The problem, if there is one, with naming your new baby “Sparrow”, is that every time I make a reference to a little bird, people are just going to make the assumption that I’m talking about our littlest girl.

I’m not talking about the baby this time….although if your name is “Sparrow”, “little bird” wouldn’t be a bad nickname.

It certainly wouldn’t take a lot of imagination.

This is about a different little bird.  This is about a real little bird.

Lillie, our cat, caught a young bird on the porch the other morning.

She’s an old cat…but still pretty agile…and when the bird started bumping up against the lower part of the window, trying to get out, she jumped up and caught it in her mouth.

She’s a sweet cat…when I grabbed it from her, she didn’t even growl.

I brought the bird inside to show to everybody….and after a couple of seconds of sitting in my hands, it flew off when Nate started petting it.

“Flew off”?

How far can a bird “fly off” inside your house?

It flew around and behind for a while…landing on bookshelves and other high places, and eventually landed where I could catch it….and then I put it back outside, away from the cat.

Nate still wanted to pet it before I let it go, though.

Two little birds inside our house…but one was a lot harder to catch.

Our propane is down this morning.

I think the regulator must be frozen again…so no propane until the sun hits the tank and unfreezes whatever is locked up with ice.

I miss my coffee.

I’m heating water on the woodstove.

It’s a much slower process than putting some water in the kettle, setting it on the kitchen stove, and then turning a knob.

You have to be mindful while you’re building a fire to heat some water.  It takes a while.

Of course, while I was doing that I was thinking about how there’s not many things that we do these days that don’t allow a little “mind wandering”.

We don’t have many activities that really demand our full attention…like building a fire.

Of course, if I can think about how mindfulness isn’t a part of our daily lives while I’m doing the activity that I suppose demands my full attention, I guess that kind of shoots down my theory.

Not too “mindful” to veer off into parts unknown while I’m being forced to “simplify my life” by heating water for coffee the “old school” woodstove way.

But we really can do a lot of things at a time….and not do a lot of things well at the same time while we’re getting so much done.

That’s the path we’ve chosen…or that’s been chosen for us.  We hurry as much as environment and technology will let us. We speed up because we can.

I’ve got a to-do list about a mile long…and a couple of years old.

I better hurry up and do something…that list is getting bigger as I write.

I’m not a complete Luddite.  I’d be at the center of the interactive holographic entertainment extravaganza if I could…I’d be out in space fighting some weird alien if I could do it from the comfort of my living room.

This monkey does like his tools.

But sometimes, when I’m forced by circumstances beyond my control, like a propane tank regulator icing up, to slow down a little and let the fire in the stove do its job at its own pace, I wonder if my multitasking isn’t doing myself some sort of disservice.

What’s the hurry for, anyway?

Where am I going that can’t wait a minute?

Where would I fly off to if I could get out of the house?