Today

We are doing a bit better now.
Wee One's spirit is back - she can't scare it away for long. Where yesterday morning she was laying on the floor, listless and vacant, today she was trying on paper bag hats and discovering small daisies in the grass. Apple cheeked, and still sick, sounding like a winterbound goose when she opens her mouth, but happy. Happy today.

And next week her Hoppers will be here, to appreciate the changes a month can make in a Wee Thing. Grammy can bathe her proper again, and Grandpa will sing her the pie song from the first movie she ever saw. Best of all, she won't be at school for those last two hours of the day when we all go out to play and she sees me not coming to get her for what feels like forever.

Here's what I love today:

The garage sale that Laura called to tell us about, where eight dollars became two pairs of dangly earrings, two funky scarves for dress up, two pretty shirts, two rope lights for our bedroom, one green one purple, four issues of Babybug magazine, one wooden car, a stack of plastic cups and bowls, a necklace with two keys (one big one small), a purple beaded flower ring, a sturdy skirt for playing in, a pair of leather baby shoes with bears on them, a pair of baby socks, and a novel about streetcops in jazz-era Seattle, Rat City. The woman selling her things is the director of an arts-based preschool and is a retired dancer for the Bolshoi Theater herself.

This poem, written by Neil Gaiman for Tori Amos' Wee One, unborn at the time.

The writing of Robert Fulghum. I just blazed through Maybe (maybe not) though maybe I should take his words easy. They are meant for pausing between, in quiet reflection. Ha. And right now I'm reading Words I Wish I Wrote, which is full of tasty nuggets.

Lemon Ginger tea for sore sorry throats.

Avocado Chocolate Shakes for all occasions.

Finding a lost baby shoe, two days later on the gravel roadside where and when I least expected it yesterday.

The sky between six and seven pm, lately. Holy Clouds! Dark and broody sky meets jubilant sun as it bids our diamond studded emerald forest farewell for the evening.

Walking the same route up and down the hill, noticing the flowering trees cranking it up just one more notch each time.

An epiphany concerning the female duck's drab choice of costuming, uncovered while walking past a drake and his mate at the transit station. Him, gaily colored and bearing a crust of bread toward his sweetheart, sitting in the bushes and nearly impossible to see. Oh...right...a sitting duck, wearing camoflauge as she warms her Wee Ones to life. Something I neglected to learn during childhood, when one can reasonable expect to learn things about ducks and their logic.

A gigantic bag of frozen fruit from Costco, mostly peaches white and yellow, which has diminished considerably under my devoted attention.

Likewise a fortunately not so gigantic bag of Sundrops- the prettier, healthier cousins of M&Ms. Their shells are colored with beet juice, beta carotene, and purple cabbage; and if you pay attention, you can just taste the colors.

Fitting into some clothes unexpectedly. Thanks, feet. Thanks, hills.

Lost. (the tv show, though the state of being by the same name definitely has a place in my heart as well.)

Speaking of shows, I just discovered Yo Gabba Gabba on Nick Jr. Actually I found out about it from reading a blog. But I have the feeling that I'm one of the last to know, as usual. It feels like the first time I ever found the Nickelodeon channel when I was a kid, watching TV in the summertime by myself. I'm pretty sure the show was "You Can't Do That On Television," and it was so awesome that I looked around me in disbelief, the way I always do when I stumble across something awesome that nobody has ever mentioned before. Check it out, the Yo Gabba Gabba compilation cd just jumped to the top of my priority list and bumped Andrew Bird's new album down to second place.

That's it, because it's late and I am about to go love on some Grey Gardens remake with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange.

But also? I am not knitting all that much right now.
Which might be kind of a good sign, in a way.