I woke up depressed this morning. The three-day weekend is over with, and I don't feel like I had any kind of holiday at all. (This, despite having the entire day off Saturday and going out and indulging two of my hobbies at once yesterday. Go figure.) I feel out of control of nearly everything at work, and we are completely overwhelmed financially. I feel about as powerless over the money problems as I would standing on a beach facing a tidal wave. Nigel made the comment this weekend that we're "this close to losing everything we have". Not encouraging, that.

I've been sinking down into the dumps for the last few weeks: I don't feel good any more, haven't all summer. My disability, which I have more or less successfully outrun, if you'll pardon the expression, for the last 50 years, is catching up to me. Two separate health issues, that I can't see for shit any more and that my sex life is shot to hell (for three different reasons that aren't fixable) aren't helping.

This is the weekend that my old dog Daisy died last year, and I've been thinking about her a lot. I dreamed about her Saturday night, which didn't help either. And we're coming up on two years since my best friend died (her birthday was last week), and I've been thinking about her a lot. Some hobby things I've tried to do lately to lighten the mood I've been frustrated at, and wound up making myself feel worse.

So I got to thinking. There were surely things that could make me feel better. What might they be? I started cleaning: There's no reason, broke or not, that we can't have a tidy, neat, clean, snug little home to relax in and retreat to.

I filled the hummingbird feeders. (All the feeders, and the birdbaths too, have been neglected since my Nigel went away for his cancer treatment--over a year ago.) Within minutes, hummingbirds were coming to the window to feed. And surprise, surprise--I felt better.

Simply,