the song remembers when
I’m sitting at my desk, the cold snow blowing outside, the warm space heater keeping my feet toasty. I have my headphones in because, well, without music to sooth my soul I sometimes lack the strength to make it through my work day. I usually only listen to instrumental music so that I am not distracted by lyrics, and, thanks to good friends, I have a several cd’s copied onto my office computer. I can usually make it through the day without really noticing the music other than that it helps me tone down my angry feelings (work is not a happy place, can you tell?) One song, though, always manages to completely lift me out of my concentration.
Somebody and I spent the first part of our honeymoon in Park City, an often hoity toity mountain resort, at the best bed and breakfast ever. Our big splurge, though, was not on the hotel. It was on the food. We both appreciate fine food and enjoy finding excuses to blow our hard-earned money on exquisitely prepared cuisine. My favorite dining experience of that week was at a little restaurant called Bistro 412 on Main St. in Park City.
We were sitting outside, enjoying the most divine coconut curry mussels in the world, and my attention turned to the music playing. It was an instrumental recording of Edelweiss, one of my favorite tunes. I distinctly remember sitting there, my napkin stained with the bright yellow of the curry, the sweet tang of the sauce in the mouth, listening to this beautiful song and looking over at Somebody and realizing that I had never been happier in my life. How lucky was I that the music, the food, and the location, while all wonderful in their own right, were eclipsed by the person sitting across from me?
Even now, whenever I hear that song I am instantly taken back to that moment.
Everyone has songs that will transport them to another place and time and bring up memories, both good and bad, from the past. What is your remembering song?
And then I got back to my stupid hotel room and looked at my toe. Ouch. 
There are few things that can shut out the world like holding a tiny, sleeping baby.
Anyway, after hours of work, then rework once I realized I’d created everything with a sucky resolution, and then with guidance from a genius coworker in transferring the files from Photoshop to Illustrator to Adobe, I was finally able to print and glue. But, oh! The books. The books. The books. I thought using blank board books was genius until I realized that there is no where in the greater Kansas City area where you can walk in a buy them, and that if you call a store because they show them in stock online but the store tells you they don’t have them in the store, you shouldn’t go to that store thinking the phone girl was mistaken because you might end up spending an hour sorting through dirty books with the misplaced hope that somehow one ended up in the bargain bin without any employees noticed. And then you will get mad and hate Christmas.
Sadly, it doesn’t work that way. It must be catching flies because it is still alive, but I’ve never seen it in action. The hope that someday I’ll see a plant eat an animal is what keeps me coming in to work each day.
I know it’s just a plant, but for some reason I find a lot of comfort in knowing that something else has been there all along—that something else has had rough times and made it through and that we are still alive and well together. I love this plant. At some point in his life, I think maybe in the condo of unemployment, he got a pot companion. We call him the Pot Luck of the Irish. It’s a long name, I know, but he’s a pretty handsome little leprechaun. And the two have never been parted.
