The Bird in the Baseball Glove (Day 283, Year 2)

This afternoon, I was outside planting my mums. Planting mums always reminds me of a character in a Mary Higgins Clark book who was a murderer and always planted mums wherever he lived--even if he was a renter. The seasonal planting was his tell and eventually his unraveling. 

I am not a murderer. But, I do think that seasonal plantings could be my unraveling. I nearly hit myself in the face with the shovel at least 7 times. I kept losing my mind over the mums alignment. I did not even take a good picture.  And between you and me: I am a murderer. 

Of MUMS!! A plant murderer, of course, not like a living things/people murderer. Those poor mums will shrivel up and die before you can say pumpkin pie. 

But, whatever, they look great today. And it was a good thing I was outside, because then I got to witness my child and his two pals being gifted an injured bird by a lunatic.

Picture it: I am hastily and angrily planting my mums looking as unhinged as a murderer in a Mary Higgins Clark book. My son and his friends are playing in the "tree fort clubhouse" which is really a clearing in between our double hedge line on the side of our property. It is bordered by trees, making it a tree fort and they keep things they've stolen from my garage in there to give it the criminal clubhouse vibe they were going for. 

Anyway, a man walks by and opens a container and says: "Here, I have a cat. Good luck taking care of this." And then, I shit you not, out hobbles a baby bird. The man speed walks away. 

I pretended this was not happening, for the record. 

Anyway, the children begin arguing about what to do. One child suggested they chase the man down and demand he take his baby bird back. Another then mentioned the cat, who would eat the bird. The third said they needed to get it worms and then, of course, they settled on coming to me. 

I suggested they leave it alone and go back to whatever other complicated game they were playing. But, alas, they could not leave the bird alone and apparently I am "ghost mom" and no one can see me, so they also settled on wearing baseball gloves (Nicholas said this was fine because he now plays lacrosse) to carry the baby bird to destination TBD. 

They argued over the destination for a while. I mentioned "TO THE PARK" which is across the street. I did quietly mention that we could take to a wildlife refuge; but one of them said that would be just like giving back a baby you delivered. (This is not true, but disarmed me.)

Then, I guess they picked it up, because they were screaming "DO NOT SQUEEZE IT" and they decided to take it to the home of a Temple University police officer who lives in my neighborhood. 

Apparently, she is very good with birds. There are a lot of pigeons on Temple's campus and the mascot is an Owl, so I guess this is completely logical and expected. 

On the way, the bird, apparently escaped and flew away? Walked away? Was misplaced? I am unclear, because they seemed to argue over what happened, but agreed that the bird, who thankfully was unnamed, was totally okay. 

It is yet, another, Eldridge Tree Fort Clubhouse Mystery. 

My theory: the bird escaped, found the original owner with the cat, relieved himself on his windshield and head and then went and alerted the entire bird community to avoid the Eldridge Tree Fort Clubhouse gang.