The Sparrow

Dear Diary,

Today a bird got into the apartment through a window that had been left open to ventilate the place from varnish fumes. I think it was a sparrow.

I was awakened in my bed due to the screaming and clamor. Well, that and Jared came to ask me to help in the search and rescue.

The bird was flying frantically from room to room, sometimes smacking into windows.

At first our strategy (mine and the children's) was to jump up and down shrieking while Jared ran from room to room with a small blue fuzzy blanket clasped to his chest for protection.

Or maybe that was to catch the bird with...

Anyways, the bird flew into the bathroom and vanished behind the shower into the walled-off space behind it. There was no way we could reach into that space.

At this point in time, I voiced my belief (admittedly not in my calmest voice) that the bird would rot and die behind our shower and that we would have to smash down the walls to get its carcass out.

Jared looked at me with some disgust and then marched off.

He soon came back with our secret weapon: Chubby the Cat.

Chubby had raced away in terror as soon as the bird had entered the apartment.

Now Jared had him in his arms and planned on using him as a ballistic missile (in the sense of "going ballistic"). He held the squirming kitty over the open shower space and waited.

Soon there came a squawking and a flapping of wings.

The bird came soaring out of the bathroom, past our heads (fortunately I had covered mine protectively with my arms and a hood and was facing the wall screaming "I hate birds" in my most grown-up voice) and into the living room where it hit the living room window, did a 180 and flew back into the hallway and into the dining room where Jared quickly pursued.

Finally displaying a tad of common sense I proceeded to cover one of the entrances to the dining room with a huge blanket in the hopes of discouraging the bird from flying out that way. There I stood with my hood over my head, arms raised high, praying that a bird was not about to fly straight through the blanket and right into my face.

There was sound of a scuffle. Muffled shouting. Then a window opening.

Then Jared called out that the bird was gone!

Well, gone out of the apartment at least. The bird was now sitting just outside the window shaking like a leaf.

My heart filled with delayed pity and I suggested we give it something to eat. Unfortunately the only animal food we had was cat. I considered suggesting that we make a tiny bed out of a shoebox and a pillowcase and pieces of cotton and place the bed on the window sill so that the bird could take a recovery rest if it so desired but then had a mental image of the bird lying sleeping peacefully and a wind knocking the tiny bed off the sill and the box tumbling over and over to the ground with a smash.

So instead we just stood there staring at the bird. Eventually it recovered somewhat and flew away to a nearby tree.

And that was the end of our bird adventure.