So, I have a new pet!

Well, he's not exactly mine, actually, he kind of hates me and looks at me with loathing in his little bitty eye, and he doesn't live in my house, but I love him, so therefor he is my new pet.

The other day, Cynthia said to me, "Have you seen the baby bird on your step?"
"No, there's a baby bird on my step?"
"Yeah, he's been there a couple of days. He must have fallen out of the nest, and I've noticed the mother bird swooping and calling to him, but he can't fly. I gave him some bread and water, but I don't know if he's too little to eat by himself or not."

So I went out to look, and I looked and looked (my stairs aren't that big, just four up and four down with my door in the middle), and finally I saw him. He matches the step exactly, he is concrete grey, and he was huddled so small in the corner that it took me a minute or two to see him.

He's not the baby bird that I thought he was, as he seems to be about fully fledged, but he still has the white lines around his mouth so that his mother can feed him. And he's so small!

Cynthia was taking me into work, so we discussed him on the ride, and she agreed to go to a pet store and ask them what to feed a baby bird if I would be the one who did the feeding.

That night when I got home, I thought I'd see if I could pick him up, just so I could see if he was hurt or something, and to ascertain exactly how fledged he is, so I reached down and picked him up, and he felt very strong and was able to sit on my finger, but when he tried to fly away, he could just flutter, and it was actually like he was bouncing. He went BOINGBOINGBOING away from me and back behind the garbage pails, and that was when I named him.

Gerald. After Gerald McBoingBoing.

Anyway, Cynthia'd gotten a bag of stuff that you mix in warm water and a syringe to squirt it into his mouth with, so I mixed it up and went outside to see if I could find him. It was dark, and the light over my door only goes so far, and I didn't want to accidentally hurt him, so I carefully went over to the garbage pails and I started moving things.

There was a pile of milk crates, and I moved the top couple and found that he had gotten into the bottom one, intelligent creature that he is, my Gerald, so I tried to syringe him.

Well, he wasn't having any of it. In fact, he viewed the syringe as being an instrument of torture and BOINGed the hell away. It was actually a little big for him, 'cause it is really for baby parrots and things, whose heads are bigger than Gerald's whole body, so I gave up on it immediately.

The problem was that now, after I had cruelly tried to feed him and give him nourishment so that he could stay alive, he viewed me as the most frightening of monsters and wanted to get as far from me as possible. And he was heading in the direction of the street rather than the backyard.

So I froze. I didn't know that I could stand so still. My light is on a timer, so I just stood there until it flicked off,and then I tiptoed around him and he hopped back over to the garbage cans. I could hear him BOINGing through the rake "Strum strum strum!"

I came back out and put some of the baby food on a saucer and hoped that it might occur to him to drink some before he dropped dead.

The one thing, though, was that I had noticed during my frozen moments that a tiny feather fell out of his tail, and he turned and picked it up with his beak, then tossed it away. "If he can pick up a feather," I thought, "He might be able to pick up a seed!" so I decided just to try him on grown-up bird food.

Yesterday, it was pouring, and I mean pouring, and when I left for work, he was back on the step, but down at the bottom, right by my door. He was trying to crawl underneath it to get inside, an idea so appalling that I was going to block the crack, until I realized that there was a lip between the inside and the outside, and that he wouldn't have been able to get in and become a kitty hors d'oeuvre.

So I emptied my little wastepaper basket and put it out there on it's side so that he could BOING in and get some shelter, but I doubted that he would. But cause it is my wastepaper basket, and therefor the Wastepaper Basket of Evil and when I got home last night (seedless, as by the time I looked, the stores were closed) on the step still he was, though the least raining section thereof, and my wastepaper basket was unsullied.

This morning, it is no longer raining, and I hear him chirping out there with his mama, so I know that he's still alive and kicking. Or alive and BOINGing, as the case may be. I'm going to give him some breadcrumbs before I go--Cynthia had given him some bread a couple of days ago, but she gave him actual slices, and I'm sure that he had no idea what to do with them. I'll crumble some up, and bring the seed home tonight.

Have you ever rescued a baby bird? Or any other animal? Were they grateful or did they look at your ministrations with horror and disgust? Did they live?

And none of my other threads will die, the daintiness test is turning into a discussion on ladies rooms, the Tony thread is about general theatre-geekiness, Jesus Christ Superstar and who gets Jerry Orbach, Michael is complaining on the movie question thread that there aren't enough guys answering and that it's gotten way too girly, and the genius thread, and the dancin' songs thread are still going strong.

And I just got my first e-mail subscriber to my forum! How very thrilling it was to see it post to somebody other than just me!

Don't forget to check out Lucy and Jessie, co-Journal of the Week and recent world-travelers!

Today's horoscope:
You make a breakthrough regarding an old family pattern. You may backslide a bit, but you're on the path to health.

One year ago today:
"I'll do it if you're doing it!" "Well, I'll do it if you're doing it!"

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Last Updated Wed 7 June 10:06:09 2000