kiwords

Thank you, Sheri, you were correct. We were buried in snow. How much snow? Lots. Somewhere in the neighborhood of three feet of wet spring snow.

Now, not that you really WANTED a lecture on the state of the garden post-blizzard, but…uh…you GET one.

The garlic will be fine, thank you for your concern. Their plants, at this point, are sturdy, waxy little spears of green. They will shrug this cold snap off with aplomb.

There was one little rosette of lettuce, a stray plant that was the result of some lettuce going to seed last summer. When spring hit here the garden was dotted with tiny lettuce plants, and one of them had gotten to a decent size. It was about the width of my hand, all ruffled lettucy beauty. I thought about picking it Friday and adding it to the salad, but took my chances with it. Now it is a crunchy frozen lettuce sculpture, under a few feet of snow. Ah well.

All in all, it’s fine. I JUST planted lettuce and spinach and sugar snap peas. They didn’t have time to sprout, but the next few days of drenching cool water from the mounds of snow everywhere will create JUST the perfect conditions for cool weather vegetables. YOU want to be at my house for a salad in about six weeks. Trust me. All is in place for a lovely spring and summer in the Kira garden.

Um…if there should be ANOTHER spring storm that dumps feet of snow here in about three weeks…well, then you actually DON’T want to be here. For any reason. Trust me again.

But oh, more importantly. More important than the snow or the garden or the seventeen trillion pairs of gloves, boots, and snow pants that are piled by my front door, more importantly than any of that, is what today was.

Today was Clay’s birthday.

Since it’s his birthday, I thought it made sense for me to tell you a little more about him. I mean, I didn’t really respect the narrative flow on that, did I? I just dropped him into the middle of our story here, and nervously looked away. So here it is; the story of how I met Clay.

One Sunday in July I noticed someone new standing in front of me at church. He was…well, he was so handsome. I stood there, somewhat distracted, and found myself looking for a wedding ring. This was atypical behavior for me, and when I caught myself I looked away, flustered.

That didn’t stop me from leaning over during the passing of the peace and making a point to greet the person standing with this new guy. Oak is his name, and everyone knows Oak at church. I gave Oak and then his wife, Marlys, a hug.

“Hey, let me introduce you to my friend here,” Oak said in his booming voice. “Kira, this is Clay, our next door neighbor. Clay, this is Kira.” We shook hands, and then it was time to return our attention to the service. Throughout the rest of the service I sneaked peeks at Clay. He was handsome, to be sure. And he was built…goodness, you should feel his arms. But he was also just – what? Just so good to look at. I was nonplussed.

After the service Clay made his way over to me and struck up a conversation. He was so comfortable and direct. I wanted to die. He’s told me since that he couldn’t figure out what I found so very interesting about his shoes.

As soon as I could, I beat a hasty retreat. I loaded the kids in the van and left. I don’t remember why, but Mom wasn’t there that Sunday, so it was just Dad and me on the ride home. I looked out the window, and laughed.

“Huh. How about that. I had an actual conversation with an actual man, and I didn’t crawl under a chair or ANYTHING.”

“Yeah? Good job,” said Dad.

“Well, I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything, but good for me.”

Little did I realize.

It took almost three months of consistent, patient attention for Clay to convince me to actually go OUT with him. Now he’s been here, in my life, for six months. Seems like a minute, seems like forever.

Happy birthday, Clay. I love you.