Good things from Charleston

• Bike riding.  The weather here is fully spring-like, and we're doing a lot of biking.  In the last couple of days several different people have said, "Oh, I saw you on your bike!"  One friend said she gets a vicarious sense of peacefulness from seeing me in my present-in-the-moment bike zone.  I think the pleasant weather has made the drivers less pissy, too, so I've been cursed at very little over the last week or so.
• The permeable colleague-friend boundary.  I've told two different job candidates over the last week that one of the great things about the College of Charleston is that there are a lot of folks here you'll want to be friends with.  And in general, faculty here seem eager to make new friends and to connect.  I had some challenging stuff going on yesterday and spent the morning with one friend and the evening with another--both friends who I met because I work with them.  Having my day bookended that way was quite wonderful.
• Maybelle.  I know a lot of you read the blog for Maybelle news, so here's a tidbit from her world:  she is quite the amazing communicator.  These days she's becoming more and more vocal.  With a little bit of coaching, she'll say things like, "I want to go to the store."  All those words, many of them actually understandable.  Food is a big motivator for her, and in the last couple of days she's learned to read the words "peach" and "strawberry" so that we can create more detailed sentences about the yogurt she's eating (sentences such as "I like eating peach yogurt").  One more tidbit:  she's truly a good reader, and I've been telling her so.  She's decided that the phrase "good reader!" is applicable to any number of situations, so this morning, when I was getting her out of bed, I said, "Good morning!" and she said, "Good reader!"