With all the bellyaching I’ve been doing here lately, I feel the least I can do is throw you, my readers, a small bone today. Even if it’s a brittle one. From a less than choice part of the animal. With most of the meat chewed off. And–wow. How do I cross the chasm from that odiferous (and rather odious) metaphor to my far more fragrant subject matter?

With a harebrained compositional leap, that’s how.

It’s lavender season chez nous! Our plant, after a year of looking like a plastic version of its ubiquitous living counterparts, has come out of its cryogenic phase and actually bloomed! It happened almost overnight, and man, does it bring a little cheer to our currently somewhat dour household. I may be feeling barren and over the hill; Mike may be coming up on a hiatus of unknown length; our savings may be about to take a precipitous drop; superbugs may be gaining ground in hospitals across the country; the weather may be Wuthering Heights bleak, but these little blooms, dark purple, statuesque, and ruffled like Spanish ladies of old, bring true satisfaction.

And the smell? Delectable. Particularly in the rain. Maybe every cloud does have a silver lining.

Or at least a purple one.