Maybe, just maybe

I've always kept a bird's nest in my living room. Scott removed this robin's nest from his back porch and here it is. We hadn't known if the birds return to the same nest or build a new one when they return. They build a new one. But we left it up in case a lazy cow bird wanted to lay her eggs inside.

Flanking the nest are some toot-toot furry birds I bought at Kremp's. Squeeze them and they make the sounds of a pilleated woodpecker or barnyard owl.

Sort of.

My daughter did a magnificent job writing a grant for New Directions. When she told me it was due June 1, my heart sank. Darn, I thought, we'll have to wait a whole nother year. Then I realized it was the month of May.

In addition to putting my close on backwards, I have no conception of time. I'll hand-deliver the grant on Tuesday morning, the day it's due.

We've been rejected by 4-J twice but this time we hope to win. When I went over last year, one of the directors was sitting in his fancy office drinking a pint-sized carton of chocolate milk. I love chocolate milk and felt sure, with my magical thinking, we'd get the grant.

How I've changed and am just entering my adulthood -- for sure -- this year at age 64.

How else can I bore you this evening, Dear Reader? It's actually 10:18 p.m. now. I spent nearly an hour talking with Laura's sister about Laura's depression. The whole family has been traumatized by Laura's severe suicidal depression and nonstop talk of killing herself.

I was thinking. Perhaps if we all breathe very deeply, close our eyes, and say Laura, Give Life a Try, we're all rooting for you, maybe she'll pull through. This is called mystic thinking. I'm willing to give it a try.

When her sister gave me the phone no. of the payphone at Laura's hospital, my heart sank.

Payphone. Why don't they let us use real phones. Why the ignominy of talking on a payphone when you've got the most serious illness in the world, the one that stacks up against other illnesses and always comes in number one as the worst disease.

Let em use payphones.

Whose idea was this?