’s ornament.

Not that I have a tree to hang it on.

I’ll try to post more to Holidailies, but this move is the worst of my life and it’s sucking every ounce of holiday spirit out of me. It’s involuntary (hooray, mold) and it’s a downsizing of pretty decent proportions as I can’t get the same size and type of place I live in now because my salary was frozen for three years while rents kept going up. These giant corporate landlords own the vast majority of apartment buildings around here and they put you through the wringer with criminal background checks, looking in your bank account, calling your employer, on and on like it’s a matter of national security—which is the height of irony because Virginia has the quickest eviction proceedings in the country and they can just throw you out. No joke, if you are just six days late on your rent, in Virginia they’ll give you a “five-day-or quit” notice and if you don’t either pay up or move out in five days, they’ll have your stuff on the curb by the end of the month, if not sooner. There have been news stories and documentaries about how fast evictions take place in Virginia.

Then at least where I live, they often hike the rents at LEAST 10%, often 15%, sometimes 20% when you get a renewal letter, so that you either accept price gouging or have to keep moving and can’t put roots down. Imagine paying $2,500 a month for a 700 sq. ft. apartment and getting a renewal letter telling you your rent is going up to $2,750 or even $3,000. Then the day after you move out, your apartment will go onto the market for what you were paying. It’s quite a racket, and many tenants just move to a different unit in the same building, but what a hassle that is in terms of changing your address on everything, including your license.

So I’m dealing with all of that and am moving two weeks from Monday but don’t know where I’m moving to.

In other words, bah humbug.