Today’s advertising flyers made Olof realize that he couldn’t live one day longer without a video camera so we made a trip to town this afternoon and bought one. When we came home, there was an obviously-dead something lying in our driveway. Before I could stop her, Lydia ran over to investigate, reporting back that it was a magpie. After we’d been home for twenty minutes or so, Olof went out to dispose of it and discovered it was still alive. As if that weren’t bad enough, when he moved to put it out of its misery, it tried to escape (I do not have — nor do I want — the details). As it stands now, the bird is still alive outside and Olof is trying to plan his next move. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with it myself (I really don’t think I have the stomach to do it anyway), but it’s still upsetting. I hate things like this (and for the first time I hate that not every neighborhood guy has a gun on the closet shelf — shooting it really would be the easiest thing, I think).