The Perfect Birdbath

PHOTO:BBS

My wife Barbara has a thing for birdbaths She can't get enough of them.

It's a simple equation for her: the more birdbaths the more birds will come to bathe, flutter their wings, and fly away to tell other birds who will also come. Pretty soon our backyard will be the most popular bird spa in the neighborhood, with flocks of chirping, happy sparrows, wrens, robins and finches.  Or something like that.

I really don't know. Because I'm a klutz. I break birdbaths. Typically made of clay and shaped like a fancy dish on a pedestal, birdbaths are very fragile. If you bump into a birdbath, the dish will likely fall off the pedestal and crack into irreparable fragments.

I know, because I've made that happen. Not willingly. I would never consciously hurt a birdbath. I'm all for putting them on the endangered species -- or endangered crafted pieces -- list. It's just that birdbaths jump out at me when I pass them.

That's what happened some years ago to Barbara's favorite birdbath which resulted in a broken dish, her broken heart and my broken manhood. The concave platter where the birdies bathed, ribbed along its circumference like a pie crust, fell and cracked into pizza-like wedges. And, like Humpty Dumpty, they couldn't be put together again. Only the pedestal remained, a pillar of stability.

If only I could say that about myself. I've prayed to the great Thunderbird in the sky for redemption.

Then one bright morning, while innocently riding our bicycles and enjoying the warmth of sunshine and the fragrances of ripening oranges and lemons on trees, Barbara suddenly exclaimed:

"Look, there's a birdbath just like mine!"

I turned to see, and sure enough, lying in a patch of tall grass next to the sidewalk was a birdbath dish without its pedestal. It was barely visible, but exactly the same as the one I had broken. 

It obviously belonged to an inhabitant of the house upon whose front yard it lay. 

"Maybe they would like to get rid of it," offered Barbara, hopefully. We continued on our way, discussing a strategy of how to approach the issue, agreeing that we come back again soon. It was a favorite route since we have friends who reside on the same street.

On subsequent bicycle trips, the birdbath dish remained, seemingly untouched and certainly without water. One day when I passed by while walking our dog, Frida, I saw a woman and a small boy out front of the house.

"Hi," I said. "I was wondering if that is your birdbath?" I pointed to the dish on the ground practically overgrown with unruly flora.

"It belongs to someone else who lives here," she said. "It belongs to Shing."

"The animals come by to drink water from it," said the little boy, in a heartfelt voice.

We had never seen any water in the dish. But we had seen five or six cars parked in the wide driveway of the two-story house.

"Well," I said, "my wife has the other part to it -- the pedestal. It would be a great gift for her." I confirmed with the woman the name, Shing, as owner of the birdbath, before she and the little fella drove away.

The next time I passed the house, on MLK's birthday holiday, a tall, thin elderly man was out front. I remember the day because there was a "Black Lives Matter" flag I hadn't seen before hoisted on the garage.

"Hi," I said. He noted me with a quizzical gleam in his eyes, his tan skin creased by the sun.

"I was wondering if that is your birdbath?"

"It belongs to my wife," he answered.

I explained our situation and how Barbara would love to have the birdbath, since she has the pedestal for that exact dish. I didn't mention that I had broken the dish.

His expression lightened. "That's really nice of you to ask," he said, acknowledging that it would be easy to steal. "I'll talk to my wife and let you know. I'll leave a note on the dish for you. What's your name?"

I told him my name and asked for his. "Rocky."

"Great. Thanks, Rocky."

I was excited to tell Barbara. So we made several subsequent trips by the house, each time finding the empty birdbath but no note. Although we continued to pass the house, our hopes began to dim.

Then one day while riding by on my bike I saw Rocky. I called his name and mentioned the birdbath.

"Oh, I forgot to ask my wife," he said. "Write a note to me and leave it on the porch, so it won't blow away." 

Upon hearing this latest development, Barbara found a piece of cardboard on which she designed a sweet, colorful plea for the birdbath with ribbons and bows, mentioning that she had the pedestal for it.

I dropped it off on Rocky's front porch.

A couple of days later Barbara received a text from a woman who lived at the house. She said she was not the owner of the birdbath but would ask the person who is. Signed, Eve.

Barbara and I looked at each other in disbelief. Why didn't she just give the note to the owner of the birdbath? She was another intermediary. We had addressed three different inhabitants of the house without getting to the source. 

I felt as though we were in the midst of an abstruse Raymond Chandler caper in which personas faded in and around a residence of characters, none of whom were capable of divulging a hidden truth that only a mysterious majordomo -- a queen bee -- might reveal, at the cost of driving us crazy while the object of our desire sat in full view, like a pie on a window sill, too easy to purloin.

On our next trip by the house, where the empty birdbath still lay unmoved, we decided that Barbara should give it one last try, and follow up with the person who had texted her. Had she heard anything from the owner of the birdbath?

We stopped by our friends' house on our way home. Matt was out front. Barbara recounted the mystery of the birdbath, which at that point, seemed unsolvable, when suddenly her cell phone pinged.

The message said. "The birdbath is yours. Happy birds are on the way!"

We were less than a block from the house. Had she been watching us, surreptitiously, from an upstairs window? The timing was uncanny.

Elated, Barbara replied: "Yay! We will give it a good home!"

We raced home, I jumped into my car and drove back to the house of many cars and the prized bird spa, picked it up and brought it to our backyard, very carefully.

We cleaned it and placed it on its pedestal, filled it with water. Barbara texted back a photo of the completed birdbath --pedestal and dish -- with the words "happy, happy, happy birds! Thank you!" 

Eve's reply was swift:

"Perfect!!!"

I hope to God that I don't break it.