Surprises

"Today is a beautiful day, a perfect spring day, blue sky, sunshine and warm temperatures. I worked on our path across the lawn from the gate to the arbor. Yesterday we went to the river and collected river rocks to line it with. Today I laid them out along the path. All that is left is to buy the cedar wood chips or nuggets as they are called here in New Brunswick to make the path. We will gradually do that over the summer as the money is available. Have a bunch of rocks left that will do perfectly for outlining a memory garden I want to build to the side of the house among the pines. A nice surprise, now we don't have to go collecting any more.

My mom called from Victoria to say hi. As seems usually these days we had a few words over political stuff, chief among them Iran and it's quest for nuclear power. She believes what she sees reported on CNN and as that is the only news she watches, she has nothing to compare it with. I, on the other hand watch Canadian news, CNN, read online newspapers like the BBC, Times Online and The New York Times, and various other international papers. I also read political blogs. I get my news from various sources and therefore feel that my opinions are based on a little more sense of the truth than are hers. After we talked, I went online and the first thing I read on Yahoo News was that a British politician might, just might, have been demoted due to his stance against the American and British plan to bomb Iran with nuclear weapons if another terrorist attack happens in the United States. That was not a nice surprise. Made for a rather unpleasant hour or so.

Then my partner Bob, got home from work. He is not the most romantic man in the world by a long shot. He is a good, kind person, but not romantic. I always meet him on the porch as he gets out of the car. And today when he got out of the car he had with him, for me . . . . . flowers!!! This is momentous. In the 14 years we have been together I have received flowers maybe 6 times at the most, including today. But today, when he stopped at the grocery store for lettuce he saw these beautiful yellow tulips, thought he should buy them for me but walked on past. Then turned around, went back and got them! They are beautiful. They were the best surprise of the day, all the more precious because such a surprise is so rare. He made my day.

Wouldn't it be better if politicians and countries could hand each other flowers instead of angry words and threats and guns and bombs and war? Reminds me of a poster from the early seventies, a girl sticking a daisy in the barrel of a gun held by a soldier. Wouldn't humanity have a better chance of survival if we gave each other flowers," I whisper.

Are you listening?