The rescue

We are having a new roof put on our house and the roofers have, understandably, taken over my driveway and yard. Sheets of metal cover the grass (weeds since we had such an awful summer last year and nothing survived) and nails are just lurking to get my tires, I'm sure, despite the efforts of the large rolling magnets which pick them up.

I'm used to hammers and shouts, ring tones, loud rock music, and the whine of a saw. So I was surprised this morning to hear soft talk and near whispers coming from beneath my second story study window.

"Where'd it come from?" followed by "Think it'll live?" and "Can we put it back?"

That'll make any homeowner curious so I peered out the window to find a cadre of roofers hovering over a baby sparrow, newly fallen from the nest. Now the sparrows have a generational holding underneath our west awnings. There's ALWAYS been a nest there.

Next thing I know a ladder is being maneuvered to the brick and one brave roofer says, "Let me have the little feller." One-handing it up the metal ladder, he leans in to the awning and carefully inserts the baby back into the nest through the (newly painted) wooden slats.

[As an aside, the painters had tried unsuccessfully--twice!--to get rid of this nest.]

The roofer climbs down and the ladder goes about its true work. It's not long before there's a sparrow hue and cry outside the awning. Did they accept their downed chick back? Haven't found one on the ground again, so perhaps this rescue has a happy ending.

The mocker and me

The mockingbird is a curious critter, full of bluff and bluster, and thinking, no doubt, that the bald eagle should move over and let him be not only the state bird of Texas, but the national bird as well. They regularly put their haughty selves atop something and tell the world about it. One does not cross a mockingbird, particularly not in the spring when a mocker's mind turns to love.

So it was a bit of a surprise to me when one landed about 4 feet from where I was trimming my lamppost clematis. There I was, snipping off the bits and bobs that looked dead and hopefully didn't lead anywhere--or I'd kill half the plant--and a mockingbird lands. He quite obviously knew I was there. Hard to miss a lady with a pair of snippers in the middle of the afternoon.

We eyed each other and I stood very still. Whatever was he up to?

In the blink of an eye, he'd picked up one of the small clippings and took off to a tree across the yard. Ah, I thought, nest building!

He didn't return, but I snipped all the pieces into mockingbird-beak size and left them at the foot of the clematis.

A middle-aged woman walks into a bar...

Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, right?

No joke, just observation.

Tuesday I was in Dallas and going to my favorite mall, NorthPark. I decided that Nordstrom's crab cake lunch sounded too tempting to pass up. Or, perhaps the cilantro lime salad with shrimp. I would win, either way. It was 12:30 when I arrived and no tables available, but I could sit at the bar.

I decided to join the other single, and for the most part, middle-aged women at the bar.

I don't do this very often, so I'm obviously ignorant of the rules. It seems that you can plop all your worldly goods onto the next bar seat. This keeps anyone from sitting beside you. Unless there isn't an option and then the newcomer can ask for the goods to be moved. I didn't have to do this because the young-enough-to-be-my-daughter woman was picking up her goods and leaving. The bartender was being most solicitous and she had two of those little chocolate minty stick dessert things, so I thought things were looking up.

I obviously forgot the 'middle-aged' part of my description. I cannot complain about the service--he was very busy because it seems every by-herself middle-aged shopper was at the bar--but solicitous isn't the descriptor I'd use. Ahem.

I settled on the salad, envied the glass of white wine the lady down the bar was having, and tried to listen at any/all conversations going on around me. (Eavesdropping is de rigueur for a writer.) However, everyone (except me) had their worldly goods on the next seat and there weren't any conversations.

Thirty minutes after I hoisted myself onto the bar seat, I was walking out the door. Check paid, tip given, and only one chocolate mint stick to my name.

Egad!--Where have I been for two weeks?

Well, I've not been blogging, that's for sure. I'm not even sure what I have been doing, except the days have collapsed one into the other. I made a set of stuffed animals for a friend's newest grandbaby's nursery. Arrival date is April, but I needed to get it done.

Our English in-laws are here and that has made for one full weekend and another coming up. Can you say 'family yoga lesson?'

No, there will not be a video. Being a youtube sensation is the last thing on our collective mind.

I have started to read the latest CS Harris Sebastian St. Cyr novel, When Maidens Mourn. Such a wonderful series. Regency. Romance. Dark, dark family secrets slowly leaked out to the reader. Yum!

I went to a postcard show, found a Texas brag card I didn't have, scanned it to my computer, then waited for it to sync with the iPhone. When it didn't, I've had to research how to encourage it to do so. Seems the computer has to be running iTunes, the iPhone has to be plugged in as if to charge, and you have to hit the magic 'sync now' button. Then, guess what! The scan is on my phone!

My daffodils are about bloomed out, the hyacinths are waning, and the tulips are gorgeous. But it's windy, so they won't last long. Happens every year.