It’s been awhile since we’ve had a proper catch-up, so on this early Saturday morning, in bed with a cat, coffee, and a head cold, I’ll do just that.

We flew to Raleigh last weekend for a several-days-long birthday bash for Brandon’s dad. Relatives flew or drove in from all over the country. We had a splurgy dinner at the Angus Barn, a Raleigh steakhouse staple. Brandon and I split the tomahawk and a bottle of Shiraz and we ended up taking more than half the steak back to our hotel. (Brandon ate it over the next 2 mornings with eggs from the breakfast buffet! Until I finally told him that I thought our refrigerator was not keeping it cold enough to try for a third day and he reminisced about the Simpsons episode where Homer is determined to eat the entire sub sandwich despite it going slowly bad.) We enjoyed a rooftop evening at the ZincHouse Winery eating appetizers courtesy of his sister (this winery lets you bring in your own food! brilliant) and pizza from their food trucks and watching the ‘speed weddings’ in their gazebo. We walked in the historic Oakwood Cemetery and of course that brought to mind the song that inspired the title of this post (see end) which is still stuck in my head. We cautiously crept into the office to use the restroom, and the bespectacled young woman sitting in the sifting light from high many-paned windows with plants and stacks of headstone samples was delighted that we were Michiganders. She whipped out a map and with a green felt-tip pen, showed us where we could find a bit of home; at her advice, we found the grave of Ouida Estelle Emery Hood, who detested Raleigh so much that her husband buried her there in 50 barrels of Michigan soil.

My socializing is a little hit or miss, and I don’t usually look forward to traveling, but I know for many years when I look back on this spring, I won’t remember the little details. I won’t remember the commutes, the office days, what I ate for lunch or what outfits I wore, but I will remember ambling through the cemetery among the quiet Confederate dead, bright planes of southern sunshine, hearing the mockingbirds and smelling the lush honeysuckle tumbling over the iron fences.

Back home in Michigan, the spring is still launching. We bounce between cold snaps and hot days and the pollen has fallen like a smothering yellow veil (no doubt contributing to my sinus issues). The kiddo and I went to the re-release of one of my favorite movies (which she now also loves) – the 2005 ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and it was even more beautiful on the big screen. Otherwise, she is busy this spring of her junior year with soccer (I wish I could share her varsity soccer picture – she looks like a gorgeous young Valkyrie) and the SATs and starting up her summer plant nursery job and did anyone else know that Detroit has a women’s professional football team? I didn’t. But tonight she and her EMT cadet class are serving as medical support there, so I’ll be driving her and (I suppose) watching my first game.

I hope you are all well. I need to go eat something and take some sinus meds and if I feel better before the football game, I would like to check out opening day of our Farmer’s Market – I’m looking for some local honey, which I’ve heard can help with seasonal allergies. Take good care of yourselves and each other. xo