Flowers

Up early and ready for the day. Today we have our and the girls favorite translator. Her name is

Lay-nah (spelled Lena) Translators are very important to get across the finer points of what you are trying to say. Like one of the girls could be afraid of spiders. “Are there spiders where I am going?” With a good translator you can more easily say a two part answer. Yes there are spiders where we live but they are not in the house. I have always caught the different bugs, including spiders, and shared them with my children. “Dad's got another bug” is about how the refrain goes. With a good translator I can tell about my habit with the promise that while I enjoy the beauty of nature I will never scare you with it.

We have been wanting to bring the girls flowers. With spring just getting here the daffodils are beautiful and after four months of winter the color is stunning. So while on the way to their performance we stopped and bought flowers for each girl. We bought an odd number as is the custom. I got roses, because frankly, I had never seen long stems like these. Five for each, with heads as big as my fist and stems almost three feet long and as thick as my thumb. It was like carrying branches. When we arrived we took them in and the only place to put them was on a table right in front of us there was no way you could hide them.

It is a tradition in our family that whenever you are performing in a special performance you get flowers. We are proud of you. Both of your work to prepare and for how well you did in the performance. So I am thinking I wish I could hide these flowers so they will be a surprise. But I can't,We are on the front row as the somewhat” honored” guests and there is no place for them. So each bundle of flowers lay on the table.

After the performance we find the girls out in the hallway. They are excited and relieved to be done, there is a press of people and their groups will be going back to the rooms to change. Individually I gave them their flowers and they both simply did not know what to do. It evidently had never occurred to them that the flowers were for them. They were both so surprised. “For ME?”

I had wanted to surprise them. I had not realized with the flowers in plain sight that I was surprising them. The surprise was that those beautiful flowers were for them.