This Florida Sandhills Crane came to visit my parents' place Wednesday morning.

December 26 was a lazy day, and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon engrossed in the new Jeffrey Eugenides novel, The Marriage Plot. I got to a point in the book where I was quite choked up by the love and humanity and loss in the novel, and I realized the room had grown dark. I looked outside and saw this. It fit perfectly.

the great summit

I'm in Florida, visiting my folks for Christmas, and it's gorgeous outside--especially after a stressful week of blizzards in Michigan. We went to my favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch, and when we got back to my parents' place, my mom wanted to show me the azalea bush she got from my grandma's memorial service. It was equally gorgeous. And being Jon, it got me all sentimental thinking about my grandma, hearing Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong's goosebump-inducing version of "Azalea" running through my head. It was a moment.

the most sincere use of the word blessed

It was a good Thanksgiving. Of course I was my usual sentimental self and missed a lot of people and times, but when I was in the here and now--it was all quite sweet. I ate a lot of my mom's excellent food, watched a parade on TV, watched MSU basketball, and went for a gorgeous 1.7 mile walk around my parents' sub-division. We walked past people playing football, a couple orange groves, a guy walking his dog, and some kids playing really loud Jamaican dancehall from a parked car. It was all so perfect and a nice cap to an excellent week spent with my folks. I have so much thanks to give.

reading by the pool

So this is my current locale of choice for reading. Not bad, eh? It's been sunny and seventies today, in beautiful central Florida. Everybody's talking about how they desperately need rain, so I'm trying not to enjoy the clear skies too much, but it's tough. It's quite ideal after the months of gloom, cold, and snow from the past Michigan winter. This is a nice way to begin what I hope will be an excellent summer.