Angry Birds

Once upon a time, there was a very popular app called Angry Birds.

It was, for some time, the most popular game sold in the app store.

It has spawned its own full-length movie. (It won't be any good -- something that takes three seconds to explain is almost never a good 102-minute movie.)

It was actually truly amazing how the oinking pigs could mock you derisively through their little pixels and make you upset. Maybe even angry. Maybe that's why the game was so popular -- it made all the "birds" playing it angry.

I'm going to tell you some things that seem unrelated, but they're not.

Today, I went and spent some time with a friend. We played with a bird. It was a dead bird that had been cooked. I was teaching her how to make broth. It will make a very tasty soup sometime. We had fun picking the meat off the bones and just generally laughing and talking together.

Late last week I had a bird adventure: I chased a band of coots in a current on foot. At least, my non-local but very loyal bird enthusiast contact assures me they were coots. I was mostly chasing them so I could tell her what kind of bird they were. I don't even like birds, really. When they bomb my car, I get upset. Angry, one might even call it. So annoying, the birds are! The crows with their noise and invasive ways, the geese with the honking and the droppings everywhere...the swallows and their porch-bombing habit...you get the idea.

Today, I got ANGRY.  The scary part is, I kind of enjoyed it. It felt empowering to be so upset. I felt like my wrath was fully justified (highly unusual) and like it was useful (moving me along an emotional path I need to explore further). I was so angry. Angrier than even the Angry Birds! I have been angrier in my life, but I can only think of a handful of times where this has been the case. I reveled in the anger. It brought me joy and sparkle. Hot and spicy was how I felt today. Being mad at someone else instead of yourself is actually kind of liberating. No wonder people do it so often.