Tomorrow, I get a new home. Today, I am very much afraid that I destroyed someone else's.

I refer to the birds, the sparrows who built a nest under my air conditioning unit. Today, I hired Mario, the building's porter, to come up and remove it from the window. As I had not heard any avian activity since returning from Minneapolis, I had every reason to hope that the family had moved out. They had not. Removing the machine uncovered a lovely little nest, woven from feathers and grass and cigarette wrappers. In it were two small, white eggs with dark speckles. Tiffany and I had both thought we had heard baby birds in the previous two weeks, so these were either eggs that never hatched, or we were imagining things.

After the air conditioner came out, I tried to fix everything up as best I could, but the nest is now exposed on the windowsill. A few minutes later, I saw an adult bird out there, nosing around, but it departed soon after, and I have not seen it since.

Does anyone know what, if anything, I should do? (If you have any ideas, the email link on this page is now working.) Will anyone join me in sending some white light to--or saying a little prayer for--these poor creatures?

Is this a bad omen? Bad karma? Bad feng shui?

Do sparrows have a capacity for revenge? Thankfully, I have an unlisted telephone number, but they do have a bird's-eye view and a wide network of associates.