Meri's Musings

An unexpected surprise outside the bank. And saw a marvelous film today with my "Filmme Fatales" group, the latest in the Tuesday Film Series called Queen to Play. It got mixed reviews in the press, but my group loved it.

It's grey again this morning. Drops of rain hang at the pointy edges of maple leaves at the tip-top of the graceful maple outside my upstairs window. The uppermost leaves are showing their seasonal fashions, but the lower ones are still garbed in green. They don't seem to have noticed that change is in the air. Grey days sap my energy. When it's sunny, I'm ready to take on the world, but when a blanket of clouds settles between me and the Sun, I just want to hibernate. This day is different. This morning, my little friend visited, hovering a few feet away so I'd be sure to notice. Notice I did. . .  and felt the same surge of delight I always feel when I see  that flash of green, the ruby throat, the wings fluttering faster than  the speed of imagination. It's hard to think about hibernation when your heart has been touched by a shamanic visitor.  Today, I am writing. Just sent off an essay on nanny harassment to be published on the new website tha...

Once in a while, once in a so to speak, the stars align just perfectly and Heaven smiles down upon you with an ear to ear grin and bestows upon you get the opportunity you never thought you'd get. There on those slender branches reaching for the sky outside the upper floor window just beyond the monitor right there on those rain-kissed branches whose leaves hold onto droplets that sparkle like diamonds, you discover that your little friend has come to call. And miracle of miracles, he allows you to reach out and grab the camera sitting next to you. . . . not only that, he waits for you to focus even though he's wondering why you're such a fumble-fingers. When you're ready he shivers and his feathers fluff just the tiniest bit, so you can see all the glorious colors on his back. Then he turns and looks over his shoulder as if to say, "Are you watching?" and flutters his wings so fast the camera's focus can't keep up just to show off his wingspeed. T...

This birdhouse looks inviting, doesn't it? Perhaps it's even a bird hotel, a gathering place, a perfect place to host a family reunion. I thought I'd put this picture out in blogland, and send it mentally to my local avian community, hoping the birds will know I've got their welfare at heart, that they really don't have anything to lose by waiting just a millisecond more for me to focus and click the shutter before they fly away. I keep my camera right by the window next to the computer and yesterday I couldn't get it focused quickly enough to photo-enshrine the hummingbird or the goldfinch each of whom had stopped to rest in the uppermost branches of the vine maple, not more than eight feet from where I sit when I write. Come back! I want my friends to see you.