A bit of randomness...

Random photo (our room in Antigua at night)

Back by no demand at all, I give you more miscellany: a few random items and thoughts that have captivated me lately.

• I've been thinking about some memorable posts about parenting recently. Sweet Juniper's Dutch captures the soul of the conflict (do conflicts have souls? not sure) of leaving a child at preschool for the first time, especially when your child is a reluctant separator. I loved Bridget's post about the tenderness of her daughter's mysteriously bad day. And Kate at sweet/salty is spot-on when she discusses the frustration of losing the post-baby weight. You've got to love a gal who compares her rear end to "a sackful of Ultimate Fighting Champion squirrels."

• Etiquette query. It's happened to me twice today: I'm approaching a set of doors, walking behind another person. Person opens the door and holds it open for me. I say "thanks." We walk two steps, person opens door again. Should I say thanks again? Is my previous thanks implied gratitude for all future door openings? Usually I smile and nod but is this adequate? Am I being rude? This is the burning question that only you can help me resolve...

• Here's another one: I agreed to wait at a new friend's house for the cable guy one day when she was on vacation. The guy came and wanted to know in which wall to drill the hole. What? I didn't know so I started looking on her table for her cell phone number. I didn't find it but what I did find puts me in a quandary: very clear, unmistakable ultrasound photo evidence of her unannounced pregnancy. Hmmm. Do I admit that I know? Do I continue to pretend I know nothing?

• Lauren went to Stephenie Meyer's book signing of Twilight this week. She went early with friends, got a bracelet that determined where she sat, and returned a couple of hours later for the signing. Get this: It was on the second floor of a Barnes and Noble. By the time she left two hours later, the line wound all around the book aisles upstairs, down the escalator, around the downstairs book aisles, out the door, through the parking lot over to the restaurant next door. Crazy! I still haven't read them (I've had an aversion to animal stories and vampire stories since I was an early reader that I can't seem to shed) but wow! This one's found an audience.

• Finally, essential to my mental health is having something to look forward to. I've added a list here in the margin where I'll park the big and small things I'm anticipating (and that make life more worth living!). What about you? What are you looking forward to that brings you joy?

The peace of wild things

I am a worrier. Sometimes. It's usually subterranean but every once in a while a little persistent swarm of worry bees wake me in the middle of the night and demand attention. And, in spite of the fact that I can do nothing about my kids' music lessons, or world peace, or shopping lists, or the possibility of termites infesting our house at 3:00 in the morning, I insanely indulge them. I'm going to get this poem out the next time and read those little perky worries to sleep.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Wow

I just had to take a picture of this. First of all, wow. What a huge chandelier...at least 15 feet high and 10 across, if not more (I'm not the best at guesstimating dimensions). And see all those candle harbors? That is going to be an incredible sight when it's all lit up.

Second, you've got to respect the intricate and optimistic securing of the chandelier to the small datsun/toyota type truck. That is some kind of maynarding, which is a fond term in our family, named after my grandpa (or rather, after a name someone once mistakenly called him) for any hodge-podge, use-what-you-have, creative construction.

The guys who made and/or loaded the chandelier were all on the sidewalk next to me when I snapped the picture. They all cheered. I wanted to tell them how cool it was + that I loved the craftsmanship. I wanted to know how many hours it took + who designed it.

At the moment all I could say, wide-eyed, was "grande!"

Hopefully they knew what I was referring to. On the way home I came up with all sorts of sentences I could have said. Oh well. Maybe this time my picture really was worth a thousand words?

p.s.

I had been told. I had read things. But I had no idea how much I would love YSL's touche eclat highlighter/concealer (this post not paid for by YSL...it's just my excitement at finding such a great circle-hider).

Well worth it, my friends. It won't change the world but it's made me happy this week!

Small pleasures #4

~ the smell of chocolate cupcakes baking (right now)
~ the kids playing basketball outside daily
~ finding a wireless connection in the car outside L's flute lesson
~ this book and the thought of making something from it
~ this hilarious spoof of Lost (warning: @#!% word at the end)
~ a clean and vacuumed car (thanks, G)
~ brainstorming with G on April Fools' Day tricks to play on the kids
~ gumball machines
~ reconnecting with cousins
~ a (relatively) free weekend! Have a lovely one, too!