"Bravo"

Grey branch, grey squirrel; brown sere leaves, brown crust of pizza: almost perfect camouflage even through binoculars--but why is that black pearl eye trained on me?

Popovers--second batch. Quarter rule. Ten minutes prep. Not crisp and hard outside, puffy and hollow inside, but with brown, leathery hide and white, spongy (tasty) interior. Was the oven not hot enough to harden the top and trap the air? Let's try again later.

A tour, with Dulu's tutee, of crocuses blooming in the side yard; daffodils, stiff green stalks with swollen yellowish tips ready to split into blossom; squat hyacinths rising like a battery of rockets.

Consider these simple and pleasant Sunday morning discoveries vis-a'-vis the ecstatic essay I read in the MIT newspaper The Tech on my way home from my Wednesday tour of that school. It was written by Adam Freeman, graduate student in environmental engineering, about a SRO seminar by Professor Andrei Linde of Stanford to celebrate the recent Bicep2 findings strongly supporting the theory of cosmic inflation conceived by MIT professor Alan Guth and enhanced by Linde.

"I am writing to describe  what it was like to sit in on a lecture that I did not understand but that changed my life," he wrote in the April 1 issue.

"And the craziest thing of all is that despite not understanding a single thing that this professor said during the course of his one hour seminar, I was captivated by the magnitude, integrity and staggering accomplishment of the moment."

"Celebratory spirit...pride in the air...a humbling experience..."

"It was awe-inspiring to be in the presence of such profound truth worn on the face of a man (Linde) who himself was so obviously overwhelmed with genuine honest joy, as he soaked in the grandeur of the moment."

"The pervasive feeling that together we continue our march towards universal discovery and truth as indelibly imprinted on my own identity that day, and having felt it, I am not longer the same...Thank you, Newton [et al]. You have inspired current and future generations of those who dare to question, to answer and to dream. Bravo."

This young man's encounter with the man and the common mission speaks for itself. The livingness of exploration glows from every word. Oh, to live like that daily (if one could survive.)