Happy Birthday, Kalayna!

Sunrise was at 5:14, Sunset will be at 9:02. I was not up at sunrise today. It is my day off and I slept in until 7:45.

Today is Kalayna's birthday! Happy birthday, child.

I finally realized what old people all over the world know: the older you get the faster the time contracts. I was going through photos the other day and ran across pictures of me holding Kalayna on what I think was her third day in the world. I was babysitting and she was so tiny.

I remember some of the moments of the day so well- I was reading a romance book, a big and thick mass market paperback, called Manhattan and I know I'll remember the author as soon as I'm done with the post.

The weather was cloudy, a little spit rainy, the sun was warm when it was out.

I remember hoping Keeli would get home from the wedding she was attending before I had to do anything important, like feeding the baby or changing her. How do people who have never had babies before just know this stuff?

Anyway, I will send her the pictures (and I think I told Keeli I would send her copies of these 22 years ago. She is still waiting.) in a little album for a late birthday gift.

It is wet, again, and cold, again, here in Seattle. Everything is really green and it glows against the dark skies. The blackberries are starting to bloom. It's pretty and I am sure it feels lush and moist and young to people from Arizona and New Mexico. I would like to just be able to get out and get the weeds pulled out of the places they don't belong without getting soaked.

It's warm enough and wet enough for everything to grow at a rapid clip- we could probably hear it grow if we sat quietly. Yesterday, we found our across the street neighbor weed whacking and raking up our street easement on the west side of the house, the side we have to throw the extension cords to.

We sit on a really steep hillside and that side goes straight down about 30 feet to the street. We have a really long extension cord and Dennis throws it over the blackberries, trying to avoid the street trees below, so I can attach it to the weed whacker we own when the "grass" gets hip high.

Thankfully, and I really mean this, there are two houses, the families in them are all related, across the street whose owners mow our easement when they do theirs. I thanked Dominic profusely for the work yesterday and I am happy I live on a street where people do kind of keep an eye out on each other and help each other out when needed.

I guess we really should "landscape" that strip of whatever it is that's growing in there! Daisies and lilies, things that don't take a whole lot of care, things that butterflies and bees will enjoy.

This is my bedside table, the table that this blog was named for. Back when I was using a pen and paper for the BookNotes newsletter I write, I would use the notes from the bedside table for the reviews. It all comes around full circle.

These are the books I want to read next. There are galleys, finished copies and manuscripts all mixed up together. One of my favorite books of all time, one I discovered in 1968, The Faraway Lurs, is in a pile with a book that won't be out until fall of ought 10. All those words, rubbing up against each other.

So much to read: books splayed open and spine up on the sink in the bathroom; a stack by the bench in the dining room; piles, and not neat ones, on the living room floor. this is my job: To find a really good book to read so I can share it with you!

It is a good job.