Two Blues in One Day

This was the day before:

My afternoon walk unintentionally flushed out two birds from a low bush near the building to my right.  They flew out ahead of me: a brown bird, and right behind her, an amazingly velvety blue one.  They stopped in a tree just ahead by the path.

I slowed to take a look.  They seemed to be a couple, or at least dating, since they stayed together in the branches.

The blue boy didn't seem like the bluebirds I've seen before.  More like a little songbird, though perhaps a bit larger than the crooners.  Certainly not as large as a Jay.

After snapping a crude distant shot of this amazing discovery, I continued on upstairs to the 4th floor where I'd been covering the reception desk all week for the afternoons.

Jill came up with her rolling basket around 3:00pm, doing the mail run for Tonya.  She is always so nice to me, so very kind, and friendly, and just really a pleasure to work with.

She's around 53 I would guesstimate, rather round, with simple short hair.  Her cubicle downstairs is filled with rainbows of the wholesome kind, and cute signs about being blessed and that sort of thing.

Did she ever have children?  She never spoke of them.  A man?  Never mentioned one.  She must live a simple life, perhaps in a trailer park somewhere out in east county.

Excited by seeing the blue bird, I mentioned it to her.

In her playful way, she said, "Well, why didn't you bring it up here to show me?"

"Well... I didn't have a firearm with me," I explained in obvious jest.

"I'm gonna have to talk to Wendy about you," she said, shaking her finger in mock disgust and disapproval.

She lingered a bit as she dealt with the mail baskets associated with 4th Floor Reception.  She chatted about looking forward to the weekend, and for this day to be over.  We agreed that we were both fortunate to even have a job.  She mentioned that one of our local sign-holding beggars who works Friar's Road during the day had been spoken to by the police, she'd noticed while returning from lunch.  Was it illegal?  We didn't know.  She said "That could be me out there, holding up a sign" she laughed, along the lines of our gratitude for having jobs in this economy.

The phone rang and she waved goodbye and disappeared into the elevator.


This was the day of two Blues:

During the next afternoon, lo and behold, the exact same scene as before.  The couple flew out from the low bush in front of me and on up to the tree.

This time I was ready to spend a bit more time to try to get a better picture.   My little advanced point-and-shoot has limited zoom, but I can compensate by setting the resolution to gargantuan and then later just cropping the bit that I want.

Now I had a nice one to show Jill that afternoon when she came round for her mail run.

When she came up, she did enjoy seeing it, and agreed it was very, very blue!

Was it a robin of some sort?  We then noticed the bit of salmon-red on his breast.  Maybe he was a sort of a blue robin?

I told her how this time I'd spent some time watching, and saw him swoop down through the air and return to the tree with something in his mouth, a moth I suppose.  He was a hunter!

When she left, she said something about not having "anything bad to tell Wendy about me" and I asked her to tell Wendy what a good boy I was today.

(Wendy works at the same company, different building, and I believe she and Jill met at the company picnic last summer).

Although working up at the 4th Floor Reception desk sort of slows down my productivity, since the PC up there is a little less ergonomic and the overhead lights glare, I do enjoy it when I'm asked to cover.  It's fun to see all the underwriters and managers cross the front of the desk, and of course, my peers such as Jill are always a pleasure.

It was late in the day when I noticed two of the higher-ups walking down the hall.  It was an HR manager and a local supervisor.  Following close behind and between them was a woman in a red shirt, her face wet with tears.

It was Jill.

They turned and waited for an elevator down.  I could hear sniffling.

I never saw Jill again.

The next morning when I walked past her cubicle, formerly rainbow-decorated, I saw that it was now completely bare.







My day took on a very distinctive shade of color.