I think spider plants are a wonderful object lesson about forgiveness. Two of them live on the windowsill of my bedroom. One, Addercop, technically belongs to my roommate, but was entrusted to me under the (questionable) premise that I would take good care of it. The other is Shelob, one of Addercop’s offspring. Addercop is pretty big, with leaves of a foot or longer, while Shelob is still pretty puny.

Now, here’s the thing. I’m not really the kind of person that should be in charge of plants. I’m not really the kind of person that should be entrusted with the care of any object smaller than, say, a breadbox. I’m much too ADD. Any object that size or smaller is going to get lost, broken, or neglected sooner or later.

So as you might guess, until this morning, Addercop and Shelob hadn’t been watered in months. They were both drooping limply out of their pots, a dead brown slowly creeping up their leaves from the tips. A lot of leaves on both plants were completely withered away, leaving poor little Shelob pretty close to the end. If they had any motor skills at all, they’d probably act out melodramatic death scenes (“o, I am slain!”) or try to kill me with tiny papercuts for leaving them to starve to death.

But now, a few hours after their first watering of 2005, they’re already up off the mat. Addercop’s pushed his leaves up several inches and Shelob’s still got some green left in him. No matter how long or how often I abandon them, if I give them a little love, they respond. Who woulda thought a plant could be a Christ figure?

In case you were wondering. (I was pining for the fjords, but that’s another story.)

I just noticed how the band Cracker summarizes the late-graduate-school experience perfectly:

I see the light at the end of the tunnel now
Someone please tell me it’s not a train
I see the light at the end of the tunnel now
No time to speak, no time to explain

Pictures of Eleanor!

Didn’t I say she was adorable? That’s my sister Suzanne, Eleanor, and my brother-in-law Benjamin. See more pictures at Ben’s site.

At 9:33 this morning in Washington, D.C., Eleanor Park Smedberg was born, much to the relief of her mom Suzanne and her dad Benjamin. She weighs 6 lbs., 6 oz. and is 19 1/4 inches tall. At 9:40 AM, Grandma went out to the waiting room and told Pappy and Uncle Matt, who were having a lively and likely sleep-deprivation-induced political debate. They put aside the relatively unimportant issue of who should be president and greeted their new granddaughter / niece. There was a general, completely objective consensus that little Eleanor is absolutely adorable, with her mom and grandma’s nose and her dad’s chin (and perhaps feet). Many pictures were taken, some of which you, dear reader, may get to see. Eleanor will be going home with Mom and Dad later this week, and will no doubt be making her family’s life much more exciting from now on.

So my sister is about to have a baby any day now! The official due date is June 22nd (or so), but Suzanne says that the baby’s about as big as she’s gonna get and so we shouldn’t be too surprised if she comes Real Soon Now[TM]. She’ll be the first grandchild for Mom and Dad and my first niece (or nephew), so it’s very exciting. I’m keeping my cellphone charged and a full tank of gas in the car, ready to zoom up to Washington on short notice.

It’s strange how time can seem to pass so slowly– it seems like I’ve been struggling through graduate school for about 900,000 years– and then one day realize how much has gone in a heartbeat. My memories with my sister when we children are so vivid, they could have been yesterday…. that day we accidentally got locked in the attic and we had to go out the skylight to get out… that time when Bee McCall accidentally hit her with his bike, and I took her back home in tears… playing on Pappy’s boat up in Canada… and now she’s a responsible adult and teacher and wife and mother and everything. It’s remarkable.