a glorious moment

We had spent the past hour or so driving, walking, talking, and smoking.  We listened to music, we exchanged gifts, we tested the ice on the pond.  (It creaked a bit.)
He gave me a novel-length note.  Halfway through reading it I realized he was on one knee.  By the third time he asked, I was able to stop crying long enough to say yes.
The ring is beautiful.

emma's story (a guest post)

This morning I left my house at 7:28 am to walk to the bus stop in the snow (yes, I take the bus). The snow was not very deep yet, but there was just enough of it to make the roads wet and slippery, and so I shuffled my feet along cautiously to avoid any embarassment. Even so, I was wearing flats (which do not grip well on anything, never mind snow), and so by accident I slid a few feet across the cross walk. After regaining my equilibrium and continuing to walk, I suddenly heard the voice of my next-door neighbor, a little old lady with curly grey hair, whose face had appeared in her now-open window. I speak to my neighbor on a few occasions, but mostly all I ever hear her say is "Hello."
"Be careful!" she called out to me this morning in an adamant tone. "Don't slip, or you'll have a wet butt for school!"
She closed her window, and that was that,

my clumsy self

I loved doing the trash run at the bakery.  It was an opportunity to escape the non-air conditioned store for a few minutes, breathe the cool outside air and stretch my legs.
On this particular day, the load included, among other things, several bags that once held flour.  In trying to shove them over the top of the dumpster, one upended and dumped the remainder of its contents right in my face.  I was wearing all black.
I was wearing all black no longer.

Also, flour is a choking hazard.

a performing professor

On the first day of class, my professor called roll, making comments on the various names and asking us about nicknames, etc etc.  All very ordinary and typical.
Then he arrived at my name.
"Molly Malone."
"Here."  I raised my hand.
He stopped and peered at me over his glasses.
"Did your parents know..."
"No, they didn't know," I replied quickly, "but I know.  I know about the restaurants and bars and hotels and songs by name.  I know."
I love my name, but I don't prefer to have class time taken up discussing its sheer awesomeness.  It can become very distracting.
"Would you like to sing your song for the class?"  He seemed genuinely excited about the idea.
"Ah, no, I'd rather not."
"Fine then, I will!"
Thus the class was treated to a somewhat off-key rendition of "Molly Malone" by our short, roundish professor on the first day of class.
Thankfully he only sang the first verse.

far too friendly

They tell you not to joke around when you go through security at an airport.  Don't talk about bombs, knives, guns, or make jokes with the security personnel.  Take off your shoes, drop your keys in the grey bucket, and don't make a ruckus.

Apparently, the TSA agents themselves have different instructions.

I handed him my ID and boarding pass.  He raised one eyebrow when he looked at it and checked it several times.  

"Your name is Molly Malone?"

"Yes, sir."  I replied, praying my name wasn't on some list of "most wanted bloody violent terrorists" somewhere.

"Molly Malone?"

"Yes?"  I was becoming less sure of myself at this point.

"Hm."  He frowned at it, then looked up at me.

Then he smirked.  

"There's a great bar called Molly Malone's here."  He handed back my ID, laughing at my worry-ridden expression.  "Check it out sometime."

a tender-hearted movie-goer

Every time something vaguely poignant happened in the film, I heard some sort of "aww" from the row in front of me.  The occupant of the seat was a young man in his early 20s.
Annoyed with his constant noise, I glanced over on one of these "aww" occasions.  Every time he said it he snuggled his popcorn.
After that I was too busy laughing to be annoyed.

a perceptive partner

I took a social dance class.  The first day of class, as I moved from partner to partner, I made an effort to learn all their names.  One partner was a bit more ambitious.
"Hello," He greeted me.
"Hello."
He looked me up and down.
"Let me guess, you're kind of an artsy type, you like odd music, and you watch films, not movies."

He was exactly right.

a generous stranger

I try to talk to customers when I can, make conversation, be friendly.
"Hello," I greeted her, "I love your skirt!"
"Well, thanks!"  She replied.
Someone else helped her make her purchase.  She left.

An hour later I was taking my turn at the register.  She walked back in, now in jeans, put a paper bag on the counter, and whispered to me, "This is for you."
Inside was the skirt.

a clean classmate

The class in our room before us had left a box of donut holes at the front of the room.  As my class was about to start, we passed around the box, enjoying the unexpected treat.
I finished mine as the professor started lecturing, and began opening a document on my laptop in which to take notes.
"Psst!"
The student behind me hailed me none-too-subtly.
I turned and glanced at him, trying not to disrupt class.
"Your hands are dirty!  You need this so you won't get germs on your laptop!"
Before I could respond he tossed me a small bottle of hand sanitizer.  Somewhat creeped out, I opened the bottle and upended it to put a bit in my palm.  Eager to be of service, my classmate mimed rubbing his hands together so that I would know what to do with the substance I now held.
Finished, I handed back the bottle and mouthed the words "Thank you," still a bit confused by his gesture.
Smiling, he held his hands up to his nose.
I frowned, confused.
He repeated the gesture, whispering, "smell your hands!"
I turned back to my laptop, somewhat disturbed.

He caught me after class.
"Did you recognize that smell?"  He asked eagerly.
"No, uh, no, I didn't."
"It's rosemary!"
Delighted with himself, he scurried away down the hall.

random hugs are nice

I was at a college basketball game.  There was a guy in the first women's restroom I tried.  In an effort to avoid embarrassing him, I slipped out and walked down to the next one on the hall.
Half an hour later, I was walking down the hall again during a time out.  A young man hailed me.
"Hey, can you tell my friend here where the men's restroom is?"
Perplexed, I turned and was about to point out the restrooms ten feet from where we stood when in recognized the fellow's friend as the guy I had seen in the women's restroom earlier.
"The men's bathroom is right there."  I pointed it out.  "Don't confuse it with the women's restroom, which is over there.  There was a guy in there earlier, you wouldn't want to embarrass yourself like that."
Realizing I had seen him, the fellow's eyes widened and he began to laugh.  Wrapping me in a huge bear hug he thanked me heartily and left, almost crying from laughter.

a starbucks homecoming

It was nearing the end of the second day I had been home.  I had been gone for a full week.
The two of us walked to Starbucks.  We met another friend.  Bear hugs were exchanged.
We chose a table, just the two of us.
For the next two hours we covered it all.  Friends, children, siblings, homework, saline, gingerbread, and elephant seals.  We groaned, laughed, rolled our eyes, and received text messages.
After mulling over the problems of our small world we determined that we could solve none of them.  After some thought we decided that the Christmas blend would not be improved by the addition of mistletoe.  After two hours we still had so much to say.

nicole's story (a guest post)

I wrote a song for my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary.  It was short and sweet and sounded like it belonged in the 1950s.

When I was in the studio recording it, the engineer put up a screen in front of the mic.  "It's a popper-stopper," he said.  "It is to make sure you don't pop your p's."

"Oh," I responded immediately, without even thinking.  "There are no p's in the song," I told him.  

He read the lyrics and looked askance at me.  There really were no p's.

california thanksgiving

He is five years old.  He wears blue glasses and his hair is very straight and brown.  He is high energy, loves trains, and really likes the movie Happy Feet.

I am twenty-one.  My socks never match and my hair is reddish and unruly.  My energy comes in fits and starts, I love stories, and really like drinking coke.

We are fast friends.

a fabulous family

We were gathered around the dinner table the night before I left for a week of Thanksgiving vacation with my boyfriend's family.  I have five siblings.  It is a fairly large family.
It was the first holiday my entire family would not be together and everyone felt rather ceremonial and solemn.  My mother made a point of getting everyone's attention and saying a few words about the transition our family was going through and how important it all was.
"Does anyone have anything they would like to say to Molly before she goes?"  She asked.
Without missing a beat, my entire family says, in unison, "Bye Molly!"

an eager editor

I left a paper covered in my professor's notes in the campus Starbucks.  When I got it back, some other student had added his notes to the entire thing, suggesting edits and making comical remarks in the margins.

a friendly fellow

I was waiting in the airport for my plane to begin boarding.  A small boy sat beside me.  He played his DS for a while, laughing evilly every time he beat a bad guy and making all the sound effects himself.  Growing  bored of this he decided to take pictures, ask me what my favorite color was (which is green, even though I was wearing a blue scarf.  it's true.), and find out how old I am.
He and his mother boarded the plane before me.  When I passed them on my way to my seat, he patted the space by them saying, "sit here with us!"

serenade

Night was falling.  I was washing the front window of the bakery where I worked.
As I stood there, scrubbing away at the glass, a group of boys in their early teens approached on the sidewalk.  Distracted by mentally re-hashing the events of the day, I didn't pay them any attention.
Once they came to where I stood, they paused for a moment.  Then, as they turned to move on, they began to sing to me.
"This is the night, it's a beautiful night, and we call it bella notte!"

a well-meant wish

I was picking up donuts for my morning prayer group.  This was two days before Halloween.  Dunkin was giving out Halloween-themed reusable bags with adorable little spiders on them.  As my cashier tucked the Halloween bag in with my donuts he said,
"Have a good Christmas!"
He was serious.
Thanks, man, I'll remember to do that in a few months.

a confused customer

I was working at a bakery.  A customer approaches the counter and squints at various items on the shelves behind me.
She reads a sign.
"What are "breadsticks"?"
I blink.
"Beg pardon?"
"Breadsticks.  What are they?"
"Um.  Sticks... of bread."
"Oh!"  Her eyes brighten with understanding.  "I'll take three."

a bonkers barista

My friend and I sat in a coffee shop chatting.  The barista sat just outside finishing a smoke break in conversation with a friend.  He walks inside and we catch the end of his impassioned speech.

"Butterflies die every night and come to life in the morning!  So do unicorns!  So do sea urchins!"

chivalry happens

I was standing outside of the bakery waiting to be picked up after my shift.  Two young men approached, using foul language at high volume.  As they drew nearer, one of them noticed me and hit his friend.
"Hey man, shut up!  There's a lady there!"
When he reached the bakery, he nodded and greeted me.
"Sorry about that.  You have a nice night."
They didn't continue their conversation until they had reached the corner.

a bold bachelor

I was in physical therapy, recovering from Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis at the age of eighteen.

As I lay on the table performing my simple exercises, I watched all the old people shuffling around.  Then, I noticed one of them shuffling toward me.  He smiled at me, I smiled back, then he walked over to a nurse.
"Can I have a piece of paper?"  He asks.  "And a pen?"
She gave him what he asked for and he scrawled a few words.  Then he shuffled toward me again.  He was probably near ninety, and wizened as they come.
He handed me the piece of paper.
"Give me a call sometime."  He said, and winked.

The paper had his number on it.

A caring citizen

On the night of Barak Obama's first State of the Union Address, a group of my friends and I were standing around outside a McDonalds.  The Address was showing on the televisions inside.  A man emerges from the establishment shouting.
"Obama is in there giving his State of the Union speech and you're out here standing around!"
We stare.  He forges ahead.
"Obama is God!  I listen to everything he says!"
"What is he talking about?"  My friend calmly tries to make this an ordinary conversation.
"The State of the Union!"  He replies, still shouting.
"If he's God," My friend asks, "Why aren't you in there listening to him?"
"I'm streaming it on my iphone!"  The man exclaims, holding that particular piece of technology aloft proudly.
He begins to walk away across the parking lot.  Another member of the group repeats my friend's question.
"What is he talking about?"
The man shouts back an answer right before getting into his car.
"I don't know!"

A problem-solving professor

In the middle of her lecture, her phone rings.  It wasn't a particularly loud ring, or even a particularly annoying, but by virtue of ringing at all, the phone offended her.

Mid-sentence, my professor turns, snatches up her entire bag, opens the classroom door, and deposits the offending item in the hallway.

She shuts the door after it, turns back to the class, and continues teaching as if nothing had happened.

Five minutes later, she begins to frown a bit and seems distracted.

"I'm sorry, I'm kind of paranoid."

My professor opens the door and brings her bag safely back into class.