Birthday! Cubed!

Yes, Abbey is twenty-seven years old today. That's three to the third power, or cubed. It's hip to be square. I'm the same number as a rubik's cube! Sweet.

Yesterday was awfully busy. Slept in...quick church...whew...pack a lunch, we've got a wedding to go to (by the way, there's a work meeting, too)...should we hang out with the cousins afterwards...no....maybe...wait, weren't Sundays a day of rest in some bygone religious tradition?

They say that literal Sabbath rest is a symbol and shadow of the spiritual rest in Christ. If I rigorously apply myself to observing the literal, does this magnify or nullify the spiritual? Still, practically speaking, we all need rest. I guess this could take different forms, but rushing from one event to the next seems intrinsically imcompatible with any sort of "down time" No wonder we all complain about "needing a vacation" so often. If we had a proper weekly vacation, we might last a little longer. We might even get a longer life span out of the deal. I wonder if anyone's done a study on that...a Sabbath study.

Keeping the Lord's day. A fountain of youth. Something to think about as I turn a year older.

Abbey's New Health Club Membership

My health club membership costs me anywhere from $30-$45 every year or so. My fees were due yesterday. The facilities are quite nice, as you'll see from the photos below:










Oh, and they throw in access to the exercise room for free:










Okay, yeah. I'm too cheap for a REAL gym. But a pair of sweet new Sauconys plus the open road outside my door, that'll do me just fine.

Of course, it isn't cool and crisp right now, as this photo of dear Minnehaha Trail would suggest. My grand retour to running has been nothing but hot and muggy, so much so that I feel like throwing on a pair of goggles and a swim cap and swimming through the air. Still, I somehow prefer it to a treadmill. Call me crazy.

169 Avenue de Choisy

This is the "balcon" of our future apartment near the Place d'Italie in Paris, France. What better place, conflation of all things French and Italian, with Chinatown nearby with its bubble tea joints and cheap Vietnamese eats? Not only that, the apartment faces southwest. This marvel bears repeating. IT FACES SOUTHWEST. Avenue de Choisy. Even the name sounds charming.

There's a lot of work to be done before we can sigh and collapse contentedly onto the tiny little couch in the tiny living room.

All the same, feel free to come on over for a cup o' coffee. Or a glass of wine, depending on the hour. We'll be here anytime from early September to late June, ready to pour.

Moonwalking

We went for a walk last night. The sun was going down, but the moon was already so bright, you could hardly look at it. A paper-punch hole (not quite perfectly round) with piercing white-light blazing through. On the other side of the sky, all sorts of crazy colors, which interacted with Lake Hiawatha, slipping around in oily dips of light. Yes, the sky - there was this patch of orange that looked so enormous, it could have been a continent. I don't think I've ever seen that color anywhere else before and may never again. Karl said, I've been starved for this kind of thing for a while. I understood perfectly but didn't say much. He said, what's Paris like? Does it have this or that, green spaces or lakes? What's it like when you get further out? Where do the musicians live? (Laughed heartily at that.) He thinks I know everything about that city. I guess I have a few more images in my mind than he, but it is so vast, unpredictable and wild. So, I hesitate to respond fully. We will discover it together, I say.

...because you do not ask

I am learning this. Slowly.

For one, the apartment. A housing opportunity that arrives in my email inbox, seemingly unbidden, and turns out to be the exact sort of place we need and earnestly want. A south-facing balcony and no extra fees? The largest apartment I've seen for the price, with a reasonable security deposit for once? It seems almost too easy, but then I remember: I asked for this months ago. Another case in point: Karl's 28th birthday today. Despite few provisions and little time, even the sun alters his agenda to come out for the occasion, in favor of smiling upon a rather impressive assembly of friends and family drunk on happy occasion and lilac smells. What a night. He's asleep on the couch with his mouth hanging open, and I'm beaming around me at the littered tables. What a glorious thing. And then I remember: this was something I had asked for. It was this afternoon, while hanging desperately on the phone line with several friends at once, aimlessly wishing for something to come together, I finally put it in the right set of hands, asking Him to make something excellent come about. And this, our pleasure, is the work of His grace. Happy and tired, what else is there to do but just say thanks?

(Thanks.)