Midweek meanderings; or, my life as the bee's knees

April may be the cruellest month but it's also the craziest. So little time, so much to think about!

• I see on the Interwebs that the beehives on the roof of Notre-Dame Cathedral survived the fire but no one knows right now whether the colony of 150,000 bees survived (read it here). How wonderful to know that beehives were thriving in the heart of the city, and how wonderful if they managed to survive, which seems unlikely. 

• My little bee (the youngest grandchild--whose name literally means bee) keeps popping up in photos with that sparkling smile. When my daughter and son-in-law got engaged, everyone kept predicting that their future children would be bound to have curly hair and beautiful smiles, and these predictions proved pretty accurate. Goodness what an adorable family, if I do say so myself.
• I was smiling yesterday as I pushed the mower around the yard because, first, the weather was perfect for mowing--clear and sunny with a cool breeze--and, second, because my lawn appears to be about 50 percent violets right now, with a few random dandelions. All that purple is very cheery, especially when dotted with yellow, and many of the violets were low enough to escape the ravages of the mower.  
• That was my first time mowing since last fall, and I didn't have any problems--once I got the mower out of the garage. Those wonderful helpful men who repaired the tractor a few weeks ago neglected to move the tractor back out of the garage, so my mower was effectively blocked in. By the time I'd rearranged enough heavy, greasy, nasty dirty garage stuff to clear a narrow path to get my mower out of the garage, I was ready to call it a day, but then I had to mow.
• Speaking of growing things, I was delighted to see that Richard Powers' Overstory won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. For once I agree wholeheartedly with the Pulitzer committee. I was so overwhelmed by the wonderfulness of this novel that I haven't been able to find the words to express why it's so great, but it's good to see that I'm not the only one who thinks so. If you care about trees, people, or storytelling, you have to read it.
• I've just come from a meeting at which a scholar offered helpful guidance to a bunch of students via Skype, and it's a good thing we had a tech dude there because I wouldn't have known how to fix the minor problems that arose, but here's my concern: we were all enjoying a delicious lunch from an all-you-can-eat taco bar, but our distant colleague communicating via Skype could only watch us eat. Is that cruel and unusual punishment? 
• My next big task: packing for our trip to New York! Looks like we'll have to pack for just about every variety of weather. Wouldn't it be easier to stay home?

Little Bee on her birthday.