You Will Not Believe What Happened...

Two days ago I was sitting on the couch watching a little Baby Einstein with Cal, when all of a sudden I became aware that I had been hearing a consistent little crackling noise for the last few minutes. I turned around and my eyes were drawn towards a little cluster of bright color on the kitchen floor. I didn't have my contacts in, so at first I assumed it was the dying mylar helium balloon I had gotten Jeff for his birthday. "I guess it got a hole in it and it's eeking out the last of its juice..." Then I looked more closely and realized it was what you see in the pictures below:

I was a little spooked because I had closed the door about fifteen or twenty minutes before and I wasn't sure how long the bird had been there, but I tiptoed into the bedroom to get the camera. I would never have been able to get such good shots if the bird hadn't been such a brave, stubborn sucker. In fact, I had a hard time convincing him to leave. He seemed pretty happy.

The funny thing is that we have a couple of wild birds that like to sit outside our door and walk in while we're not looking to eat the crumbs out of the carpet (especially below where Cal sits...that tells you what a sad state our carpet is in a lot of the time). But those are little black and brown birds. This one caught me completely off guard because, well, look how colorful! It looked like it had escaped from a pet shop or a zoo and found its way to us. Anyway, Cal and I both got a kick out of it.