Eight years ago a special girl-child was born.
A cousin from Sweden came over a few months later and said, "When I look into her eyes I can tell that she has a special soul." Being as this was spoken by a beautiful European, I've always felt it to be gospel truth -- a sort of Norse blessing.
This special soul went about today enthusiastically fulfilling her eight acts of service required by our family tradition (see here, here, and here). After stopping by Trader Joe's we were ready to go... The services were:
1. She selected some wholesome, non-perishable items and we found a homeless man that she handed the bag to. He was so sweet and said, "Have a good day," and then it was like a switch flipped, and his entire face lit up as he smiled the most enormous smile, and said, "Have a LOVELY day." He seemed so please that he had bestowed a "lovely" day upon us. We were just as pleased.
2. We delivered a treat to a family we know who has sick teenagers. Last night she overheard the sister of the sick boys say that her brothers were craving ice cream because their throats have been sore. The Girl thought we should buy some chicken noodle soup, two tubs of ice cream, and a sweet little orchid to cheer them up. Of course ideally this would have been a doorbell-ditch/secret service, but we had to let them know that we were coming because of the fragile nature of ice cream, and because they live 20 blocks away and we didn't want to walk all the way there, and not have anybody attend to our buzzing... When we got there the mom not only popped out to give The Girl a big birthday hug, but also some candy. This evening when the family ate the ice cream we received a thank-you text that said very thoughtful things about The Birthday Girl. It's the little things...
3. A friend of ours that lives in the building has been away on a work assignment for over six weeks. She is returning on Saturday and the kids decided to decorate her door. We happened to have a Bruegel poster that, in true Bruegel style, shows a village scene with all kinds of silly antics happening. The kids sat at the table, and using labels to create little conversation bubbles they left all sorts of silly messages. Things like: "I got drunk because I'm so excited that [friend] is coming home!" (stuck by the man that is passed out and being carried). Ah. Good times.
4. The Girl spent some time and a great deal of colored-pencil lead drawing a picture for the entire family.
5. The kids wrote chalk messages in the park. The Girl told The Boy that the messages were to be about saving animals... He interpreted that as: "Belive in Bigfoot," etc.
6. Lots of soggy (it rained heavily last night) trash was picked up in the park.
7. The animals in the petting zoo were loved and fed.
8. We brought extra quarters to the petting zoo because she wanted to give them to kids who might want to feed the animals, but didn't have the means to buy the food (we've been in that boat before). There weren't any candidates, so The Girl came up to me with twinkling eyes and said, "I'm just going to put the quarters in the machine, so it will be a secret service!" She stealthily went over and put the quarters in, and then returned to pet the matted sheep. A couple of minutes later from across the way we heard The Boy shout: "Hey guys! Guess what I just found?!"
The zoo WAS lovely. The trees are blooming, it wasn't crowded, and we were there when the clock was chiming.
9. Bonus: walking back through the park we heard bagpipes. We followed the sound to the Balto statue, where a man was standing and blowing for all he was worth. I whispered to The Girl that these were birthday bagpipes. She and The Boy each put a dollar in the "hat" to let the piper know that while some don't appreciate the beauty of the controlled wheezing and moaning, we are not them. He would have earned himself an extra dollar if he'd sprung for the kilt.
The bagpiping was just one of many cosmic birthday gifts. Things like the red panda, who is often asleep, being active, and the penguin who came up and about kissed the glass in front of The Birthday Girl's face. Within the park there was an additional gift: the Sheep Meadow has finally been opened. First the kids ran, and then they rolled. And then we noticed all the poop from the birds/animals who have been allowed to hang out all winter without humans scaring them away...
She went to her pottery class ("I'm so lucky my favorite thing is on my birthday!"), and then The Dad met us and we went to dinner. When we got home we had sundaes and she opened her gifts. The Sister wrapped hers in newspaper and then painted sweet pictures on the front. This inspired The Boy, so he also wrapped his creatively. He made her pottery tools by decorating skewers and putting them in a fabric pouch that he sewed with the sewing machine, and a mini pottery wheel (out of clay), so she can take it along when she travels. He wrapped the skewers to look like a candy bar, and the mini pottery wheel to look like a tea cup (think: swan made out of tinfoil to bring left-overs home from restaurants).
The entire day had a feeling of warmth, and creativity, and thoughtfulness. She did an earnest job with her services -- and hopefully has been reminded that the world is better (people's lives are better/animals (and Bigfoot) are more secure), because she was born. Today was about as lovely as a day can get. And I'm convinced more, with every passing year, that she has a special soul.
