Snow

I like it.
It is celestial and clean in its whiteness (until the road crews get out).
All of the really good holidays of the year have snow in them.
I love to watch it snow from my warm living room, while the fire burns and I am wrapped in a quilt reading a book.
Soup is better when it snows.
If there was no snow, there would be no ski-cross at this years Olympics. Also, no downhill, no Super G, no half pipes...
If it didn't snow, we might not appreciate spring as much.
Or summer.
If it didn't snow we would have nothing to cover the dead browns of the leaves in the fall.
Without snow an entire tire industry would go bankrupt.
I am starting to have to really reach for reasons I like snow.
I think I am trying to convince myself how much I like snow.
I like the sun....

Driving with my dad

Ok...this will be two semi-serious posts in a row.

My dad has been driving me to work again. I have resigned myself to the fact that he will probably drive me every day--forever. Well...he does let me drive myself to summer school.

The last month he has been waxing sentimental. He actually cried when he was talking about my grandpa. Being pioneer stock did prevent him from actually CRYING...it was a little more like choked sobs.

Today when he picked me up, he just started talking. From school to home he addressed the following subjects: debt, politics, good music, how to take a rewarding trip, him as a child, the Art Academy of America, a fugitive we both know, the beauty of the mountains around us, and the Olympics. It is less than ten miles from my house to the school and he drives about 50 mph the whole way. He began every new topic with "BUT its just like..." I think his segways made sense to him, somehow...but not so much to me.

When he drove into my driveway he turned off the motor. From past experiences, I knew that meant we were going to talk. And so it started, "BUT its just like..."
He started with the topic of his experiencs as a child wanting to draw, and how the Art Academy of America took all the fun out of it. Then he started up another topic. "I choose your mother out of all the women in the world to be your mom. When I first saw her I was taken by her beauty." At this point he does that chokey sobby noise. "I knew that when I was around her I felt good and when I was around her family there was so much love. That's what I wanted for my babies, because I never had it in my own life."

Long pause.

"I feel so grateful that I found her. I know you are the good people you are because of her." (His chin is quivering and he is trying hard to control himself.) "I know that some of our children have had rough spots in your lives, but you have all done well. You are honest, you are hard-working, you have good families."

Another pause.

"Your grandmother told me that I would have to look hard for a better woman to marry. She could cook, sew, and clean." Smaller pause. "She did tell me that if finding someone who could darn my socks was important to me, I should look somewhere else. I learned that if I kept my toenails clipped my socks lasted longer."

I personally think that I--and my siblings--are the sum total of both of our parents.