[currently listening to: james playing supermario world]

the title of this entry holds special significance to me in three forms.

the first being that when i was a kid, i used to call cardinals 'carnivals,' because i couldn't pronounce the real name of those birds.

second, there are two carnivals near my house that are open for business this weekend, and i hope to hit up both [or at least one] by today.

thirdly, my mom loved birds. she loved them so much that i have now come to the conclusion as to why she asked me to play "free bird," by lynyrd skynyrd at her funeral. which i did, btw.

ever since my mom has died, i've had quite a few encounters with animals of different species. specifically birds.

now, the way i think about life both spiritually & critically is that when people die and their souls go to heaven, they can come back as angels in any form that they'd like. i believe my mom's choice was to come back as a bird to watch over me -- to be more specific, a cardinal.

if this beautiful creature is what my mom opted to morph into as an angel on the other side, then i am more than pleased because cardinals are so pretty to look at, and even more rare to see. if you accidentally catch a glimpse of one of them near my house, you're lucky.

which leads me into the next part of this entry...

while i was at work one day, i was in the front lobby tableclothing and skirting registration tables for an upcoming party. i happened to look out one of the huge windows that is set to the left of the lobby & noticed that a cardinal would swoop down, sit on the ledge, & peek inside the window -- by peek i mean stare at me. said cardinal proceeded to do so for a good minute or two.

at first i thought nothing of it, but then i started to think a little more about it. i've had weird encounters with other birds & animals like this shortly after my mom died.

at the time, i was going through a lot of stress. so in my mind, after i thought about it for a second, i assumed the best that it was my mom, looking out for me and letting me know everything would be ok.

how do i know and feel this? because the bird was doing that the entire time i was in the lobby, as soon as i walked away for a minute and came back, it was gone.

which leads me to the story that happened today.

i've been going through a lot of shit with school -- i haven't been enrolled for 2 years due to the fact that my mom died + my old car died, lack of money, and etc. well, i've been trying to login recently into my pipeline at the wayne state site and it wouldn't let me. THEN i get an e-mail from wayne state saying my e-mail will expire and all that jazz on the 24th of this month seeing as how i haven't registered in said 2 years.

so i call the c&it help desk number that an adviser down at school gave me. i call them, tell them my problem, and they fix it. so on and so forth. BUT, as i was in the process of calling the number, i happened to look up for a second and saw no other than a cardinal sitting on one of the tree branches outside my window, staring into it! i looked down for a second or two, looked back up, and it was gone.

now, someone not knowing me would think i'm crazy, or mayeb a bit schizophrenic. i am in no way, shape, or form. in my mind, i believe my mom was trying to tell me i'm headed in the right direction & everything is going the way it needs to & that i am fine.

i started crying because i was thinking about how even though my mom has been deceased for 2 years, i still feel her around me. i know she's there. i feel her & i see her through those cardinals & other animals who act strange like that. and this doesn't happen all the time -- mainly when i seem to be feeling stressed or thinking about too much at one time or doing things that i obviously need to be doing.

*EDIT* for some odd & strange reason, the rest of this entry got deleted by accident. either that or someone hacked into my shit & deleted it, or my mom doesn't want me writing these stories about her. either way, this was a good entry & now the entire ending is gone. ah well. fuck my life.

&& peach.