spring snow scenes.

This morning I drove across the valley to have breakfast first thing with my daughter and two granddaughters. Bruiser was a little more anxious than usual--stormy weather makes him feel a little apocalyptic these days. He stopped in every doorway, waiting for me to come with him. Slow progress getting out the door.

As I pulled out of the driveway, the precip (as we like to call it around here) lightly pelted my windshield. Within a few blocks, the rain was sleetish. By the time I got on the freeway it was snow, wet, slushy snow, which only got thicker and whiter the further east I drove.

I walked into the cafe, basically shaking myself off like a dog. Gwen spotted me.

We ordered our usual--me, an omelet; my daughter, the egg white veggie special, no mushrooms; Gwen, pancakes.

'Let's make it a short stack,' my daughter said.

Gwen is wearing my necklace.

'Short stack! Are you a short stack?' I asked Gwen.

'No, you're a short stack,' she said. Working on her retorts.

The snow swirled and eddied, a lesson in chaos theory happening just outside the glass.

Naomi, nibbling on pancakes like
a big girl.

'Gwen's going to have swimming lessons,' her mom reported.

'Are you going to be a swimmer like your brother?' I asked.

'Ummm, yuh,' she said. 'I'm going to swim like a mermaid. Do you swim like a mermaid?'

I hope so, this summer. Whenever this snow and sleet and icy rain stop happening.

- click for commentary -

I wore shoes that were not appropriate to the day. I didn't think the snow was going to be so wet, and

so much.



When I got home from work, and working out, I hustled myself back into my street clothes for caucusing. We motored over to the local elementary school--entirely walkable, but the cold, and the snow. There were already people lined up out the door, along the entire length of the school and the parking lot, onto the street and around the corner.

What is happening, I asked myself.

'What is happening?' I asked the historian.

So we lined up with our neighbors, the Democrats, and waited for an hour to get inside, then almost another hour to get our ballots. While we were waiting, I kept seeing photos on social media from my friends all over the valley, and even into Utah County, that their caucusing places were overflowing. It was like a giant bliss bomb of hopeful politics exploded in flowers and democracy.

smells like hippies + freedom

The sky tonight is full of billowy, light-filled clouds. The sky behind the clouds is lit up. It's not black, it's blue. The moon is hiding in a cloud lair.

On the ground, Bruiser is capering on the snowy lawns. He loves the snow.