The Hope of Easter and Spring

They may not exactly be lilies, but...

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:25-34)

Flamingo Caper, Part II

Better late than never, eh? So I set up the plastic pink flamingos in my front yard for April Fool's Day, artfully arranged for maximum impact. James would be home from work in about an hour. I took a few admiring photos and went to take a shower. As I was doing my hair, I had a bad feeling that something had gone wrong with the birds. I looked outside and discovered that the two closest to the road were missing. But one of them had left a single, metal stake leg behind. A birdnapping! And right here in suburbia!

These were borrowed birds. A woman I know at work knew another woman who happened to have 16 fake flamingos. She connected the two of us and the bird lady graciously leant me the pink beauties. And now two of her birds were gone! I dragged a dining room chair out into the garage and sat vigil over my front yard. I felt like Farmer Brown guarding his cornfield, minus the rifle.

James arrived home and we had a good laugh over the joke. Then I told him about the theft. He couldn't believe it. In the interim, I had called my mom about the caper. She suggested that I drive around the neighborhood to see if I could find the flamingos. I said, "Who would be stupid enough to steal them from my yard and put them in theirs? Especially with one missing a leg.

James and I put the birds back in their boxes and decided to go out to eat. As we approached a stop sign about five houses up from ours, I noticed some teenage boys playing hockey in their driveway. And next to them in their yard were the flamingos. "Those are my flamingos!" I shouted. "Stop the car!"

"What are you going to?" James asked.

"I'm going to take my birds back!"

The boys' father was standing in the yard. I struck a friendly yet guarded and decisive tone and said, "Hi. I'm missing two flamingos. And one of them," I paused dramatically, and pointed, "is missing a leg." (I stopped short of shouting 'A-ha!')

I marched up to the flamingos and swiftly uprooted them.

Boring dialogue ensued about how I had borrowed these birds and it was prank for my husband. The boys stayed silent, but one of them did point to another as if to say, "It was him!" The dad didn't have much useful to say. He said something about the boys must have been pulling a prank, etc.

As I was walking away he finally said that he was sorry. I got the feeling that he just didn't know what to do, or just didn't care. Maybe he should teach his kids not to steal. Keep in mind, I don't know these people. It's not like they're my neighbor-friends and we all had a good laugh and that was that. I wonder now what the kids planned to do with the stolen lawn ornaments. Display them in their yard for awhile and then bring them back? Keep them? Come back for the other leg? And didn't their father wonder where these random birds had come from in the first place? Or maybe Daddy was with the boys when they took them. I could wax on about the decline of society's ethics, but that would be boring.

In the end, all 16 flamingos returned safely to their owner. So -- and you had to see this coming -- no harm, no fowl.

The two in the upper right hand corner (hard to see) were stolen.

Belated April Fools'

James and I have an ongoing debate/argument/joke about plastic pink flamingos.

He says they're tacky.

I say they're so tacky they're COOL.

So this April 2 (because he worked late on the 1st), I filled our yard with the lovely birds.

Two of the feathered friends were stolen, but recovered. More on that later. I'm going to bed.

Peach Oo-la-long

What do you get when you mix a beret-wearing penguin, Oolong tea, and peach puree? A tasty beverage with a fun name and cute label.

Try it in the glass bottle -- it tastes better than the same stuff in plastic bottles. This continues to confirm my husband's theory that all beverages taste better when packaged in glass. However, I'm still a bit dubious about his claim that a square pizza tastes different than a round pizza from the same pizza shop.

March may be the second cruelest month

Walking to my car today after work (it's Spring Break, so there's actually parking on campus within reasonable walking distance this week, which means I don't have to take the little shuttle-bus), I felt like I was coming out from down under. Down under the blankets. Or out from a dark hole. Up for air.

Maybe it's because the light doesn't fade until after 6:00pm these days. Or maybe it's because spring is nearly palpable. Or maybe it's because I'm prone to unexpected mood swings.

Photo from Angela in Europe,
who got me thinking
about "The Waste Land"
with this picture

I have felt weighted down for at least the last four or five months. Maybe I'm finally surfacing. Or maybe not. It's always hard to tell.

I know it's only March, but I'm restless. I'm anxious. I hear T.S. calling to me:

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?

'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.

~The Waste Land, lines 1-43; T.S. Eliot