The woman we bought the house from may have left us roaches, a crumbling ceiling, and a basement that smells like cat urine, but she also left us a front garden where forsythia is now in bloom, and hundreds of bulbs are getting ready to flower. The daffodils are almost ready to go–heavy yellow heads now that are bound to open in the next day or two. It’s lovely to look out on, lovely to come home to. I had planned to plant hydrangea in the front garden, but now I may just leave it as it is, unless there’s nothing that comes up to replace the bulbs later in the season.

I had an interesting afternoon today. A few months back I reconnected with someone from college via Friendster. We had good friends in common back then, but were never really close. I had only seen him once since graduating in ’95, and then only for a few minutes back in ’99. I heard stories about him through a mutual friend “Oh, he’s in Haiti reporting for Reuters” “Oh, he’s in Guatemala” etc etc. but our paths never crossed anytime that he was back home in NYC. Well, thanks to Friendster he and I got back in touch, and today we met for coffee. We have a lot more to say to each other now at thirty than we did at twenty. He’s back in New York for just a couple of days, then he’s moving back to Haiti, and after that probably Brazil. I was touched, though surprised, that with all the people wanting to see him before he leaves, he took two hours to sit and have coffee with me when we hadn’t been close before and hadn’t seen each other for more than ten minutes since college. Turns out that it was because I had sent him an email when he was covering the recent chaos in Haiti, to see if he was okay. Apparently a lot of people who should have checked in to see how he was didn’t. But I did. This surprises me. When you know someone is in harm’s way, how do you not get in touch, see how they are, let them know you’re thinking of them? I mean, life is precarious even outside of war zones, and you never know when it’ll be your last chance to let someone know you’re wishing them well.

I had such a nice time this afternoon that part of me wishes we had been better friends back in college, but chances are it wouldn’t have been the same. We were both different people back then. Maybe we needed these ten years to have passed to really have anything to say to each other.

Kyoto is done, except for the weaving in of the ends. I also want to re-seam the back sash. The double seed stitch is so elastic compared to the st st of the main body that the back of the body puckered a bit when I seamed it. I’m going to redo that, then I’ll post a pic. I’m pleased with it. It fits quite well.