Pretty Flowers

While I was in the midst of my thesis revisions, the neighborhood streets exploded into purple. It was sort of like autumn in purple: when the flowers fell of the trees, they sprinkled the ground with purple.

Here are some flowers I planted, but I have a sneaking suspicion that these are nothing more than weeds that came in a fancy package. At least I got the seed packet for free.



And here are some photos of the beautiful flowers my mom sent me to celebrate the passing of my thesis defense.




My mom often sends flowers to celebrate achievements, so she also sent them to my sister when she graduated from BYU with a nursing degree a few years ago. Because my grandmother was also a nurse, my mom asked the florist to write "It's nice to have another R.N. in the family" but the card my sister got said "It's nice to have another RM in the family." Only in Utah, I suppose.

But I probably shouldn't be too hard on the florist. I have also been known to confuse similar sounding words. The other night, I committed another geography blunder when I told Dan that Carmen Bin Laden, the author of the book I'm listening to, was half-Swiss and half-Prussian.

Dan said "Really? She was part Prussian?"

"Yeah," I said. "Her mother was from Iran."

"Are you sure she's not half-Persian?" Prussian, Persian. These countries all sound the same. So, yeah, she is half-Persian, but it would be much simpler for people like me if she called herself half-Iranian, even if it is less precise.