First letter. First post in 2012 A-Z challenge. Best wishes and good luck to all who participate in it.
It also begins my name. I'm not the biggest fan of Amanda. It's an OK name, to be sure, but it always sounds a bit flabby to me and I deeply hate "Mandy" as an abbreviation. Hate to the point that I simply blank it out as something I don't hear at all.
On the other hand, it could have been a great deal worse. My father wanted to call me Cybora, in honour of cybernetics. Mum did not approve, nor did she much like his alternative, Amaryllis. She felt that naming a baby something that meant "little tinkling stream" was a bad idea. Since she was around for the birth and he was not (busy having dinner somewhere - a story which is a microcosm of their relationship), she got her way and went with Amanda.
Mind you, I'd probably take Cybora like a shot now, but I'm glad I didn't have to get through school with it.
A is also for asparagus. Fortuitously, we spent part of this morning planting the crowns. Hopefully they will produce delectable vegetable spikes of goodness sometime in the next three years. It's a slow business growing asparagus. Patience and a deep compost filled pit are required. We dutifully dug what looked like a narrow grave, filled it with manure. Planted the crowns, watered them, hoisted the soil back over the top. Now awaiting results. Asparagus crowns look like diseased sea urchins at high tide. Time, we hope, will turn them from this -