Read these over lunch

Though it does not comment on any matters of international importance, this is one of the greatest things I've read in a while.

And I enjoyed the very last part of Answer Man's Sunday column.

Neither card nor flowers

I guess it is a good thing the gardens I wanted to take my mom to for an early Mother's Day trip were closed for renovations. I planned a fun afternoon at the Baltimore Art Museum and it ended up being well-suited for yesterday's cold and rainy weather. Joe came, too! Now he is suggesting we take my mom to museums for Mother's Day every year, hee. We'll see.

The destination was a surprise from my mom... which meant that I didn't find out until we got there that she had actually been there before. But she and my dad had mostly taken in a special exhibit last time, which meant we could explore the permanent galleries. I appreciate whoever curated the European Art section, where we spent most of our time. There were the usual things -- religious art, portraits, landscapes -- but they were almost all fascinating, especially the portraits, which are usually a lowlight for me.

There were also nice, long descriptions with extra details accompanying the works, which meant I had interesting things to read and made it through the exhibit in about the usual time, instead of zipping through ahead of Joe, who studies things for longer. We also got to see old mosaics, elaborate quilts, and fancy furniture next to a chair made out of a few hundred number two pencils. No Sitting Allowed.

We scrapped my original plan of going out for ice cream afterwards and instead found a nice cafe where my mom got a coffee with whipped cream and biscotti, Joe got hot chocolate, and I had really great lentil soup that came (a surprise!) with bread and herby dipping-oil. We made it back to our parking meter with just five minutes to spare and then drove through the city's Druid Hill Park, which has a big lake and a nifty tower that looks like a castle. My mom and I talked so much on the way home that I missed my exit to get off of I-95 and we had to take a detour.

It was a good day for it

Our yard sale take:

$27.61 in cash and change
minus $5.12 spent on posterboard to make signs
plus introductions to several neighbors
encounters with a couple more
and a cookout invitation.

I'm pretty pleased.

We also got rid of a couple boxes worth of things, and the rest are dusted off, boxed up and ready to sell or donate elsewhere. Alas, though, we STILL have our enormous white elephant of a spare microwave. We were offering it free, too!

I think we would have had a lot more traffic if all our signs hadn't gotten taken down sometime between yesterday evening and this morning. Maybe they were illegal?

I know I shouldn't be afraid

Last night I had a tornado dream. They have come often since at least early high school, when I started keeping track. But this was truly one of the worst, with a sudden bad ending in a building without a basement, the kind of ending that leaves me lying awake with my heart beating hard. The feelings of the dream followed me a way into the morning, as sometimes happens.

Now I hear the area's under a tornado watch 'til 10. And I know tornado watches aren't a big deal. And I know God is in control and meeting Him isn't something I should need to fear. But I still think about how my house doesn't have a basement, and neither does the church for Bible study.

So I guess I am praying for fearlessness. And I am remembering all of our jokes about how, since tornadoes only hit La Plata every 74 years or so, Joe and I should really be okay.

Does anyone have a cure for bad dreams? I have had three in the last week or so, on a variety of bothersome themes, though I probably have even less need to fear phantom killers in the mountains of Afghanistan than I do hypothetical tornadoes.

This one makes me laugh even now

Rainy days make me sleepy. I went to Mass with Joe this morning and then slept through most of it, oops.

On the way, I was feeling crummy and watching the rain come over the windshield and thinking about how I'll need to fight off the urge to nap while I finish my Bible study lesson today. 

"It'll be hard to study the Bible in this weather," I said. 

"You could just study inside," Joe said.

And if I'm the only one who laughs at that, that's okay.

Easter humor

On Saturday, we came back from church and Joe immediately went to check on the pizza dough he'd set to rise. 

"It is risen!" he said triumphantly. And a pause, and "It is risen indeed!" 

It was the best pizza dough.

I am glad because when I was reviewing the Easter story with the little kids at Latvian school yesterday and asked whether Jesus was a ghost or really alive, they answered surely, "really alive!" They could even tell me how they knew! 

Gosh, something's sunk in. It's wonderful. Other years they were so sure he was a ghost.

Our house has also seen the "broccoli of destruction," if you use Joe's translation, or "the broccoli of perdition" using mine.  If that doesn't make any sense, well, that is probably because you did not expect references to Christ's betrayal to come up while leftovers were being put away.

Maybe late, or maybe not

The Lord has indeed risen, Alleluia! Glory and kingship be His forever. 

It seems like everyone else has so many good things to say about Christ's resurrection this time of year, but I feel oddly incapable of joining in. Joe and I went to church Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and then for the Easter service Sunday morning, and even as I sang from the pews or the chairs in the Friendship Room, I was probably soaking up more than I was bursting forth.

Big in my thoughts lately has been the ways we are blessed beyond measure, even though my human pettiness sometimes seems bigger when I have colds and hard moments. But there is still this great sense of gifts undeserved, especially the one tapping me from time to time from inside my belly. 

And to have the goodness of this loving Lord reigning alive always, not only over this growing child, but over sinful me? Offering to wash us clean? To guide us in bright paths? To be with us beyond the end of the world and this life and everything? 

It was all so concrete back those centuries ago -- the Son who was whipped and mocked and lifted up to die, the folded burial cloths left once he rose to life again, the message of the Savior to his confused and frightened friends. And the bigness of what it all means becomes concrete here, too, though the scenes are not as dramatic. If only I knew how to see and share it better.

In the meantime, there is so much goodness to rest in. 

Finding peace

Now my spinach is growing up and the sunny days make me want to find all the outdoor chores I can. Apparently Thomas Jefferson felt a bit of the same way: 

On Jefferson developing the American garden, from The Washington Post

And here is a really interesting article on a man's repentance, also from the Post. What I wonder about the most is his wife and their marriage, which is so little discussed. What would it be like living with a man so full of hate? Why did she? What did she think of it all? 

Personalities

Peter's commentary on our cherry trees blooming so much later than their neighbors: 

"The little girl trees haven't learned what their aunts are doing yet."

They are sweet cherries, by the way. In a year or two, once they are bearing a few fruits, one should have yellow cherries with pink cheeks, and the other should have deep, dark red cherries.

Cherry blossoms

After a few weeks of cherry blossoms all over La Plata, the little treelings in our backyard finally burst their first buds. 

I have meant to write about the cherry trees since Peter came over to help me plant them in the fall. They were wedding presents, and once we had them growing up among the grass in the backyard, the yard started to feel like a place worth being.

Fall is a good time to plant cherry trees, apparently, but was disconcerting to watch them lose their leaves right away. So I was really happy when their buds started swelling a little while ago, and I was really happy when I saw the first white blossoms this morning!

I was going to take pictures of the pioneer buds, but then we had a thunderstorm. By evening, the open blossoms were missing most of their petals. 

So no picture today! But maybe I will have one soon, once a few more of the buds open.