A rather remarkable thing happened. There was an owl in my kitchen. Yes, an owl, a real owl.
I woke up, went outside to get the newspaper, and then I fed my fish. When I looked from the dining room into the kitchen, I saw the silhouette of a little owl patiently seated on the back of a chair in our sunroom open to the kitchen. Of course, I did a double-take! And then I thought to myself: “Is it that owl? Is Ed playing a trick on me….?”
Why a trick?
Just a few days ago, I had bought a fake, feathered owl at the Lamp Shop. I attached it to a fake palm tree in my sunroom. You know, the kind of thing with wire for feet, so you can twist it around the branches? 
So, in the darkness of early morning, I wondered if Ed had put that thing on the back of the chair just to freak me out.
He had not. I looked again and again, and for certain, a living screech-owl was sitting in my sunroom, in my kitchen. Unbelievable!
I quietly snuck over and closed the surrounding pocket doors to that area. And then quickly went to find my husband, Ed.
From afar, I whispered sounding panicked: “Eddie! Eddie!”
Ed got up out of his chair, leaving the computer with the dogs gleefully trailing behind him.
“Put the dogs in the crates, now!” I said.
Ed looked at me, confused.
“In their crates! ” Again, I stated.
“O.K. he said.” Looking bewildered.
“Turning around, Ed took Luna, an 80 pound, black, German Shepard, and Bo, an old and now crippled Corgi, to the other side of the house…
Ed returned.
“What’s up with you?” He inquired, irritated. Not even a “good morning” ?”
“Ed, there’s an owl in our kitchen.”
“What?” He inquired.
“An owl!”
“Do you mean that owl you bought at the store?” Ed snickered.
“No. A real owl. I think it was attracted to the other owl.”
“What are you talking about?….” He said…
I slowly slid open one of the pocket doors. Sure enough, the beautiful little owl sat there with its head turned towards the fake owl.
Ed let out an explicative and shut the door.
“The owl must have seen the other owl from outside.” I whispered.
” How did it get in?” Ed quietly asked.
“I don’t know, from you? When you let the dogs out? I don’t know, but we have an owl in our kitchen!”
Ed and I looked incredulously at one another, then smiled.
Gently opening the door, we slowly snuck over, as quiet as could be. Ed started removing the screen from behind the joulosy windows. The owl lifted off the chair and flew about the kitchen landing by the fake owl, but the plastic branch sunk under its weight so it flew off and around the kitchen in high circles without a whisper. Ed and I were transfixed, fascinated. When it landed, we took pictures.
Ed finally got the screen off and cranked the window. It popped open, braking the silence of the morning. Wind blew inside the room.
The owl looked back to its friend, and then, without a sound, flew through the window, and was gone.
