Controversy vs. Dancing Snow Angels

So...I promised my friend Tara, http://www.tarababble.blogspot.com/ a fairly controversial blog post concerning my experiences with our country's health care system.  This week I'd been getting my ideas together and thinking things out concerning it.  The plan was to write it this evening.  Then a funny thing happened.  This afternoon I had my regular ballet class, followed by rehearsal.  Afterwards, I was standing out on the sidewalk with a friend while we waited for her ride, chatting about various things.  There was a nice layer of fluffy white snow on the ground, and somehow or other we started making pictures in it with our feet, flowers and curlicues across the lawn.  Then we moved to the other side of the sidewalk and made snow angels, a horse, a camel...running about like children, covered in snow and laughing.  It was the best time I've had in quite a while, a delightful moment of pure enjoyment in the midst of more complicated life.  I still intend to write about my experiences with the health care system, but I can't tonight.  It seems so drab, and tonight I want nothing to do with drab.  I will end my day with moonlight on snow and the sound of laughter, and leave more serious and dull subjects for another day.

Merry Christmas

I suspect this will be my last post before Christmas, because I fully intend to be deliciously lazy this weekend.  Making dinner tonight for some of the family, then spending Christmas Eve with Aaron's family and Christmas day with mine.  It's helpful that we live right between the two -- just under half an hour either direction, even in the snow.  By the way, so happy to have a real white Christmas this year, after last year's grey drizzliness.


I have yet to wax very religious or political on this blog, and I don't really intend to start now, at least not from a persuasive point of view, because I am not arrogant enough to suppose that my beliefs and opinions should automatically be foisted off on everyone else.  I think and believe them, obviously, and care very much about them, but I hope I am respectful enough of everyone else to realize that they care very much about what they think and believe as well.  I am also of the opinion that action should come before words.  I have found too many people perfectly willing to try to convince others to become like themselves, when they were about the last people I would wish to become like.  However, in case anyone was wondering... in the instance of faith, I am a Protestant-Catholic morph-child, of both worlds and of neither.  In all honesty, I don't think God cares so much what you call yourself as long as it's really Him you're serving.  (One of my favorite quotes: "Giving God good advice and abusing the devil isn't praying.")  As far as politics are concerned, I am an independent.  Yes, I voted for Obama, knowing he was a man and not a god.  In my opinion, Sarah Palin is an insult to all intelligent women. You won't offend me by wishing me Happy Holidays, if I know you're Jewish I'll say Happy Hanukkah, and I hope you won't be offended with me if I'm uncertain of your beliefs and wish you Merry Christmas out of habit.


In any case, now that that's all been said, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and thanks to everyone who comes back to read this blog even when I go off on tangents.  Cheers!

The snow has stopped and it is a clear blue morning.  These are my favorite days of winter.  I love the sunlight sparkling on the high snowbanks, and the contrast between blue sky and white snow.  And it is a free day, a day for us to do what we please, to stay inside with books and hot chocolate, or to tramp for miles through the cold, clear, blue and white world if we wish.  I refuse to think about the week to come today, the necessity for driving anywhere, or such mundane things as wet clothing and heating bills.  'Tis a glorious day and I mean to enjoy it.

Snow

We had our first valley snow today.  For over a week I've been watching the snow line creep down the mountains, and today it came to us.  I walked to work at 5:30 this morning in the dark as usual, but did so with soft little white flakes dancing around me and sparkling under the streetlights.