It might look like the husband is feeding wifey a worm. Actually, that’s the hook for our outdoor blind behind him. What he was up to right then was giving his mate food from his own tummy. Such a romantic gesture, yes?

Twice now I’ve watched the food delivery by the husband to wifey; Tim observed it, too, and he smiled when I pointed out that at least all the things he himself went through during my prenatal periods did not include regurgitating seeds into my mouth.

I very much enjoy the tuneful finch husband.

I’ve learned enough from the helpful information highway to confidently state he and wifey are House Finches. A bit disappointing it was to find they are the most common of finches, rather than some exotic species seeking us out. But I’ll take them. It is perhaps interesting to note (though Wikipedia has yet to document) the fact that I go all motherly toward almost any creature coming under my roof (or, in this case, under my eaves). This has applied to rats, snakes, and a duck, besides the more conventional dogs and cats.

As might be inferred by the blue sky background (in Western Oregon — gasp!), our days have been the kind that surge the mercury and the human husband’s instinct to tend to outdoor work, such as keeping the sun off our west-facing walls. Saturday Tim was out lowering blinds, except for one. This isn’t the first time, by the way, Tim has adjusted his efficiency for the sake of family members. Our bedroom’s window-to-the-west no longer has a blind over it at all, so I can view the yard while treadmilling. Though once in a while a small sigh escapes him, my male of the species takes the cares of others to heart.

Sunday afternoon I read a book on a baking-stone-warm back step, my spine against the door. (Believe me, if I were in charge of blinds and so on, they would not be lowered each year until I had at least broken a sweat in or outside the house.) I noted wifey finch in her nest, keeping, hopefully, the correct temperature for herself and any eggs she may have laid by this point.

I hadn’t heard the husband since the day before, when it looked like a few other birds (swooping sparrows and a raspy jay) were in the area specifically to aggravate our finch couple. The husband had seemed to be drawing them off. Now the yard appeared quiet. Maybe too quiet. Maybe something had happened to the father of those fledglings-to-be.

I took a long look at our Dear Sweet Westley lounging on the deck. As far as I know, he hasn’t caught a birdie in ages, but in his prime he was quite the terror of the winged community. One year I even bought him a fancy bib meant to curb his hunting sense. Westley came home a week or so later sans bib, looking proud of himself, and soon after that he brought a woodpecker in to release it in James’s room for an exciting morning. That, however, was years ago.

Still, the empty wire and the silence worried me. Was our little wifey now a single parent? Who would help her? Would she abandon the nestlings and would I have to hear their pitiful peeps and…

Early this morning I saw him, across the yard on a different wire. Soon he was giving wifey her post Mother’s Day breakfast-in-nest. I was ever so happy.

I denied that could happen, and then I looked. Defying my published blog-post certainty, there seemed the possibility of a real nest. Wifey bird’s pointed look in my direction said, plainly, Don’t be hasty; we might pull it off this year.

This morning after a quick Windex job I updated our finchy photos. The couple had been gone since yesterday’s warm afternoon, but they reappeared early, the husband bird chittering and twirpering from the wire above, while wifey shopped the garden’s choice fabrics and brought each one up to weave in.

My camera-nosiness may have bugged her; in any case the two conferred for a bit before I left the area.

The difference this year — if there is one, if this couple’s endeavor isn’t following the same pattern as their forebears’ — if there is a difference, it may be that the blind near the kitchen window has a deeper “well” behind the rolled up part. In past springs the birds have always tried to build on the other blind near our bedroom. At any rate their production is looking more nestish today.

I find interesting our family nest population’s differing attitudes toward the finches. Daughter Victoria muses about the local ecosystem, how of course the major disrupter and shaper of that system is suburban humankind. And yet, she notes, to be a small enough animal that you don’t get in the humans’ path means to be able to take advantage of a secure place, away from cats and raccoons while inaccessible to crows. (I remind her that this nest, if it holds, will definitely be in one human’s path — her father’s. Victoria leaves a note on the refrigerator calling for no touching of the outdoor kitchen blind.)

Son James scans with interest the particular weeds brought up to the nest by wifey finch. He pulled those weeds and deposited them in precise areas per his adventure with backyard permaculture. Yet he seems to bear no ill will toward the natural home-builders out there.

Husband Tim, readying himself for work, mentions that the blind can move a lot in a stiff breeze. (But his expression upon reading Victoria’s note is one of resignation.)

For my part I continue pondering the picture of unwittingness seen in the birds who build in front of our window. Is it possible, one bird may ask its partner, that from another dimension (another sort of dwelling) beings could be viewing us at work here? That they might enjoy us, root for us, or alternatively seek to harm us? Certainly those sorts of finchy questions would be quelled by a reminder that it’s not polite to bring up either politics or heretical housing paradigms.

On the other hand — maybe in a truly better sense — I look wifey finch in the eye and cheer her. I think about attempts I’ve made to build that always have, from one perspective or another, failed. I wonder what this newest try by our feathered couple might portend.

What I’d like to do is share why I was Saying Hello in this living room in Seattle. Maybe before Christmas the time for words and more pictures will present itself.

Meanwhile, may your days shine, or if they’re dullish, may there be reflections (which often hold more depth, longer, as the times of our goodbyes and griefs often do).

Right away Tim spotted this nifty travel alarm. It’s a Bulova, shaped like a stack of Liberty dollars, and the face cover rotates over to open or close. I bought it a few days later, stopping in at the shop late after work, hoping my hubby wouldn’t have already snatched it up. But he didn’t, and for once, anyway, I surprised him this birthday morning with something he likes.

Interesting how growing older makes one in-the-know regarding antiques. I remember toting travel alarm clocks on camping trips and to motels. The need to wind them, the way we wound our watches, a ubiquitous part of life if we wanted to arrive places punctually.

The hands on my first watch, a Timex, had the same glow-in-the-dark stuff. At 2:00 a.m. I squinted at it and felt relieved to have three or four more hours left before I’d need to get ready for school. Lying in the stillness of night I could let my mind roam free.

I may have had a wind-up clock before receiving my rectangular, electric timepiece somewhere around third grade. On trips, though, we always snoozed to the tick-tick-tick of our travel clock. And of course we could nestle one of them close to a new kitten or puppy so they wouldn’t miss their mother’s heartbeat.

Nowadays, the luminated, digital watch James Bond first made famous has given way to the cell phone. Which is kind of funny. Our grandfathers carried pocket watches, and we do, as well, though they’re part of a whole different paradigm. Trying not to be late has evolved (or devolved) into carrying along all of life’s necessities and every Facebook friend. It’s cool and weird.

Also weird is that when I didn’t use flash, capturing Tim’s clock made it look silver, while using my camera’s automatic flashbulb shows his birthday present in its true golden state. Remember flash cubes? And snapping photos with an Instamatic, then waiting for the film roll to be used up, the developing time the drug store took, the lack of ability to share a present’s image with anyone till long past the celebratory date?

I also know this talk is free and open to everyone. Gutenberg’s address: 1883 University St., Eugene, Oregon. That’s on the corner of 19th and University, up the hill from the classic McArthur Court, which has been abandoned for a larger, spiffier arena with pine trees painted on the basketball court. Which Tim and I saw last Friday night when we attended the Harlem Globetrotters game. I sported a wet sock from a puddle that accosted me while crossing the U of O campus, which has no bearing whatsoever on Lisa’s book reading and talk next Tuesday, except to say I plan to show up at this event with both feet dry.

The 1991 Dodge Dynasty is fine for me. I think it has plenty of power, though Tim says its engine’s got nothing on his ’66 Falcon in its glory days (I think his speedometer showed high numbers for real a couple times on Illinois back roads). The Dynasty runs and is paid for, however there is the speedometer problem. There is also an occasional right turn signal glitch, in that its light comes on, but without the click, click. It shines steady and makes no sound. Is this legal? I’m not sure. Today a sheriff’s car followed me briefly, and I turned to the right in from of him. He didn’t come after me, so if I’m in the wrong it’s at least not a big enough infraction to warrant immediate action by law enforcement.

Something happened last weekend, though, that brought the authorities to our doorstep.

Tim and I were alone most of Saturday, so of course we were highly stimulated to clean the kitchen counter. Then Tim, in typical fashion, made his way to the garage while I went online and tinkered with my blog. After an hour spent cajoling HTML widgets and thingies to do what I wanted I took a break and wandered through our living room, past the front window, where outside the green trunk of a sheriff’s car showed, its front obscured by Tim’s work truck. The sheriff, his back to me, was jotting things on his clipboard and talking to a man who had his hands behind his back.

I stepped quickly past the window. “Tim,” I called to the garage door. “You should look out front. A sheriff’s arresting someone on our driveway.”

I felt rather like Mrs. Kravitz from the old TV show, Bewitched. I kept peeking to see what might happen next. Amused, Tim offered to go out and ask the arrestee (a middle-aged guy we didn’t recognize) what he’d been handcuffed for. “I can tell him my wife wants to know,” Tim said. “My wife, Deanna, who frequents the jail to visit her cousin.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, anyway.” Still, it was hard not to check the scene every few minutes.

It was Tim who noticed when a couple of city police cars parked near the sheriff. Things were serious, yet also quite familiar. The guy being arrested had the dazed look of the usual Cops felon. Tim has watched that show for years, and we could guess the sort of dialog transpiring. Criminal: “Why’d you stop me? I wasn’t doing anything.” Policeman: “What did you toss out when you saw us behind you?” Criminal: “Nothin’. This is my friend’s car. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And so it tends to go.

Why we had this particular episode out front was a puzzler. Our house sits in the middle of the block on a quiet street. Such drama doesn’t transpire here. Had this man fled to our home for some reason? Conceivably, my cousin in prison could have given him our address.

I sure hoped not.

At last I made it back to my computer, just before the doorbell rang. Uh, oh. I skittered toward the front door, glad to see Tim there first. I peered over his shoulder at two state patrolmen.

“Do you recognize Ken out here?” one of them asked.

“No,” Tim said. “We checked, and he isn’t a neighbor or anything.”

“He told us his cousin lives here,” the officer said.

“Hm, Ken…” I think Tim was smiling by now. “Cousin Ken…I could go look up the family tree.”

The officers’ laughs relieved me, but I tensed again as Tim started making more comments, mentioning kissing cousins and the like. The first officer said they would get his truck out of our driveway, and the two of them moved away, while Tim swung the screen door wider and made to say more. I motioned quickly for him to get back inside. “Enough,” I whispered. I love my funny guy, but the troopers might have stuff to do.

A big tow truck pulled up in front. That’s when I saw the newish truck “cousin” Ken had been driving being backed out of the slot my Dynasty normally occupies. I’d all but forgotten Victoria had taken the car to work, and Tim’s truck had been hiding Ken’s vehicle. Now the situation made better sense. Ken had been fleeing the troopers and had turned down our street and found what he thought might be a hiding place on the other side of the large-wheeled Dodge Ram Tim drives up to transmitters. If the troopers had been snoozing, perhaps Ken’s plan might have worked. Instead, a crime was foiled, for which I’m definitely grateful.

I’m pretty sure he wasn’t in trouble for a faulty blinker. But next week mine’s getting checked at the garage, along with the crazy speedometer.

I salute Beth and Deb, and since I have two books available, I’ll send them each a copy.

Whew, that was easy for me!

A last thought. I’ll plagiarize the format of Dorcas Smucker’s wonderful blog, and give you a Quote of the Day (because I can’t resist):

Me, to James, this morning: Happy Birthday!
James: Happy birthday.
Me: Well, then, happy birthday to all!
Tim: And to all a good grief.

There are many anthologies out there, lots with great short stories but Saying Goodbye is about much more. It’s about memories… There are heart felt memories, humourous memories, some extremely personal memories. Some really made me smile. Others brought tears to my eyes. I’m not sure if this was because of the writing or because often the content was so real.

After her review and interview, she was inspired to post her own goodbye story, about the death of her father-in-law.

Which got me thinking. I’d like to do a book giveaway contest. I also want to encourage anyone inspired to tell a life story. Mel Sherratt hints in her interview that another call for “goodbye” submissions is upcoming in 2011 at Dream of Things.

What would you write for a story of saying goobye? Would your topic be very personal, like mine about my marriage? Would it be humorous? Dramatic? Completely original?

Let me know, in the comments, via email, phone, etc., what your idea might look like. No need to craft the whole piece, but a taste of it would be fine, or simply a sentence or two describing your tale. If more than one brave soul responds by December 20, I’ll draw names for a winner (I can autograph the copy, if you want — boy, that feels weird to say).

Goodbyes tend to be that way–the tension, the ghost of regret (should I have said or done more? differently?), the release. Even when they’re short-term. Even when all is well between us.

This weekend I read the new anthology in which an essay of mine appears; its full title is Saying Goodbye: to the people, places, and things in our lives (the link takes you to its official Goodbyebook.com website).

As might be expected, many entries deal with the loss of a loved one, usually a parent, but sometimes a friend or pet. I think Dream of Things publisher Mike O’Mary expressed well what’s in the book in his foreword, saying that “in the midst of the most solemn of goodbyes, there is sadness, yes. But there is also irony and humor and in some strange way, a sense of continuity.”

I chuckled plenty of times, and often my reaction at the end of an essay was a sound of recognition. Compared to others, I haven’t lost a lot in my life, but these authors wrote their grievings companionably; I felt with them more than for them.

My story fits in differently. In it I say farewell to, I drop off, a relationship and a place. For many years a negative tension held me there. As did the ghost of regret. But as with other goodbyes, I continued forward and found–continue finding–release.

Sales pitch: If you’re thinking about a selection for a reading group or about Christmas (already), there are several places online carrying the book, in print and PDF format. Look here. And here’s my author page (w00t).