Guest Post - Cait of MiddleGround

So, Sunday was my birthday.

Yesterday, this arrived in my inbox, along with formatting instructions.

Cait is the kind of friend who shows up to help you move whether you asked her or not, who looks up what a ranunculus is so she can embroider one on a hankie, and apparently also the kind of friend who writes a birthday post about you, the kind that makes you cry on the first day at a new job (that was a little awkward). She also is a brilliant writer, and if you do not already greedily await each of her posts, go read her blog, STAT, and see what she can do when writing about topics more interesting than yours truly.

{Cait and I both know the importance of checking one's teeth before a photo op. If that turns into the photo op, so be it.}

To the readers of Abbie Babble, who clearly exhibit good taste from the get-go:

My following of this blog is, to say the least, passionate-- from stalking Abbie's gchat status to see if there's a new posting, to the inspiration to start my own blog. As you all well know, one of the features of this bright spot in the internet universe is the birthday post. Being with Abbie yesterday on the anniversary of the occasion of her birth, I requested the opportunity to be a guest-blogger so that she herself could have a list (albeit woefully short and massively abbreviated) of her own.

This is our Abbie.

I love Abbie for lots of reasons. Some of them are:

1. Abbie an amazing sense of origin. She loves the place from which she came, and when you watch her walk through Cambridge or Boston, you can feel her radiating her love of home and it's clear that Cambridge and Boston love her back. She is also adventurous, because she went to a galaxy far, far away in San Francisco for a while (but we are very glad she's back now because we Boston people don't like to share).

2. Abbie knows lots of amazing things. To give one brief example, when she came over to make scones, she taught me that when you cut butter into the flour, you actually cut the butter with knives, and that you need to fluff the flour. It was as though my KitchenAide had sighed in relief: now here was finally someone who knows what she's doing.

3. Abbie is the most inviting person in the world. Some people guard their origin and knowledge jealously, but not Abbie. She invites you into all of the amazing things that she knows and into her sense of belonging, so that you feel like you know things and belong too. She'll also invite you to go apple-picking and picnicking and all sorts of other things that turn into the best afternoons on record.

4. Whenever I think of Abbie, I only think of pleasant things, like: solid colored tights, All Stars, pretty skirts, raspberry crumble bars, Pimms Cups (said with particular flair), silvery blue rooms, ridonculous ranunculus, mason jars, window sills, tree lined streets, orange wedges and apples.

5. Abbie has the amazing and extraordinarily rare quality of being able to be honest and kind at the same time. Most people just look once and decide they know everything, but Abbie makes the effort to look underneath a problem and understand why it is the way it is, and empathize. I think this is one symptom of her overwhelming generosity.

6. Abbie reminds me a lot of Miss Rumphius because she has an amazing ability to make the world more beautiful every day. She'll say it's the Holga or her photo processing website, but it's not-- it's the Abbie lens that when you look through it, ordinary things become lovely and full of the possibility of making you unexpectedly happy.

So Happy Happy darling Abbie-- patron saint of baked goods, window sill flowers, and all other things kind, lovely, and delicious.

We are so glad you were born.

Many, many thanks to all my friends and family for the birthday love on Sunday. You can't possibly know how much it made my day.

P.S. I realize it's a little awkward to post a whole list of reasons why I'm wonderful. I'm doing it for two reasons: 1. I am currently covered in paint and moving detritus and thus have no time to write a post, and also 2. When Cait tells you to do something, you listen. When she gives you formatting instructions and a gorgeously-written (if horribly undeserved) blog post, you post the thing, damnit.