blue jay

home sick on thurs. i lay on the couch in the rumpus room and read the first two acts of uncle vanya (b/c the night b/f i had finished the confessions of edward day which features u.v.) and fall asleep. i am roused by lennie up to no good upstairs, bounding and/or leaping at the cats most likely. i pick up uncle vanya and begin act 3, around the point where Sonya says "You're bored, you don't know what to do with yourself and bordeom and idleness are infectious" and lennie is still terrorizing the cat/s. i call up to him, which usually does the trick but not this time. he's whining and leaping around the living room. i throw back the covers and head up the stairs and hear the shrill call of a scrub jay. as i step into the living room i see that the scrub jay is in the fireplace, protected by the screen from lennie's eager jaws, flapping furiously. what to do? first, i trick lennie into the rumpus room w/ some meaty snacks and shut the door. i go back to the fireplace and the jay is gone. good. that does that. all i need to do is close the flue so i reach my hand up and the jay springs out, into the living room, crashing against the northernmost window. i immediately open the front door and the screen door and try to coax her out. she is furiously pecking at the window, furiously flapping wings and when she takes a quick break i can hear her breathing. Her mate lands on the arbor vitae just outside the window, cheeping at her, but she can't get out. i run downstairs, put on garden gloves and for a moment think that i am going to snatch her up and carry her outside but split-second of approach is all she needs to inform me that such an option is not viable. her breathing and flapping intensifies. she's getting caught in the curtains. what to do? I go to the coat closet and pull open an umbrella, gently moving it - unopened - toward her, attempting to coax her onto the end. this too is not a viable option. eventually, i have all the furniture pulled from the wall, the curtains tucked over and around the bars from which they hang. i open the umbrella and shock her into the adjacent, west-facing window. and then i close and open it again, shocking her toward the door and she flies out - free - heading straight to the neighbor's tree.