Seven drops of water, three poops later

I was talking on the phone with my co-teacher, Olive, setting up a time to do a work session on issue two of the The Mirror, when I looked out the door and saw a little bird sitting on the doormat with its wings spread. It was mouth-breathing.

Hung up. Picked the bird up. Gave it a drop of water from my fingertip. It swallowed. Gave it several more. The little thing kept swallowing. Good.

Got Ronan. Sat her in the chair by the fire with the bird on her chest. Fed Ronan tea and leftover cream puffs from the Watershed fundraiser last night. Ronan said, "It pooped on your shirt." Great!

Ten minutes and two poops later (one in Ronan's hand) and the bird was ready to go outside. Ronan opened her hands. The bird sat there for moment soaking up the morning sun, then flew off across the garden and up into a young fir tree.

Nice to have an easy fix sometimes in amongst the complications. Now on to making cranberry and walnut chevre and thinking about my Oregon Quarterly essay submission -- due January 15th. haven't started it yet. Oh, right, and then there's that magazine issue to publish. Isn't that what I was doing when this started?

Having a bit of a hard time maintaining focus lately, as you can see.