I recently realized that I let myself get a bit behind on my wedding planning schedule, and ever since, I’ve been even less able than usual to think about anything else. Which is one of the reasons I missed my Weekly Photograph deadline and have to post this picture now, even though it would have been more appropriate a few days ago:
Last Thursday, I stopped thinking about flowers and bridesmaid dresses long enough to dye Easter eggs with my future sister-in-law and her two oldest kids, and we had a very good (albeit messy) time. Holidays are one of the reasons I want to eventually have kids of my own, but for now it’s completely sufficient to borrow someone else’s for a few hours.
I took this picture a few weeks ago, when the city finally started to reemerge from its thick layers of ice and snow. Eric and I walked around the perimeter of a nearby college campus that sits by the Mississippi River, and I discovered that we live in the worst part of a very nice area. I knew that already, kind of; our street is home to hundreds of college students and businesses whereas the street a block north is defined by the biggest, most architecturally jaw-dropping houses in the city. But I’m not talking about socioeconomic gradients. I’m talking about nature.
For months, I’ve been whining about living in the city because there’s no apparent end to the concrete and brick and people. Tree branches are cut lest they tangle with power lines or pedestrians, and the wildlife has been whittled down to squirrels, sparrows, and rabbits that somehow develop dreadlocks. But on that walk a few weeks ago, a hawk flew just a few feet over my head, and we found large tufts of rabbit fur in the melting snow. We also found a potato on a bus stop bench, and there were still people everywhere, so my desire to live a little farther away from it all remains unchanged. But I’m here now, and if I’m not going to lose my mind over it, I need to get out and explore these relatively quiet, relatively wild places on a regular basis.
To help keep me accountable to this promise I’ve made myself, I’m going to add another regular feature to this blog: a weekly photograph. I’m hoping that by committing myself to photography, I’ll also be committing myself to a search for experiences worth photographing and writing about, and in turn to a purer enjoyment of my life here.
This third installment in the autobiographical series about a Yorkshire veterinarian is just Herriot: charming and funny literary comfort food. Since this book encompasses Herriot’s time in the Royal Air Force during WWII, it also includes some charming and funny stories about military service — and lots of clunky flashbacks. Forgivable.
Okay, so I’ve broken my promise already. I swore I would write more often, but I haven’t so much as paused here for almost two full weeks. How will you ever trust me again?
Actually, I’m hoping you won’t hold me entirely responsible for this last lapse. I started to write something a week ago, but I didn’t have time to do much with it when the inspiration struck, and every time I sat down thereafter to work on it, I felt guilty about doing that instead of finishing the Get Rid of Things article I started a month ago or doing the final grading for my class. It was just an abnormally busy week, and when I can’t give my mind over to what I’m writing, the product usually isn’t worth reading.
I’m relatively relaxed at the moment, however, because Eric and I just returned home after a couple of days at his parents’ house, where we ate unlikely quantities of food, drank in surprising moderation, and played some silly games. The chief purpose of our visit, however, was this:
Audrey Doris. A girl baby. Her daddy is Eric’s youngest brother, Joe, and she is our very first niece. We have five nephews, so a baby with a bow on her head is a novelty.
Of course, it’s always nice to see Katie, too:
In his defense of evolution and its moral implications (yes, it has some), Miller remains clear and objective, thoughtful and respectful, even as he indicts the intelligent design movement for imperiling the American mind and science itself. Required reading for anyone who accepts Darwin’s idea — and for anyone who doesn’t.
