Death of a hummingbird

I went this morning for my one and only job interview, in this my new period of unemployment. My (now former) boss had steered me to this opening elsewhere in the company, and at first it sounded perfect for me. But by the time the interview ended I think the (putative) boss had decided otherwise. She was concerned that a job where I wasn't a manager would be a come-down for me. I wasn't very concerned about that, and tried to convince her of it; but I was also concerned that the job might have a technical component I couldn't handle.

In any case, walking out to my car I felt rather relieved. I thought, Whoopee, now I can work on my book for the rest of the year! All we have to do is watch our finances. I drove home along 101, noticing the layer of smog that had settled on the bay in the third day of this heat wave, and when I got to my block parked across the street. An hour later I got a parking ticket for parking during street cleaning. Got to watch those finances, yeah.

I was looking at the online form to file for unemployment when I wandered into the kitchen to get something to drink. There I noticed a mass of what looked like tiny dark shards on the floor, and in their midst, the carcass of what was clearly a hummingbird. Now an ex-hummingbird. What looked like shards of plastic were actually its tiny dark feathers. It must have mistakenly flown in the window and been snagged by one of our cats. Cris examined the carcass more carefully and declared the bird's neck had not been broken, and that the cat killed it by biting into its heart, the bloodthirsty little thing. That's her first bird kill, at least inside the house -- goodness knows how many she's snagged out there in the garden.

I felt bad for the hummingbird, as one is bound to -- they are such beautiful, useful creatures. But one can't blame the cat either -- in fact, I felt compelled to praise her. She was only fulfilling her role. It reminded me of the cat -- hardly more than a kitten -- belonging to an old girlfriend. One day it brought in a dead mouse and stood over it proudly. We duly praised the mighty hunter. Next day, another mouse -- not the same one, either. More praise. Next morning, having apparantly rousted all the mice, it showed up and presented us with a Snickers wrapper. What could we do but give the cat more praise -- which it accepted with pride and then went off and took a nap in the sunlight.