:: like a bran breakfast muffin ::

One of the advantages of being female is that gatherings of ladies usually include food: delicious, homemade food.  I like this very much, so I was duly pleased when I saw the snack table this morning at our Bible study.  Until I got closer and saw that the dark brown muffins were bran.  Bran, as we all know, tastes very much like Grape Nuts, which taste very much like gravel.  I was disappointed.  Not one to pass up delicious homemade food, though, I took one.  

And I wish I would've taken two because these were not bran muffins, they were chocolate chip bran muffins.  Scrumptious.  What if I had passed it up?  So I'm looking for the chocolate chips in the bran today, and I've smiled alot along the way.  

We were having a scientific conversation, the two-year-old and I. A Saturn in front of us led to a listing of the planets and questions like Is the moon a planet? Which led to talk of stars, of course, because you can't talk about the sky without talking about stars. This was when she made an important correlation: That's like Elmo's Mother Goose when he sings "Twinkle, twinkle little star..." Which was my reminder that she is still, in fact, two. And I like her.

What of hope, then, in a world set to impede my supply? It reaches around, beyond my reality, closes its eyes and smiles this reply:

Hope is not dead just misplaced. You build paper palaces, paint in grays. Your life is limited to the limits of limitation. You don't even know how to begin hoping. What kind of anticipation is based in an utter unknown? So faith, then, and hope, but in the mean time: love is what you wrap your mind around. And,

Love. Never. Fails.

:: so tonight instead of sleeping ::

We made cookies at midnight and stood in the backyard to watch San Miguel burn. It was so quiet. A few neighbors were standing in the street to improve their view. Why do we do this? It was like watching an execution. The news has been on for three days. They must be tired of talking, but we're not tired of watching. It's all fiction until your home sweet home is the one burning.

Overcoming my fears, one ball python at a time.