Just Sittin' Around Sippin' Brandy

My friend, Mary, and I came home from the musical last night and sat around for a few hours sipping the Brandy she'd brought us. Let me tell you that sipping Brandy for 4 (!) hours gives you plenty of time to discuss every problem in the world and come up with very logical solutions. Someone really should take the opportunity to listen in on conversations such as we had last night. If we ruled the world there would be no wars and everyone would behave themselves.

Mary had planned to stay overnight rather than drive home late but I'd neglected to tell her that the furnace wasn't working and her sleep might be interrupted by the noise of irate squirrels caught in the trap. She took it well and, after 4 hours of Brandy, slept through the night like a baby. So did I.

There are still the odd noises coming from the attic but not the wild scrabblings I'd been warned about so I think there just might be babies up there. My handyman will have to bring the little darlin's out and hope their mother will retrieve them from the yard. I'm trying not to think about them up there feeling hungry right now.

As I look out my patio doors into the yard I can see how everything is coming back to life from the long, hard winter. It drizzled all day so everything is wet but that's part of what helps begin the circle of life once more. The forsythia I planted many years ago casts a shock of yellow tendrils through the huge cedar it's growing under. The neighbor's cherry tree which overhangs my deck is full of white blossoms. It extends half way across the deck where it meets the brilliant 2 tone foliage of the Harlequin maple tree. The backyard grass which suffered badly from winter kill has regained most of it's territory. Even in the rain the yard is a wonderland of the beauty of nature.

I can look out into that yard and see the ghosts of my daughters when they were children. And there are newer ghosts of my grandchildren when they were younger. And then there's the ghost of my husband toiling away in the yard, shirtless, reluctantly but resolutely following my directions. I always had the ideas but he was usually the one who executed them.

In every yard, among every bush and tree, is a story of human struggle and satisfaction. Right now the view of my yard is filling me with happiness.