Appalachia Year

I talked Sjanneke into breakfast at Casa with me this morning, and smelling the smells that were steaming off my breakfast plate was nothing short of a religious experience. I would also like to point out that Sjanneke is genuinely this excited about things 90% of the time. It is pretty wonderful. Yesterday, she held up a couple oversized bobby pins laying on my desk like they were moon rocks, and asked with awestruck reverence, "Where did you get these?"

Athens is really a sight in the fall, but I imagined that once the gray of winter hit, my visits from out-of-town friends would taper off. But as I hamster-wheeled at the gym today, in the glass-paneled atrium overlooking Appalachia, the snow was sticking to the hills and outlining the tree branches and I couldn't wait to hop off my elliptical machine and trudge home through Narnia.