Anyone who has ever had a penpal or shared a post office box with someone or has participated in a gift exchange with a stranger will understand my feeling right now.

I arrived home tonight to a box sitting outside my door.

My breath caught. “Could it possibly be?” I thought.

Could it be that my Yarn Aboard box had arrived?

Alas, no.

The box was for Rudi. I’m sure it contains something very Beatley or very Mac-y. I’m certain he’ll be delighted when he walks in the door in ten minutes.

But for me the anticipation remains unabated. Will I never receive my drill or radio box?

How hard it is to be patient …

Update: Rudi just arrived home to explain that the box contained a present for me. How silly of me to be disappointed. What did it contain, you ask. A replacement inaugural season Nationals pennant Rudi won off eBay for me. Mine disappeared from my office one night (it had fallen to the ground once before; maybe someone thought I didn’t want it anymore?). What a great guy!

Sunday, it was hard to believe there was a better place on earth to be besides the Tidal Basin. Poetry comes in so many forms:

Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now
~ A.E. Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy spring a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.