Gathering no moss

We have hummingbirds. This has made me happier than it should make any normal person. (But perhaps the less said about my relative normality, the better.)

When I checked my phone at 9:30 this morning and saw both a missed call and a voice mail from my mother, I knew it was not good news. She doesn't call on Saturday mornings unless we are meeting for breakfast, and this was not one of those mornings. I sat for a moment before I called her back. I knew it was about my grandmother; I just didn't know how bad it was. When I listened to the voice mail, and I heard her tone, and it was just a request to return her call, my predictions were confirmed.

In the end, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But my grandmother did get up to go to the bathroom at about midnight last night, and did so without her walker. Grandma has rebelled against the walker ever since she got it. I can't blame her. Unfortunately, when you're bleary from sleep isn't the best time to do that, and she fell and busted the ball of her hip joint.

Ow.

She just got out of a successful surgery about 90 minutes ago and is sporting a brand-spanking new hip joint. It won't be an easy recovery.

For a variety of reasons, I was struggling hard with some very intense feelings this afternoon. I came right out and admitted this to T, who could tell anyway.

"I can't get a handle on it. I'm trying to figure out what to do."

"Hmm," he said. "You've already mowed the whole lawn," he noted, referring to one of my favorite relaxers -- roaming the lawn on a summer day on my boxy green riding lawnmower.

Then a hummingbird zoomed past the window. Aha. I took my camera and tripod out and sat. And waited.

And then the tiny creature zipped over to me, hovering a few feet away, probably observing my bright red shirt and wondering if I were a giant flower it could drink from. Wisely, the compact bird disregarded me after a few seconds of intent observation and lit out for the feeder instead.

And so I sat, calming down and relaxing, and considering the vanishing smallness of a hummingbird's brain. Such a tiny, tiny mass of material that yet contains sufficient complexity to allow its owner to zoom and zing and swoop with startling accuracy and speed.

And they appear to be visiting for awhile.