Our yard has been taken over by a Karen Sypher cardinal.

For those of you who don't know, Karen Sypher is a woman who had an affair with the UofL Cardinals basketball coach, Rick Pitino. She went psycho and started demanding all sorts of things from him, including $10,000 a month and for him to pay for her kids to go to college. In short, she just won't shut up and go away.

Now, I have bird feeders in my back yard. If we get certain birds often enough, my family and I name them. Since we have a buttload of cardinals- and we are livid UofL fans- we named all the males Rick (after Pitino) and all the females Joanne (after his wife). Except for one.

So a few days ago I was watching TV before heading off to work, when I heard a thud and saw a female cardinal fall. My initial thought was "Oh no, another bird hit the window!" seeing as how we have quite a few slam into our kitchen windows. As I walked towards the deck door to check on the bird, it popped back up...and started trying to get into the house. I kid you not. Not just flying into the window, mind you, but trying to GET INTO THE HOUSE. She would flutter at the window, hover around for a few seconds, then latch onto the little ledge at the bottom and stare at me before dropping down to the deck out of sight. After about five seconds, she repeated the process again for about half an hour. This struck me as strange of course, but I brushed it off and went about getting ready for work as usual.

Until an hour later when the little bugger did it again. This time, it was at the library window in the front of the house. In addition to continuing her efforts to get through the window, she also took on our resident mockingbird who adopted our yard as his a few years ago. When I went out to my car, she was still at it.

All was quiet for a few more days, until my mom told me something interesting after I got home from work one night. Apparently, the Sypher bird showed up at the window in hers and my dad's bathroom that morning while she was getting ready and had gone through the exact same ritual as when I saw her the first time. This has now become a daily event at our household. Every morning between 7:30 and 8 AM she pops up outside my mother's bathroom window and tries to get in, only now she fusses the whole time. She then disappears until right around the time I wake up and does it again until I leave for work. She has also begun to take on various feathered regulars at our feeders and usually wins- though I have to say, seeing her get her tailfeathers handed to her by a male finch about half her size is very amusing to watch. (Atticus RULES! Yes, that's a "To Kill A Mockingbird" reference.)

God help us, feathered or not, Karen Sypher just doesn't want to go away.

~Kat


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