Sunday, May 28, 2006

For the Birds -- Part 2


Blogroll Me!

So you've had time to think about birds, have you not? Okay, back to that line of thought...

When we moved into this house 2 1/2 years ago, we replaced most of the windows. The previous owner had replaced a handful of them, but clearly not the same quality we'd opted for. So clear in fact, that a couple of the screens don't fit well into the frames.

And how did I discover that? Soon after we moved in, I'd left my sons' bedroom window open and later in the day I went into the room and the screen had fallen inward so that fresh air (and dust and pollen and whatever else) had been free to enter the room. I was annoyed about the situation and that was that.

Several days later, one late Saturday night, I was sitting in our family room watching TV. I think hubby was in the bathroom at the time and I was lounging on the sofa in our sunken family room (a few steps to go down into the family room, and the kitchen overlooks the family room, which by the way has a very high, cathedral-type ceiling).

SUDDENLY, I sensed something was in the room with me. I could've sworn something had flown past. I looked up, and there was a small bird flying rings around the ceiling, and swooping, like dive-bombing, toward the furniture. I had visions of Hitchcock's THE BIRDS.

I screamed for my husband; he came running. "WHAT? WHAT?" I pointed to the bird flying in circles and swooping, as I kept ducking my head and body.
He started grabbing a sofa pillow, and like an airport runway engineer who stands with flashlight-type lights in his hands, guiding an aircraft to a particular laneway to direct his plane, he was trying to do the same with the pillow. He was shooing the bird who flew up and down, up and down, back to the second story and then to the main level. It took a few minutes, but somehow hubby managed to shoo that bird out of the house.

All I could say was "Ooh, ooh, ooh" and wonder how much bird poop had been dropped by this very anxious flying machine.

Then hubby and I calmed down a bit and tried to figure out how the damn bird had gotten in the house, and WHEN he'd gotten in the house, how long he might've been in the house, and WHERE he'd been hiding out in the house.

We narrowed down the possibilities to a couple choices:

1. We'd often leave the screen door wide open to let our former dog come back into the house after he'd do his business outside.
2. The bird had somehow flown into my sons' bedroom that day I'd found the screen had fallen inward and onto the floor. Okay, but we couldn't figure out where the bird had been for a few days. We thought he might've hit a wall or piece of furniture upon his landing, been a bit stunned and managed to find a perch somewhere atop an armoire or cabinet where he wouldn't be readily seen.

We're pretty sure he must've come in through the bedroom window. Why he chose to make his appearance known at that particular time on that particular night is byond me. I wish I could say it was The Birds I was watching on TV; alas, no. I think it was Saturday Night Live...and that feathered friend just wanted its 15 minutes of fame...

"LIVE, from the family room in TorontoPearl's house, it's THE BIRD...!"

6 comments:

wanderer said...

Consider yourself lucky. My savta (grandma) always used to say it was good luck if a bird flew into your house. Why? I don't know. I guess I should have asked her, but she would say it in that old world kinda way, so it must be true...

cruisin-mom said...

Pearl, that is so funny...a few days ago, I left my screen door open, and guess what...a little bird flew in...I of course ran around screaming, trying to figure out how to get that damn bird out (I already have one bird from hell, don't need another)...I opened up another door, and out he flew, whew!

torontopearl said...

Wanderer:
Your savta said that while my mother told me many years ago that it's good luck if a bird poops on you. I guess she had to appease me when I was a young teen and I shrieked when a bird overhead pooped on my shoulder!

CM:
Guess you and I had the welcome mat out. Or those birds just thought we did!

wanderer said...

Wow, then think about how good your luck would be if a bird pooped on you IN YOUR HOUSE!

... Is the Window to Our Soul said...

I will never forget during Halloween in SF, a costume I saw. This guy had dressed up just like Tippi Hedren, with birds (fake) perched all over. I have a picture of it somewhere. It was really cool.

If you ever get out to SF, definitely take a drive out to Bodega Bay

torontopearl said...

What a great costume; what an ingenious and creative idea. Hmm...let me get to SF first, and then I'll think about visiting Bodega Bay.