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It was one of those extremely windblown, frigid nights that we get here on Riverside and 73rd. I'm walking into the wind with my two Fairway bags, feeling pretty sure that a few of my fingers are going to be casualties to my love for fingerless gloves.
I get to the door, slither down the steps into the lobby, and Jeff says, “Valerie, is that your bird?” I turn around, and a dove or a gull or something has flown in with me and has landed at the bottom of the stairs.
I get down on the floor with the bird and start telling her she's a really sweet bird but the stair landing isn't the best place for her. She looks around, unconvinced, especially given the contrast in weather between West 73rd Street and the lobby.
Then I realize how convenient it is that I got crackers at the store. I break one up and put it far to the side of the lobby. She doesn't really perk up at my culinary offering, so I slide the cracker toward her. Not interested. Several of my fellow cooperative shareholders enter, glance at me on the floor with the dove, and continue on their way, impassive.
It's really feeling like time to get upstairs and have my dinner. I scoop up the bird, we go back out into the bitter cold, and I place her on the ground next to me. “I'll stay here with you to make sure you get off okay,” I say. Well, actually, after about a minute or so, I renege on that and go back inside. Sorry, you're on your own. But the bird flies in with me, again, and lands on the lobby floor.
Marie then comes in, and I say, I have this problem with this bird who keeps flying in with me and now I'm going to have to bring her upstairs. Would she have a shoe box to help with the transport? Marie goes upstairs and comes down with something like that, so I scoop the bird in and bring her upstairs with me.