Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Sproutings


You know the $1 aisle in Target, full of generally useless but occasionally surprisingly cool things? Well, John and I bought a tiny little basil growing kit from the dollar aisle, brought it home, and started our tiny sprout pot over the weekend. And to my amazement and delight, it is actually growing! The tender little green sprouts quickly appeared and are growing fast, pushing their brave little heads up and up toward the sunlight. This tiny miracle has placed more genuine, child-like wonderment in my heart than I can possibly explain. (And I already have the amazement capacity of a five-year-old.)

Spring hit Nashville a few weeks ago in dazzling parades of blossoming trees and flowers: bright white, then pink, then purple, pear trees and dogwoods, tulips, tulips, and more tulips; and already spring is expanding into summer lushness--everything has turned green and sprawled out to reclaim all that barren space that winter stole. It is striking to watch it happen--life just appearing as if from no where and taking up all the space that we'll give it. I can't get over how green everything is after that long, dead winter.

As if in parallel, I am finally beginning to open up to Nashville, perhaps even to like it. Sometimes I don't even mind the traffic.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

A Full-Time April Fool

In lieu of April Fool's Day...A Tribute

I spent the majority of my college years sharing a room with a prankster. I am gullible, absent minded, and slow to learn my lessons. You can imagine how much fun she had with me. My personal favorite (and obviously hers since she pulled it on me numerous times): the elevator prank. We lived on the third floor, and on our lazy days we would take the elevator up. Stephanie would swiftly engage me in conversation, distracting my attention while she pressed the 2nd floor button. The elevator stopped at the 2nd floor, I got out (still talking), and Steph closed the door and continued up to the 3rd floor while laughing her head off. I continued up the stairs shaking my head. I think she even pulled this prank twice in one day.

There were also fake roaches in my bed, the anger management book she gave me for Christmas, a creepy China doll that would appear next to me in bed, my underwear thrown at me in the shower, being locked out of the dorm room, phone calls in foreign accents....and so, so many more.

Oh, the good old days. Today I only got pranked by gmail.