Five Things Friday

 

True Beauty.

 1. Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas, Epiphany, Twelfth Night.... and, more significantly for many of those I know and love, it would have been the 41st birthday of my cousin, Polly. On her 39th birthday - her last on this earth - dozens and dozens of her friends, family, students, and co-workers created an incredible display of hundreds of luminary candles in her yard. Those of us who couldn't be there created and lit our own candles in her honor. Her spirit and light lives on in so many through Polly's Promise, through her parents, siblings, nephews and nieces... through her hundreds of hundreds of students, co-workers, co-stars. Happy heavenly birthday, Polly. Sheesh we love you and miss you!

A tiny fraction of the crowd (and lights) that gathered. Polly is in the pink hat on the right. My Mom is behind her in black, my sister Heather is on the left in the green hat; my sister Rebecca and her son, Calvin, are next to Heather.

2. The boys and Scott will be going to a camp reunion this evening. They will leave right after school and won't be home until about 11PM or midnight. The boys are so excited because it means pizza and cake and basketball (as if they can really play) and testosterone. I used to go to these reunions. (I used to be a good wife, in other words!) But now I can't resist the opportunity to be HOME ALONE! Sounds awesome, right? Well for me it can be translated: grocery shopping, laundry and cleaning in peace and quiet. (A few months from now this will  be translated as all of the above along with a glass or two of wine.... But let's be honest: at this point a glass of wine would put me to sleep in about 3 minutes!) What it means, ultimately, is that most of my weekend chores will be done by late tonight and we can have a less stressful weekend.

3. Elliott was invited to his first-ever Kindergarten birthday party. He is SO excited for Sunday afternoon! What's funny is the first thing he said was, "Well, Tommy can come too, right?" Not sure if that stems from him being super thoughtful or from being a bit timid about taking this step into Big Kid-dom alone. Probably a bit of both.


4. The New Hampshire primaries are next week. Have you heard? Not to get too political, but you probably won't be too surprised that my name is on a list that means I don't get bothered by the most urgent competitors. This little cartoon says a lot about how I feel regarding many of the candidates:



5. RAN-(ish) this morning! I got up at 5 and went to the track. Walked 800M, jogged 1600M, walked 400M, jogged 800M, walked 400M, jogged 800M, walked 400M. It was a beautiful morning, really. About 24 degrees and snow started falling lightly a few minutes in. A peace (and a feeling of exertion) I just can't find in a pool full of friendly, chatty Senior Citizens.

Happy weekend everyone. Don't forget to "Be a little more Polly!"