Brenda and Jackie are lighting all forty candles on Nate's cake while Claire rhapsodizes stonedly about cake-light. Brenda carries the roaring inferno out to the dining room as everyone sings "Happy Birthday," with harmonies and everything. Maggie, holding Maya, tells Nate to make a wish. After a long moment of silence, he takes a deep breath and blows out all the candles like they were on a switch, to much applause. Now everyone can enjoy raspberry cake with vanilla and Nate-spit frosting. Someone turns the lights back on, and Billy hollers for a speech. "No," Nate says simply and, frankly, kind of rudely. He says he doesn't know what to say that won't sound lame. Ruth says she'd like to say something, and Nate eagerly gives her the floor. Ruth begins a very sweet speech about how she was sad when Nate left home. "Here we go," whispers Claire under her breath, and Ruth yells, "This is not about you!" Everyone but Claire looks uncomfortable for a second while Ruth recovers: "These last five years with you have been a gift, Nate. That's all I wanted to say. Happy birthday." Nate thanks her with a kiss and a hug. And then he turns to a smiling Brenda and asks, "Can I tell 'em?" Dude, I think you just did. Brenda's smile freezes on her face. "You're pregnant?" Keith says, and Brenda reluctantly says she is. Maybe that empire-waisted top you're wearing wasn't the best sartorial option if you really wanted to keep this quiet, Bren. Congratulations all around, which are rudely interrupted by a crash from the kitchen.

Nate goes into the other room to investigate, with everyone else crowded in the doorway behind him. And here we discover that there's a bird in the kitchen. I'm no ornithologist, but it's a blue bird of some sort with a weird plume on the top of its head, and it's sitting calmly on the center island looking at everyone. Maybe it was attracted by all the origami cranes. Nate figures it flew in the window. "It's a good omen," says Jackie, but Tom says it's a bad omen according to the Sci-Fi Channel. I think if this were the Sci-Fi channel, the bird would be a genetically modified pterodactyl with a 120-foot wingspan and the ability to breathe fire. Which is really what this show needs, sometimes. ["In Tom's defense, I believe he's correct; a bird in the house means someone's going to die, I've always heard, so what a shock that it should occur on this show, not." -- Wing Chun] George says that the bird is probably sick, since they don't usually fly at night. He suggests opening the windows and letting the bird find its own way out. "But it'll poop all over everything in the meantime," Ruth says. "What kind of plan is that, to let a sick bird run wild in the house pooping?" Nate says that George is right, and he opens the other window and the back door, instructing everyone else to close the interior doors. Tom reminds Nate to grab the beer on the way out, and Nate agrees. Now everyone's out of the kitchen but the bird. And the beer is safe, of course.