Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier. ~ Kathleen Norris

The local neighborhood association had its annual one-afternoon-only spring festival today a few streets down from our apartment, and Mr. Mike and I made out like bandits at its book sale, waddling away with two big cardboard boxes filled with books and magazines. Neither of us had even planned to pay the festival a visit, but I was walking past it on my way to the grocery store after work and thought I should stop for a second since I might find a book or two. I was soon finding book after book after book I wanted, and at 50 cents for paperbacks and $1 for hardcovers! I have actual dreams about happening upon scenes like this! I called Mike on my cell phone to tell him he should walk down and check out the sale, and he was soon beside me with a handful of novels. As we got ready to have our finds totaled-up, the volunteers began announcing that since the festival was ending, all books and magazines were now half-off! All my finds totaled only $11, and at work today, one of the servers had given me $10 for helping her out, so I figure I only really spent $1 at the sale, making it even sweeter. The man who helped us pack up our treasures commented that Mike and I were leaving with the "haul of the day." And we agreed heartily as we had to keep stopping to set down our boxes and rest as we carried them back up the hill to our apartment. But ahhhhhh! The mountain of books and magazines on the bed tonight! Bliss!

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose.... ~ Mary Pickford

I couldn't bear to cut more than the little bunch of white Daffodils for this bouquet. Kent, the white ones are some of yours. :) The yellow ones are silk and part of an Easter present from my mom. They add some cheer to the windowsill, and today I need that cheer. Thank you both. ♥

Bee Boxes

My grandfather, my beloved Papa, kept honey bees in a few bee boxes in his and Grandma's yard. I wasn't as interested in all of that while my grandparents were alive as I am now, and I wish I had been: I want to keep bees someday too, and while I will learn the how-to when I need to, I wish I had the memories of having learned all about beekeeping firsthand from Papa. I would watch the bees from a safe distance as some exited the boxes and others flew toward them, and I was fascinated by the design of the honeycombs Papa would bring into the kitchen--the honeycombs are edible, although my parents still wince when they tell the tale of the time Papa bit into a honeycomb and ended up swallowing a live bee--but I didn't pay attention to the actual honey-gathering. While helping my parents clear out my grandparents' house in 2001, we came across an old instructional booklet on beekeeping, and I was shocked to realize that Papa hadn't always known how to do this either--that he too had been interested and had had to learn from others. There is comfort in that knowledge for me.

My very last visit to my grandparents' house about a month after they had died, I waffled for an hour over whether to disassemble the bee boxes and pack them into the car to take with me, but I ultimately decided to leave them behind. I didn't want the bee boxes unless I could also have the sloped part of the yard they had always sat on, near where my childhood Beagle was gently buried by Papa, across from the raspberry bushes and tomato plants and flower gardens, feet away from Papa's thinking tree. . . . I didn't want to keep the bee boxes unless I could also keep Papa and Grandma's yard and house and Papa and Grandma always inside. I sometimes think I should have taken the bee boxes after all, though, and just lived with the heartache of their missed surroundings. I don't know.

Papa and Grandma and their bee boxes and their jars of fresh honey are all on my mind tonight as I keep adding store-bought honey to hot tea as I battle a cold, and also because I had a sad dream about my grandparents last night. I have dreamed of them only a handful of times since they died in the spring of 2001, and most of those dreams have been nightmares like last night's. I miss Papa and Grandma so much, and part of me will never believe that if I knocked on their door right now, they wouldn't open it and welcome me inside. Ah, Life. I am so blessed just to have had a "Papa and Grandma" at all, and I will someday have another happy dream of them, and I believe there will eventually be a reunion. Papa and Grandma missed people they had loved, as well, there are still bees out there traveling back and forth from boxes to flower gardens, and life goes on. 

Sprung

Today was my day off for the week, and it was wonderful. I walked to work with Mike, then went for my first run in five years afterward.  The weather was as beautiful as spring weather gets, Daffodils could be spotted in seemingly every yard, and I made supper--stuffed manicotti, artichoke bread, and salads--and walked it across town so Mike and I could eat supper outside after he got off work.  'Forty-pounds-lost now, according to the scale this morning too.  'Sweet, sweet day. ♥

No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. ~ Elie Wiesel

It's been a crazy-busy couple of weeks at the restaurant and I've been more exhausted than usual. I started crying while trying to fall asleep Wednesday night because my feet hurt so much. After buying new work shoes and sleeping with my feet elevated a few nights, I'm in a lot less pain now, and I've made 7-8-ish p.m. my bedtime the past couple of nights to help combat the fatigue. Today was a better day, and I'll have a day off after this weekend. During the simultaneous chaotic breakfast-cooking and banquet-preparing the other day, though, the little duck above was spotted on a plate sent back to the kitchen to wash. The other cook and I oohed and ahhed over the sight and took this picture while we marveled that such a thing had magically emerged from just the leftover cereal pieces and scrambled eggs on someone's plate. It wasn't until I shared the picture with Mike later and he said, "So someone pushed their food together to make the duck for you guys to find?" that I realized that that's how this "magic" occurred. I would prefer to believe that this "just happened," but if an anonymous customer took the time to do something to give us a smile while we worked, I count that as magic too. We needed the time-out and laughter this week. Thank You, Unknown Breakfast Leftovers Artist. :)

I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that...I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden. ~ A. Crowley

We had a day of near-70-degree weather this past week and now another couple inches of snow is on the ground. I am more than ready for spring. Especially because I had to leave my sweet little garden behind when I moved last fall, I am eager to see vivid colors outside again. Today is blindingly bright here, which is a wonderful change of pace, with the sunshine making all the snow sparkle, and I'll bundle up this afternoon in the many winter layers I am so tired of wearing and go for a long walk, but I am longing to see my beloved Daffodils sprouting up in yards all over town, to notice Forsythias and countless trees when they first start to turn their spring yellow-green, to smell heavenly Lilac bushes again, to watch Roses' blooms uncoil, and to feel cool grass under my bare feet again. I had a crying jag Thursday afternoon after spotting bulbs' shoots sprouting up in a neighbor's backyard on my walk home from work. I wanted so badly to be living in her tiny little house--one of the only tiny houses in the neighborhood, as all the rest are 3-or-more-floor Victorians converted into apartments--and making plans for that little yard. I wanted her soon-blooming flowers and her trees and her small back porch and her lawn chair and her bird houses. . . . I am happy here and Life is good in so many ways, but I miss my garden and I ache for the dream home I have wanted for so long.

My mom sent me a little "fun money" tucked into a letter yesterday and I will use a bit of it today to treat myself to a flower and a gardening magazine. And between chores today, I will daydream about my little pink and white cottage garden that I miss so much, and I will work on my visions for my next one--even if "bloom[ing] where [I'm] planted" in this case finds me beautifying my fire escape.

♥

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch

I had the pleasure this weekend of cooking breakfast at the restaurant for a dear elderly couple. Friday morning, I answered a number of questions for the woman about what we offered for breakfast, what I could cook for her and her husband, and where she could find various items at the buffet. She was so pleasant and appreciative, but she apologized nonetheless, "I'm sorry. My husband isn't well, and we just need to be careful about what he eats." She would find another potential breakfast item for him and walk back to their table where he was waiting and report her findings, then come back to the buffet and either add it to his plate or return to their table to ask him about something else.

"They have scrambled eggs," she could be heard telling him. "How about some scrambled eggs and an English muffin?" She made the trip back and forth from the table and buffet-area a few times before they decided on his breakfast, and I talked with her while she arranged his plate. She and her husband were in the city for his appointment at the cancer center, she told me. She hoped the center wouldn't be too hard to find, since they had arrived in the very early morning in the dark and during an ice storm. I explained where the center was--right down the street--and wished her and her husband well.

Yesterday morning, the woman and her husband were back in the restaurant, and this time, the husband was well-enough to visit the buffet-area and fix his own plate. The fact that he reminded me so much of Mike's dad made seeing him walking around on his own even sweeter. He, like his wife, was such a pleasure to talk with and help, and when I told him that I could make pancakes, French toast, or waffles if he didn't feel like eggs again, he smiled and said, "Oh, a waffle sounds good! I don't know if I could eat a whole waffle, though." I explained that I could make him a tiny waffle, or a couple tiny waffles, and he turned to his wife and exclaimed, "We should get waffles, then! This is a celebration, after all!" I told him I'd bring the waffles out to him, and as he made his way back to the table, I smiled and said to his wife, "I take it his appointment went well yesterday, since you're celebrating?"

"He's terminal," the woman quietly explained. "We come here for his chemotherapy so we can buy him some time and get our affairs in order. But yes, it did go well yesterday." We talked a few minutes more as she got her own breakfast, and I felt close to tears as I listened to her. I told her I'd keep her and her husband in my prayers, and my mind was filled with thoughts of Mike and his parents and marriage and commitment and love as I made the silver dollar-size waffles.

I arranged a couple of the tiny waffles with still-smaller bowls of maple syrup, strawberry topping, and butter and margarine pats and took them out to the couple. The husband laughed in delight at the presentation and thanked me so kindly, and about an hour later when he and his wife got up to leave, he stopped me as I walked by and said again, "Thank you very much for that. That was really something, really very nice." I thanked them too and wished them well, and my choked-up feeling stayed with me quite awhile back at my cook-station. People are always so much stronger than they think they are, and I have lived through enough broken hearts to understand that life goes on, but there is such sweet wisdom in knowing what that couple knows and still celebrating with waffles. 
 

To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best. ~ William Thackeray

 My friend Sommer would have turned thirty-one today. Every night as I settle onto my pillow and prepare to sleep, I see her forever-teenage-face reflected in my now-thirty-year-old one. I keep a favorite picture of her framed over my side of the bed, so her giggly smile is always one of the last things I see each day. I have never thought of her as a "guardian angel."  To me, she remains "just" Sommer, "just" my best friend, "just" an awesome soul I have been blessed enough to love, but I am cannot help be comforted by the belief that she somehow still loves me and looks out for me. 

A Rod McKuen poem I found a few months after Sommer died still speaks to me tonight just as it did in the summer of '95:

"...And now I love you
and I live you as well
because of you
I am larger than myself 
I am as big as both of us
I live because I love you"

I would have preferred, of course, to have had a lifetime of "in-person time" together, but some people never have a Sommer in their lives at all, so I try to recognize my blessings as such and to be grateful for them. The older I get, the more often I look at that picture above my bed and find myself thinking, "My gosh! I got to love this giggly and sweet person! I got to be one of her friends! How awesome is that!" It is Sommer's birthday, but as the saying goes, her presence is my present. 

♥

And Life Is Good

I sent a New Year's card to my parents last week. The second I read this one in the grocery store the day after Christmas, I got choked up, and reading it--knowing that it came from me, after all my struggles these past eight years--probably had the same effect on Mom and Dad. 

♥

A mother is the truest friend we have. ~ Washington Irving

Although I've been working at my current job less than three months, my manager kindly gave me both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, so after I finished my shift on the 23rd, Mike and his mom and dad dropped me off at the bus station and I headed home to spend the holiday at my parents' house. The holidays snuck up on me this year. I hadn't known until the 21st what my work-schedule even was for Christmas week, so it was hard to get into the spirit of things the weeks before the way I usually do. I eventually came up with gifts I was happy with for everyone on my list, and I got a few Christmas cards mailed out on time, but I just wasn't as on-the-ball as I usually am with these things. Even when Mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I could think of little besides the "givens": Stationery, stickers, vanilla perfume, fuzzy socks. . . . Over Thanksgiving while looking through magazines and catalogs she had been saving for me, I had been tickled by a toy catalog's picture of a goofy-looking stuffed blue cat named "Patches," but it was around $40 plus shipping, so I had just ooh-ed and ahh-ed over him to Mom for awhile before trying to come up with real ideas to give her. By the time the madcap weekend of the 23rd rolled around and I quickly prepared to go home, I had forgotten the few ideas I'd come up with for her and many of the actual gifts I'd gotten for everyone.

The night of the 23rd, after the parental hugs and hellos, I stepped into my former bedroom to set down my backpack and bags of Christmas presents and could make out in the dark a stuffed animal posed in front of my bed pillows. I knew instantly what it was and called out to my mom, "The cat! That's the cat!" She and my dad started laughing, and Mom came into my room to turn on the light so I could see him better. She told me she had made this "Patches lookalike" from a blue pillowcase, a white washcloth, and other scraps from her fabric bag. I laughed as I held him and looked him over, and Mom laughed with me and kept saying things like, "I know he's strange-looking, but I think I got it pretty close!" and "Your dad thought I'd go nuts--I had to keep staring at that little catalog picture with the magnifying glass to make sure I was getting it right!" 

That she had even remembered my Thanksgiving oohs and ahhs over "Patches" shouldn't have surprised me, since she is just that thoughtful, but I am still so touched and delighted every time I look at the stuffed blue cat that now sits on my bed here.