Last night, after putting AJ to bed, I sat outside in the cool almost-dark, watching the last glimmer of light on the horizon. The frogs were chirping in the stream and I heard the sounds of the neighborhood kids still playing in a yard down the street. It was Friday night and it was starting to feel like summer. I sat reading and sipping a mint julep � this may become my new annual tradition, a combination of an homage to Derby day and the fact that this is the time of year when the mint growing along the driveway starts to get unruly. I�ve never had a mint julep previously, but I figured with mint, bourbon and sugar, how could you go wrong?

My momentary peace was broken by a group of kids pouring out of the bar up the hill after a party, all screaming ear-piercingly into the dark over the unexpected appearance of some wild animal or another. I dove inside and attempted to think of something interesting to say about Beethoven�s 5th symphony beyond the tried and true �fate knocking at the door.�

I got out the door early this morning (fate must have stayed up too late drinking mint juleps to try to prevent my exit) to work at our annual neighborhood plant sale. Those with extra perennials donated them. I hauled about 30 plants up the hill in AJ�s little red wagon and came home with 10 of my neighbors� plants. My shade rock garden, which I started last year after pulling up an incredible array of weeds, is now looking quite respectable with tall fronds of ferns, corydalis, sweet woodruff, lamium, and tons of trillium and jack-in-the-pulpit.

At 10 we took AJ to his second soccer practice, which I think will be his last. Although he was beyond excited to go, he did not handle the event well at all. He got distressed first when the coach failed to understand his question and again during a game where the coach had the kids try to steal each other�s balls, burst into tears, ran off the field and refused to return. I think perhaps he�s still too literal-minded to understand the difference between playing a game and general life behavior, although I worry a bit about his tendency to give up on things quickly if he can�t do them as well as he would like. Still, at four, there is no point in playing if it�s not going to be fun. He came home and dug holes for me in the garden and played a very thoroughly announced game of soccer with an invisible opponent in the yard.

I�ll be spending mother�s day at my brother-in-law�s where we�re celebrating all the moms, my mother-in-law�s birthday, which is Tuesday, and the return of my sister-in-law who got back last night from her three-and-a-half-month-long round-the-world cruise (I don�t think I could have put any more hyphens in that sentence if I had tried).

And know, fate returns, knocking frantically. Time to put this Beethoven lecture to bed.

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