Toys

With these really hot summer days coming so early in the season, I decided I needed something to do while hugging my air conditioner...I thought I would buy myself a jigsaw puzzle.  It's been years since I've worked on one and they were always a borderline addiction for me.  I have made the process a lot easier than it was in the old days.  Now, I have good lighting...that in itself takes about 40% of the challenge away.  I have a coffee table with a surface that is 'liftable' so the entire puzzle comes closer to the arms and eyeballs.  Another 20% reduction in the original challenge.  I put my meditation cushion on the sofa and I no longer experience back strain.  So it is almost a snap now.  Almost.

I set the thing up about a week and a half ago, first putting a large folded cardboard box on the table surface, making it large enough to hold all the pieces.  Then, with some difficulty, I started looking for the edge pieces; the trouble started when I discovered that the cardboard box was not quite big enough.  I still had half a bag of pieces and the surface was pretty full.  So I tumbled the pieces in the bag and looked for the straight sides...and found a few.  I started putting it together; that is when the real challenge started.

My bird flew over for a visit and discovered that he landed in bird heaven.  There he stood among the pieces, and while his face is made up mostly of beak, feathers and eyeballs, I swear I saw a smile grow on his face.  In a flash he had a piece in his mouth, he gave me look as though to say "ha!  Catch me if you can I'm outta here!"

So my quiet puzzle time became an exercise routine, chasing the bird and puzzle piece through the house.  He finally dropped it when he had enough play, then returned to his cage to look in the mirror as though absolutely nothing had happened.  Since that day, I have religiously covered the puzzle with a blanket to avoid further incidents like that.  I have worked on the puzzle little bits at a time and yesterday almost finished the frame.  It seems as though I am missing about three or so errant pieces.

Time will tell, of course, if I missed a few when I was gathering the edges or if Mr. Birdie has made off with them!  So now the question is:  Why did I spend so much time finding a picture that I thought was worthy of actually gluing and mounting in a picture frame?