Music made for sharing

If you don't mind tapping your feet a bit, you can listen in here and tap along with me: 

The thing that entrances me about this video, besides the way the song builds, is the bass player, who apparently has a tiny baby in her backpack. My favorite comment from the YouTube page: "I'm guessing the baby is going to grow up to be a musician."

World waking up

At the monastery on weekdays, there are daffodils and cherry blossoms, and it is shawl weather again. Today Sandy was wearing something light red with sparkles.

At Mass on Sunday, we noticed a number of little girls in new pink jackets, and a few older women, too!

Yesterday I bought tomato seeds

And today there is snow covering the backyard.

One more thing

I asked the internet how many tomato plants it takes to feed a family. The numbers recommended for a family of four range from 6 plants to 24. Ack.

Dreaming of greening

I've spent much of the morning planning this year's garden. It is not a big yard, but I got down to mapping it out, and there's a lot of plantable space. More than I can probably plant this year, actually! I hear the way to do it is to expand the garden a bit each year, and that does seem the most manageable way, but oh, I wish I could just fill the yard with flowers and fruits and vegetables.

A corner of the yard doesn't drain very well. I'm going to try to see if I can get things together enough to make some raised beds, but it will still be wet underneath. Are there any plants that like such conditions? Other than rice, I mean...?

I'd have thought I was too young for this

When I worked at the Dispatch, writing obituaries was one of my favorite things. People are so interesting. But aside from the few "glory obits" we ran -- the long staff-written pieces usually reserved for community leaders and accident victims -- there weren't many obits worth reading. Most of the paid ones (those in tiny type in the back of the local section) were written like mad libs: 

[Name] [euphemism for "died"] [date] [location]. [He/she] was born to [parents] [location] [date]. [Military service info, if any, plus small flag icon.] [List of survivors.] [Etc.]

Our favorite euphemism for "died" may have been "was carried to heaven by the Lord's angels." 

But HERE! Not only is the type of the obituaries bigger, but they are full of interesting details. A fellow in Wednesday's paper "enjoyed gardening, farming, spending time with his family and grandchildren, playing poker and dancing with his wife." I imagine his wife liked that! Then there was the woman who got her purple belt in karate at the age of 67 (I think). There was the man who, in addition to many other interests, developed a habit of driving to the local store, parking, watching people out the car window for hours and eating cheese curls. The employees of the store even dedicated his usual spot to him!

No one here is "carried to heaven by the Lord's angels," though -- or if they are, the obituaries don't mention it in as many words.

Singing praise

The weeds in the backyard have purple blossoms now.

Springtime?

I saw some robins the other day.

Now the ice-cream man is circling the neighborhood.

He is making me hungry!

Memories

Some of you will have heard this story before, but I was reminded again by this post about helping strangers.

People say it is usually a bad idea to give cash to strangers, and I think that is often true. It is easy to be scammed and often better to point people to charities with screening procedures, or perhaps to hand out granola bars. (I'm planning to keep some in my car to offer to people with signs by the side of the road.) But I think there are exceptions...

Once, when I was still in college, a man caught up to me in a church parking lot in Silver Spring. He said he and his wife had just moved halfway across the country so he could take a new job, but their apartment wasn’t ready, unexpectedly. They didn't know a soul in the city and didn’t want to go to a homeless shelter (and, honestly, I wouldn't either…) and he asked if I could spare some money to help pay for a couple nights at a cheap hotel.

He showed me a copy of his lease and a printout of the hotel quote, and he said he could give me a check to pay me back as long as I promised not to cash it for a few weeks, until he got his first paycheck from his new job. His wife was waiting in the car.

It was the kind of thing that would have been pretty hard for me or anyone to verify, and I doubt any charity would give this man cash for a hotel room. I felt that this guy was probably telling the truth, though, so I went to an ATM and took out my last $80 or so. (My summer job would not start for a few weeks.) The man gave me a check to cover just about all of it and wrote his phone number on it.

When I called a few weeks later to see if I could cash the check, the number was dead. It was an out-of-town number, and if it had ever been in service, it had been discontinued after the move. So I cashed the check anyway, and it didn't bounce.

Wasn't it winter just yesterday?

With the weather a little warmer and the sun out again, I noticed the grass in the backyard is getting greener, and there are even little flowers in it, eeeee!

On a totally different note, it's strange to find old music again. I'd totally forgotten about some Stabbing Westward songs Joe and I used to listen to, but they came up in a conversation the other day (Joe was probably quoting random lyrics, as he does), so I looked them up. Whoa. They are hard-hitting songs, but they don't hit me the way they used to anymore.