After several less-than-subtle hints from my encouraging friends and family I am – at last!- going to write a new post! I’m constantly formulating entertaining and important things to share on here, but then I get nervous and can’t do it. I think the last semester killed any sort of joy from writing for me, but maybe if you all are a very kind audience it will become fun again. Deal?  

 I am reading (or rather, suffering through) Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur  at the moment. I think one of the most hilarious recurring themes is that the knights frequently venture out into the forest and come upon a forester and say, “Fair fellow, knowest thou in this country any adventures that are hereby?” I might ask the forester where I could find a gas station, but Sir Kay and Sir Gawain ask where they could find an adventure, as if an adventure were a concrete and quantifiable thing. (Incidentally, the forester will always reply in the affirmative and point the way to dragons and other enchantments.) How can you be so guaranteed of an event that you can call it an adventure before it has even happened? However, I stand corrected about the intangible nature of adventures after today. This morning my mother-in-law called and asked if I could accompany my younger brother-in-law to Elkton, Md., to a traffic court trial for which he was subpoenaed as a witness. She promised me it would be an adventure so I agreed to it. I arrived in Elkton at the appointed time and called my brother-in-law to find out where I should meet up with him. He told me he was in the parking lot of the courthouse, and I told him I was also in the parking lot of the courthouse….he told me he was standing up and waving, and I likewise told him I was standing up and waving…but we couldn’t see each other. I told him go on in and that hopefully I would be able to see him once he was inside. I went on into the courthouse, was cleared through security and looked around for him frantically but I still couldn’t see him! In desperation I asked the security guards who informed me that I was at the wrong courthouse for traffic court. After finding the correct courthouse I finally found him inside and we had a good laugh because apparently we had each parked at a different courthouse and he had apparently made the same mistake I did but had a several-minute start on me so that we kept crossing paths. And in the end he didn’t even need to testify. The judge explained that the defendant (who hadn’t yielded the right-of-way to my brother-in-law and consequently totaled his car) had apparently been charged with the incorrect violation for her offense so he had to declare her not guilty, even though she obviously was. We were confused, to say the least. And it was quite an adventure as promised. 

Well, today I have two negative experiences to share and one positive experience. The first negative experience was too horrific to share and involved my eye doctor, so we will move to the second. 2. Once upon a time I met my downstairs neighbor about four days after I moved into my apartment. Said neighbor did not offer any sort of greeting or welcome, but flatly informed me that the floor was very thin and that she was going to be very angry if I were loud. This made me very angry (just because I’m young doesn’t mean I’m inconsiderate of noise levels!) and I have avoided her ever since. Well. This evening as we were cooking supper and listening to some sedate music we heard a very loud knock. We both ran to the peep hole of our front door and couldn’t see anyone. We shrugged and went back to chopping onions. But then we heard the knock again, and again and still we could see no one outside of our door from our peephole. I (who watches too many Quentin Tarantino movies) briefly considered that an assassin must be crouching underneath and dodging the peephole and waiting for me to open the door, but then I realized that the knocking was actually coming from underneath us. Apparently our downstairs neighbor disapproved of our selection of Vivaldi and felt the appropriate method for communication was banging on her ceiling. Though we would willingly would shut off our music if asked politely, I refused to respond to such rude treatment and didn’t touch the volume. Nathan remarked that this seemed to him very typical of “neighbor” behavior and I agreed that neighboring with someone brings out unnaturally territorial gestures. Why is it that we don’t offer the same courtesies to our literal neighbors – either those next to us in an apartment, on a bus, etc., that we might offer to people we met randomly in a shop or elsewhere? Have you ever had unneighborly neighbors?   And now, a pleasant thing: 1. This evening I saw my husband distractedly mumbling in front of our laptop and ignorant of the fact that he was spilling cream on the table. I peered over his shoulder and discovered that he was reading Song of Songs aloud in Swedish. Yes, Swedish. He is now reading from the Wycliffite Bible aloud. Isn’t he darling? 

I know, I know, really lame to post quiz results for my second-ever post. However, I did think this was a particularly fun and enlightening quiz, so hurry up and take it already and let’s compare results. I’m pleased (though not surprised) that I match up with Augustine and not Jonathan Edwards. Where do you fall theologically? (And check back for a public service announcement later this morning!)

Which theologian are you?created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as AugustineYou have a big view of God and also take human sin and depravity very seriously. Predestination is important for you. Anselm 73% Augustine 73% Karl Barth 67% Friedrich Schleiermacher 67% Jürgen Moltmann 60% Martin Luther 60% John Calvin 60% Paul Tillich 27% Charles Finney 7% Jonathan Edwards 7%

What ho, world! Here I am, back to try my hand at blogging. I assume that, to begin with, most of my readers will probably be related to me, but if I do happen to acquire a wider readership the “About Me” section should hopefully fill in the necessary details.  So – here’s how we’ll play: 

• 1. I’m anonymous. I decided to go this route firstly to be prudent and secondly to enable me to whine (when necessary) about my students, my classes, my jobs, my weird former life, my hatred for bad literature, etc. So, if you happen to be a friend or relative, do be a dear and try not give away my name, address or social security number or anything like that. 
• 2. I’ve decided not to concern myself too much about the technical mechanics of writing. Commas, shmommas.
•  3.  Let’s blog about a bunch of issues related to daily life. Specifically, I’d like to center posts around the theme of “seasons” of life – what season are you in? How are you dealing with/relishing it? What could we learn from each other? This explains the “Seasons” part of my user name. 
• 4. The “Strawberry” part was suggested to me by my dear friend Audrey Mango owing to my love of all things strawberry-flavored. Tehehe!

Sound good? So, let’s have fun.  How are you today?