bye bye blackbird

tonight at about 6, after we’d gotten home from crazy busy days and girls were doing homework and I was back on-line with emails and spreadsheets, kate asked me if she could light a duraflame log in our fireplace. I said she could and watched (with one eye) as she place the log just right in the fireplace and struck a long fireplace match to light it up. and then she stood back a few feet and blew out the match as the flames in the fireplace started to get strong and warm and bright.

and then? she screamed at the top of her lungs as if she’d seen, well, a blackbird fly directly out of the fireplace and straight towards her head. and then she started running around in circles and screaming OMIGOD THERE’S A BIRD THERE’S A BIRD IN HERE!! and then abby screamed ohmygodthere’sabirdinhere!!! and then I screamed OMYGODTHERE’SABIRDINHERE?!!!! and then cash screamed, and i’m pretty sure I heard “holyshitIdobelievethere’sabirdinhere!”

a small bit of chaos ensued. a blackbird took total control of my home. it had flown right down the chimney through the fire and into my house (luckily, it was not on fire itself, as that may have created a slightly larger problem for me).

so there was the screaming and the running around and the flapping of wings and dogs and kids and then there were three girls huddled together in a bathroom screeching til one of them realized she was the only grown up in the vicinity and must get a hold of herself. so she (ok, I) creeped out ducking the divebomber once, twice, and then returning to bang on the locked bathroom door (seriously, kate and abby? a bird is going to BREAK IN TO THE BATHROOM IF YOU NEGLECT TO SLIDE THE LOCK ACROSS THE DOOR??)

eventually i reached the kitchen phone to call carolyn (because the cell phone was too close to the rabid and raging phoenix) to say what do I do if there is a bird flying around and around my house and every time I look at it it flies toward my eyes? and she said, very calmly and confidently, as apparently this happens all the time at HER house in the COUNTRY: have the dog and the girls go in another room (check!) so it’s all calm out there with just you in charge (ha!) and then you just get a towel and walk nonchalantly toward it and throw the towel over it, gather it up and take it outside and let it go. um, ok.

so I grabbed a towel and tiptoed toward it, but then it flew directly toward me so I threw the towel over my OWN head and laid on the floor like I was dead.

and after a few minutes I came back to life, and crawled back toward a basket of laundry in the tv room to grab a larger bird trap (carolyn said if you are too scared to get really close, get a sheet). so I crept toward the front door underneath a KING SIZED brown sheet (disguising myself as the floor, obviously) and I managed to get my front door open with the bird doing angry circles overhead, and then I crawled toward the back door under the sheet and got the back door open and suddenly, overhead (above the sheet) I heard...swoooosh...

bye bye blackbird.

this is not a youtube video of our adventure, though abby did manage to record a few harrowing moments on her flip camera as she ran for the bathroom. this is simply background music to fade out this story and my day...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdbWUPhjniE

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ps. I am now a hero in my house, a supermom extraordinaire, and I shall have that brown sheet embroidered with an S and I shall wear it to work tomorrow. of course the girls didn’t actually witness my playing dead, as they were locked in the bathroom screaming at that time. they just think I calmly shoo’d the little guy out the back door with a little to-go bag of birdie treats for the road.

could I have summoned up this black bird with my little tattoo? with my new favorite song “birds” by kate nash? by saying to myself over and over and over “bird by bird. just take it bird by bird...”? with this crazy creepy sad and nervous week that needed a bit of hilarity to lighten the mood? whatever. I totally forgot about not having a place to live in a few weeks, AND that stupid stupid boy who broke my heart—for just long enough to sleep well tonight.

man life is funny and unexpected and rather surprisingly joyful underneath all this crump some days.