Dear God,

My apologies. Ninety degrees and sunny was much more pleasant than I expected. (Maybe You really don't make mistakes!)

Sincerely,
Scarlett

Dear God,

I appreciate that you gave April's showers a rest, as per my request. However, I apparently did not make myself clear. I was anticipating the imminent arrival of May's flowers, not August's sweltering 90* heat. No hard feelings, but I look forward to a replacement at your earliest convenience.

All the best,
Scarlett

At PostSecret this week. . .

(Sometimes I feel the same way. Everyone knows I'm Catholic, but they'd be appalled if they knew I considered that to mean that I actually believe and attempt to practice the tenets of Catholicism.)

Just wondering

Do you ever take a break from writing your 15-page research paper that you ignored until the weekend before it was due, and read the news for a few minutes, and thinking to yourself, "I bet I wouldn't have to hand this in if I got swine flu!"

(I know, I'm a terrible person. No need to let me know.)

I'm a Catholic

A few years ago, I stumbled onto Jim Shoulak's music here*. I haven't ever bought his cd, so I'm only familiar with what's on that page, but I particularly love "I'm a Catholic." I regularly forget about it, then remember some months later and have to go googling to find it.

*I'm not endorsing the rest of that website, which seemed to contain a few iffy things that it would take a more learned theologian than I to evaluate.

And don't forget to nominate and vote for your favorite "little" Catholic blogs at The Crescat!

Cannonball Catholic Blog Awards

No Quick Takes for my this Friday, since I've been too busy writing a last-minute research paper on the policies governing the treatment of human remains in museum collections (honestly, I can't get enough of this topic. 2 semesters in a row now I'm writing on similar topics). Be sure to check out 7 Quick Takes Friday at Conversion Diary, though!

Overload

It is generally ill-advised to ignore term papers until the week before they're due. When will I learn?

Posting will be light for the next week or two.

Flower Garden

My mom's uncle might be psychic, or else the mass quantity of forwarded e-mail he sends everyone in his address book may just make the odds good that he send something I find worthwhile when I find it worthwhile.

Click here for some Springtime!

(Click once you've reached the black page.)

These May Flowers Better Be Freakin' Gorgeous

It rained all last week. When I woke up on Friday, there was not a cloud in the sky, not as far as the eye could see. I took an umbrella anyway. Mother Nature needs to earn my trust back. So far, she's doing a terrible job.

This weekend was gorgeous. Utterly gorgeous. Rhett and I went down to the Tidal Basin and went paddle-boating. We walked around the mall. We found a BookCrossing book! We saw a mother duck on her nest. We got lunch from a hotdog vendor on a street corner. We got tan, which is rare - we're a couple of pasty white kids. It was perfect. One of the best days I've had in a long time.

By Sunday night, as I was heading to church, I decided to take the bus, since the clouds and wind looked ominous.

This morning, it was pouring. (Even though I had, for once, dried my hair before I left the house!) The bus was late, and my umbrella's big enough to keep my head dry, but not big enough to cover both my toes and my backpack. It's after noon, now, and my socks and shoes are still wet. (I'm at work in a big sweatshirt that belongs to Rhett, looking more like I'm hanging out in the apartment on a rainy day than at my job on a rainy day. When my toes dry out, and I stop feeling cold and wet, maybe I'll be amenable to taking off my sweatshirt.) When the bus finally showed up, the rain didn't stop. No, the rain continued, even inside the bus. When I sat by the window, it dripped onto my side from the vents. When I sat by the aisle, it dripped onto my head from the ceiling. Rain water filtered through a 30-year-old Metro bus is undoubtedly ickier than rain water straight from the clouds. I feel dirty. Weather reports say the rain is supposed to continue through the week.

May flowers are so not worth it.

Prayer Request

I heard last night that a friend's mother had a brain aneurysm. She wasn't expected to live, but is doing as well as could be expected after surgery. They still aren't sure if she'll make it, and have said that if she does survive, she'll likely be paralyzed. Please pray, for her survival and recovery and for her 3 kids in this difficult time.

Georgetown Scarf

This is the scarf I made for Rhett this winter. I got the pattern from. . . a homeless man on a bus. That story is part of the reason I love my neighborhood; people may not be well-off, but they're kind and decent people. (We'll ignore for now the pressing issue of street violence.)

I had been in DC for New Year's Eve, but was heading back to NY for the rest of my break in the early days of January. I was taking a Chinatown bus, but had gotten to Chinatown - mercifully very early - only to realize that I'd forgotten my ticket! I got back on the Metro bus to head home and pick it up. Sitting near the back of the bus, I noticed that the man across the aisle was wearing a crocheted scarf, in the style pictured above, in blue and gray Georgetown colors. He was talking to his friend, but they noticed me staring (I hadn't realized how intently I'd been looking at him) and said hello. I said hello, apologized for staring, and said I was just admiring his scarf and trying to figure out how I could make one like it. He took it off and tossed it across the aisle to me. I looked at the stitches for a couple minutes to figure out how it had been made (I think it was a double crochet - at least that's what I ended up using when I tried to replicate it), and when I tried to give it back, he told me I could keep it.

Of course, I wasn't about to take his scarf, so I insisted on giving it back, and said that since I wanted to make one like it as a gift for my boyfriend, it would be better if I made it myself than kept his. I got off at my stop, ran back to my house, grabbed my ticket, and went back to the bus stop to wait for the bus in the other direction.

While I'm waiting for my bus back to Chinatown, I see and his friend walking down the street again. He says hello, and take his scarf off to try to give it to me again. I keep protesting, and he eventually puts it back on.

Then he asks me for money "to help him buy a sandwich."

Usually, I say no to people asking for change. If I don't say no, the most I do is give them change. But this was clearly a nice guy, who had twice tried to give me his own scarf. He had tried to give something to me before he had ever asked me to give something to him. And we had a relationship by that point (I still wish I had asked his name). So I gave him $5, and never regretted it for a moment, never felt like I'd been had. I was only glad I could help him, and grateful to have gotten a pattern I really liked for a scarf that Rhett was (eventually, once I finally bought the yarn and actually made it) really excited for.