Rudi and I have known each other since we were sophomores in college — more than a third of our lifetimes now — and I’m more in love with him now than when we first started dating our senior year.

He loves to bike and ski and excels at both. I frankly think he’s crazy to want to strap boards to his feet and hurtle down a hillside at 30 miles an hour or to ride a bike up any sort of incline for excruciating distances, but I’m delighted that he finds such joy in it. I know Rudi wishes I would share his love of these activities, so he’s always happy when I suggest he accompany me on a ride, even when he knows that he will have to ride backwards and with only one leg in order to keep up with my slow pace and tendency toward “Sunday riding.”

To relax, he likes to cook and I am the lucky and eager taste-tester for dishes he whips up in the kitchen. He is gifted in that he can taste (and identify) individual flavors and can often reconstruct dishes I’ve enjoyed in restaurants just by playing around in the kitchen. He loves almost all types of food (except untoasted marshmallow) and I know that he limits his culinary scope by omitting the meats that I don’t eat.

He loves music. Rudi’s tastes are eclectic and he enjoys lots of different types of music, although the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and (to a lesser extent) Pink Floyd remain favorites. He loves concerts and would attend as many as his budget allowed if he had the time. His cd collection is extensive (and his digital download archive is growing), and he’s happy to recommend new artists you might like or even to lend you his cds to take home. He was an early proponent of the iPod, buying us a pair to celebrate our both finally being employed here in D.C., to the envy of all my new coworkers.

Rudi also loves politics. He likes watching talking heads, reading tracts, and dissecting theories. He’s not afraid to argue with anyone and, indeed, is really now the political one in the family. (Stop laughing, guys. I’m serious!) It’s been fascinating to watch his interest in international affairs turn toward domestic policy over the last decade.

He laughs with gusto and his amusement is apparent to anyone who shares a comedy with us at the movie theater. It makes my soul skip with joy whenever I say something witty enough to make him chortle.

Kind and loving and sweet, Rudi’s a loyal friend (even when exasperated by behavior he doesn’t understand). He’s far from perfect, but he is wonderful and I’m lucky to have him in my life.

Happy birthday, dear. I hope you have lots of fun today on your day off. May the hills come easily and may the tunes truly rock.

(Birthday salutations can be left at his blog. I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear from you.)

This weekend looks to be another busy one:

• Eat snacks from as many European nations as possible
• Attend Nationals game Sunday afternoon
• Buy airport card for new-to-me computer
• Ride bike
• Garden (my entryway does not have the best growing conditions for the five tomatoes plants currently residing there)
• Go to farmers’ market for more strawberries and asparagus
• Get to post office to mail packages (I won’t share how belatedly)
• Clean apartment (the horror!)
• Do laundry
• Catch up with friends Sunday evening
• Knit
• Read
• Relax (why does this one always come at the end of the list?)

Also, don’t forget to leave some perishable goods by your mailbox today for your postal carrier to take for Stamp out Hunger. The food banks in your community — and the people who use them — will thank you.

The odds are good that if you spend much of your walk home thinking about what you should blog about fate will provide a topic.

I arrived home to find that I couldn’t unlock the basement door. Neither could the girl from upstairs. Nor could Rudi.

The landlord sent over our handyman, who did manage to get the door open, but we spent quite a bit of time sitting out on the front stoop first this evening.

Luckily, those of us who live in cities tend to be paranoid about things like this. We all know people who’ve gotten stuck in elevators, on the Metro, in traffic. It’s a rare day when I leave the house without iPod, book, and knitting because you just never know. So I was not lacking in entertainment options for my time outside.

And it totally could have been worse. It wasn’t raining. And I thought to pee before I left the office…

Even fate isn’t that cruel.

Yesterday’s tragedy at Virginia Tech University has lowered a dark cloud over the sun. I can’t help but feel great sadness — for the victims, for the families, for the students, for the faculty and administrators, for the community, for the shooter… For all of us, really…

There is so much anger — and so much sadness. There is such pain. Always so much pain.

My soul aches for it. I, like so many, feel helpless in the face of such emotion.

I cannot raise the dead or heal the wounded. I cannot erase the terror of not knowing if you will live or die — or if your child or friend or parent or sibling was one of the unlucky ones to face down a gun. I cannot return peace of mind. I cannot get a young man the help he needed so badly that he thought his pain could only be alleviated in such a tremendously awful way.

I cannot work what must now be considered miracles.

Now, I can do only small things.

Much like after the terrible events of 9/11, I have turned off the tv. I do not want to hear the terrified phone calls made to 911. I do not want to see weeping parents show photos of happy, hopeful teenagers cut down in the prime of life. I do not want to hear what it was like to be in a classroom when someone I might have known walks in with the intent to wreak armed havoc. I do not want to see the despairing faces of campus officials who have to figure out how to make life safe again for their students. I do not want to hear theories that describe a boy as a madman and that search for the one defining moment in his background that allowed this to happen.

Their pain will not be commuted by my bearing constant witness to it.

My pain that we live in a world where things like this can happen will not be lessened through omnipresent news coverage.

I cannot raise the dead. I cannot right the past missteps. I can only look forward — inward and outward — and learn from the past.

I want to laugh. I have wrapped the idea of humor around me like a cloak. It cannot block the cold world outside, but it can lessen the effect. Yes, tears now chill our souls through but, in time, I hope the laughter emerges victorious.

I want to knit, to create. I cannot bring sunshine back to the world, but I can help to create something that is purposeful and beautiful and made with kindness.

I want to seek out friends and family. Whether to sit with them in quiet or to drink with them in noise, it matters not. It is enough to know there are loved ones out there forming a safe community to see me through these dark, cold days.

I want to say thank you for being part of my community and for letting me be part of yours. Some of you I know; many I do not. Yet you have bravely invited me into your homes to share your joys and your sorrows, the mundane and the extraordinary. There is life and hope behind your words — and it bolsters my belief that we will all survive this each in our own way.

Be gentle with one another. Walk softly and care deeply. Take care of yourselves and of your loved ones. Find what makes you feel safe and hopeful. Know that you matter and that I am glad you are here.

Peace be with you.

What’s on tap for your weekend? I’d like mine to include a combination of fun and necessary activities:

• Clear the garden. It’s time to tackle it so that if it ever warms up, I can plant things.
• Do my taxes. Will I owe? Will I not? The weekend’s cliffhanger ending…
• Hit the farmers’ market. Rumor has it that there will be ramps. Don’t tell Rudi I told you.
• Watch some videos. We have Because of Winn Dixie and Kinky Boots to view. It’s supposed to pour on Sunday, so I’m thinking that will be a good time for it.
• Get through the heel of my Bloomin Feet sock. Once I know what to expect for sock #2, I’ll feel better about actually finishing in time for our May Day deadline.
• Visit the post office. I have some things to send out. Maybe once I’ve got the taxes finished…
• Borrow some new books from the library. The last batch was unexciting. Maybe I’ll cross-reference my list of your suggestions ahead of time to streamline the process.
• Bake. Either cupcakes or cookies sound awfully appealing.
• Embark upon belated top-secret art project.
• Check out Asian-themed Cherry Blossom Street Festival.

Suddenly I feel very tired. I’m thinking I’d best get to bed so I have enough energy to attempt everything on this list!

Thursday afternoon I received an email from a stranger. He’d gotten my name off a waiting list I put myself on nearly four years ago. Would I be interested in a half-plot in the local community garden?

I didn’t have to think. Yes! I wrote back. Yes!

A half-plot of land all our own! A little 5′x10′ plot (we guessed) that, for all intensive purposes would belong to us…

I floated on air. Rudi and I talked tomatoes. I called Gramma and we debated short-term vs. long-term plants. We were so excited.

So Saturday morning I traipsed seven blocks to the garden and met Kevin, the garden coordinator. He pointed me to my plot.

Folks, it’s not 5′x10′. It’s 15′×15′! (He told me 10′x15′ but because it’s in the corner I actually think it’s larger than some of the others.) It’s bigger than my bedroom. It’s more than a quarter of the size of the whole Burrow.

The plot is in the southwest corner of the garden and will get full sun until early afternoon, at which point it will get some shade from an overhanging tree and the vines that grow on the fence.

There are still some living plants in the garden — lavender and mint, as well as a few that my friend Eri is going to ask her dad to identify. Otherwise, it looks like ‘most everything else has gone by the bye, including the milkweed.

But sufficed to say, we have a lot of land to play with. We can plant anything we want. Tomatoes and herbs and some squash and fall bulbs are definitely in the plans. Anyone have any suggestions of what you’d plant if someone suddenly offered you a lovely plot of land?

The foot (prime) marks show up with an extra space after them when viewed in Firefox. I can’t figure out why, but they look fine in Safari, so I’m assuming it’s a programmatic bug and not me.