oh heavenly day

no, this is not a post about that beautiful song that patty griffin wrote for her dog, which you may be able to hear at our wedding someday. there was just lots of sweetness today.

noon meant the end of a 3-day

load of parent-teacher conferences, and a re-centering chiropractic adjustment by one of the toughest and funniest gals i know. afterwards i yanked my kid and her pal opal out of school early so that we could go to a feed store and pick out some chicks. two of the three members of our small flock died in the horrible heat last summer, so we're starting over. adah was only one and a half when we raised our first batch. she seems way more excited this time around:

i know she appears to be strangling the little birds, but i can assure you that's not the case.

when we got to the feed store, she squealed and said, "these are just like the ones grandma bonnie got last time!" (i'm so grateful for the remembering). and then she and opal proceeded to pick up dozens of baby chicks and put them in our take home box. we had to break it to them that we were only leaving with six, but they took it pretty well.

afterwards there was ice cream, play time at the park, and one of the cutest things i've witnessed in a long time: a portland parks and rec. ballet and tap class for four year olds, taught by a teenage former jefferson dancer. the girls were an advertisement for ADD about 20 minutes into the class, and it's possible that i had way more fun than them by just watching, but that's okay. holy delightful was what it was. thank you, children, for making me grin and laugh, inside and out.

and that's not it. in the evening i was reminded how small the world really is, with a story of amazing connection that occurred in ann arbor, MI. plus a rhubarb crisp came out of the oven and i got to spend many hours dreaming next to anne and bug. i call me blessed.