Weekend Joys

Wonderful things happen here in the Monsoon season...Five minutes before five, I ran out the door with a bucket, scissors and jumped into my running car. Travis said from the back room, "Honey, they're supposed to be here in five minutes!" I knew it, but I had to do this one thing. They had been flagging my attention for weeks, but here was the perfect oppurtunity, even if it wasn't exactly the perfect timing. I drove down to the end of the road and leapt up the irrigation embankment. I pulled down stalks that had grown tall, defying the desert to grow closer to the sun, cutting the blossoms and filling my bucket.
Sunflowers are a miracle to my desert eyes, having never seen such prolific volunteers on the side of the road, except in France. I woke up this morning and the first thing I said was: "I love our friends. I love having flowers!"
We love our friends, because once again we hosted dinner club last night. This time was casual because we are awaiting Erin's new baby girl in the next two weeks.
There is nothing better than good food (grilled pizza and ice cream sundaes) and the close laughter of friends and then to wave them down the driveway in the dark, tucking in sleeping babies and sleepier parents (Becky). We are also grateful that we are getting to know eachother better than ever. We played a game that my friend Patricia made up and then another friend Mr. Kyung Lee developed further; Patricia used to name people and their personalities and identify them with animals, and Mr. Lee twisted it by "naming " what the person to your left would "name" themselves. We shall not reveal who is a an "otter", a "stallion" or a "finch". Even funnier was to see why there was such a thought. It was a moment to remember when onewife was named by someone else's husband the "camel".
Are you wondering what animal my new friends think of me as? Ahh...the priviledge of secrecy.