Thursday

You could tell me -- careful what you wish for! I praised "sunny and cold" over "dreary but warmer" and today delivered a load of the first. Plenty of sunshine and really a significant dip in temperatures. A high of 16F (or -9C).

I'll take it!

Breakfast in the sun room!






It's odd how this year, the story of the groundhog looking for his shadow seems so trite, so ridiculously childish, especially when politicians would take part in the whole carnival of taking a poor groundhog out for that definitive inspection. Me, who loves the trite, the playful romp, the silly stuff that make up our everyday or every year --somehow I can't get a chuckle going over politicians fooling around with groundhogs this February 2nd.

The world has become a very serious place this year and my chuckles remain tied to home.



Because it is really quite cold, I can't do much of anything outdoorsy with Snowdrop. And yet I know she has now been spoiled into believing that after school we can spend at least a little time outdoors. I need a counter plan!

In the end I pick for us a trip to our local library. It's nearly always empty at the noon hour and I am hopeful that over time, she'll develop better library habits. Right now, she loves the books and the toys there, but the enormity of choice throws her off. She goes from one play table to the next, from one book to another and my admonition that she must replace one thing before moving on to something else is still very hard for her to follow.

So we play a little..






(Oh that sunshine!)






Count a little...






And then I find a quiet corner for us to read...






She likes that... for a few minutes, instructing me where I should sit and what I should read...






But when she once again wants to reach for new books out there on those long, colorful shelves, I decide it's time to move on to our next place -- Paul's coffee shop, which happens to be just across the street. We need pickles for ahah!






She is on her best behavior and is happy as can be to be handed big chunks of cheese croissant.






But you know, there is that sunshine! It just beckons! Snowdrop doesn't yet understand the power of those golden rays, especially as they fall on an hard winter landscape. So full of promise! Yes, maybe, but not now, not on February 2nd when we're still such a long way away from spring (ha! the groundhog today surely tells us so!). Still, she hesitates before coming indoors. Play a little in the snow maybe?





No!

Once in the farmhouse, she sheds her outdoor stuff and runs, really runs to her tea set. No hesitation, no glance elsewhere.  And having secured the participation (for a few minutes at least, before nap time) of gaga and ahah and bis, she is just one happy little girl. Tea party indeed!
















The sun is low now. Cold becomes colder. And still, it all looks so golden and warm! Snowdrop would step out in a second if I were willing.

I open the porch door for her. Feel how cold it is!
She does.
It's cold! -- she tells me.







The sun plays its tricks and we're all happy. I'm happy. But you can't buy spring with it. It's not magic. It's not a promise. It's just a luminous, beautiful sunny day, that's all.

Wednesday

Sunshine! It came, it went, but it always came back. Lovely, lovely sunshine!

Breakfast, of course, in the sun room.






I had to grocery shop today. I'm terribly off schedule and can't seem to hop back on, but no matter -- on a day where it's just at freezing and the sun plays hide and seek games with us, I don't mind heading out.

(At the check out counter, the clerk asks me -- are you planning a Groundhog Day celebration? The answer is of course "no," but I am amused that my weekly shopping looks like it's food for a party.)


I thought long and hard how Snowdrop and I might profit today from the good weather. The snow cover is still icy and slippery and no fun to navigate. The playgrounds are inaccessible. Walking the neighborhood is fun, but we'd done that yesterday.

In the end, I ask her as we are leaving school if she would like to go to the zoo to check out the polar bears, who surely would relish a January in Wisconsin.

She is more than happy to go!

After playing for weeks and weeks with her Duplo wild animals, she is pretty interested in revisiting some familiar faces: lions, for example. (Though she is taken aback when the one with the mane released quite the roar.)







But we are on a bear hunt (!).  Snowdrop finds this one to be pretty agreeable:






But the real deal? Well, she has a wonderful chance to inspect a pair of polars, who, perhaps because there are no people at the zoo, decide to pace close to the window in powerful strides.

Bears? Up close and personal? Snowdrop's self preservation kicks in!

Let's go back to the car, gaga!






You can get out of the stroller and watch them right by the window!
No, gaga, I don't want to.






She does offer them a friendly wave and a parting salutation -- bye polar bears! -- from a distance.

Smart girl.






At the farmhouse, she encounters Ed, fixing the door lock. Though he had just installed a new handle and lock five years ago, it broke on us some weeks back. When he discovered the contraption had a lifetime warrantee, he called the company to get replacement parts. It took a while to receive them and so for the past month we've been without a lock. You could have entered at any time just by pushing on the door with your little pinkie finger -- there was nothing to hold you back! (It is also true that Ed is almost always home so that you would have encountered a big gruff guy, but still, it was interesting to be living, as it were, without the protection of a closed door.)

Snowdrop is fascinated by Ed's work with tools! She watches closely for a long while...






And she loves to be of assistance. Keep turning the screwdriver, little one!






(Looking on, to make sure he does the job well!)






And after these adventures, she is thrilled to snack on a piece of baguette. With fruit.






(Yes, she also does go back to her tea set, but only for a little minute. We've got books to read and naps to take!)







Much later, just as the sun is nearly at the horizon, Snowdrop articulates her most fervent desire:
can we go outside?

Sure, sweet one. Barn?
Yes!

We're off.






Cheepers! Where are you?

They come running.

She explains to them all her troubles and gives them ample opportunity to do the same.






I want to interrupt and tell her that they have no reason to complain: treats, food, shelter. Safety. And we do not even demand eggs in return.

But I need say nothing. Snowdrop is in her own world with the hens. And she is happy. And we are happy. How good is that! 

do you see what I see?

Not since I was Snowdrop's age (if then) have I done this: slept my way through a twelve hour night.

I wake up feeling much better. And I wonder if this happens to you sometimes? When you go through an illness, you remember how precious it is to feel fine and how important it is to appreciate and preserve those moments of calm as long as you can. Deliberately and continuously.

This is a tough assignment these days, but I have ideas!

My first step is to discontinue the project that I would roughly call "100 days of reading comments and writings of people who hate me."  I don't think I quite made it through 100. I began in ernest on the day of the election and that was not a full three months ago. But I did read tens of thousands of comments, especially in response to writings that seemed to encourage the winning side to raise its collective fist at people like me.

The thing is, I'm not unused to it. I lived here as a child when I was hated for my citizenship and allegiance to a country that was under so called communist governance. No elitist liberal bi-coastal stuff, but you know, the communist ideology that promised (successfully at that) jobs for all, no matter how economically feasible or how stifled economic growth would become.

I thought I'd learn something through my "100 day..." project. And I did: there is among a vast number of sore winners very little desire to engage, or discuss the pros and cons, or the merits of diverging ideas. There's hatred and name calling and mockery. No trumpeting of what's good, merely scorn for everyone who these days feels (like me) that perhaps we should walk carefully rather than take sudden and extreme and inexperienced steps in matters that invariably will have consequences -- good or dire, for millions.

So enough. I do not ever intend to surround myself with people who think like me. But I will cut back my readings in much the same way I narrow Ocean comments: say one nice thing about the opposing viewpoint or person holding it before I will even listen to you. And the minute I sense a mean-spirited undertone or worse -- the deliberate inciting of hostilities, I'm out of there.


In the meantime, it's breakfast as usual at the farmhouse. Here we are, still not enjoying sunshine, but hey, this dull gray stuff wont last forever! (And my breakfast buddy is a lot less cranky than the pic would have you believe!)






And at noon, a truly miraculous event takes place here, in Madison Wisconsin! As if in affirmation of a new direction, a new calm, a new sparkle to the world around me -- I see this!





Oh glorious sunshine! How we've missed you!

It's not only sunny, but also quite mild: a few degrees above freezing.

Snowdrop is delighted when she sees that I have brought around the stroller for our walk back from school! Hello, sunshine!






Lookin' around and feelin' groovy!






I tell her that I have a surprise for her -- and only with a two year old can you make this appear to be a treat -- (upon the request of parents) it's haircut time!

We walk over to the local haircut place (Bang, where three generations of us get their hair trimmed) and I am just so impressed with the little one. The last time we were here, I basically held my breath hoping she'd last the three minutes it took to cut her hair. Today, so much more was expected of her: look down, look straight ahead, don't move, can we blow out loose hairs?






Snowdrop couldn't have been more cooperative. High five, little one! (Lyndsy, her hair cut person said she has the gentlest high five in the world...)






Looking good!






Not that she is without spirit. She takes a nice gallop around the place while I settle the account.






After -- well, it's so grand outside! I tell her we can try to visit the nearby playground, but I warn that it may be snow covered and inaccessible.

It is that, but I am able to wipe down the swing and she spends a few minutes flying high and squinting in the golden sunshine!





As we walk home past the coffee shop, she notes its presence. I ask her if she'd like to pause for a quick snack. Yes!

Oh, it's been a long time since she and I have sat at a table while I broke off a piece of oatmeal raisin cookie for her and enjoyed a hot macchiato for myself! And again, I am so impressed with her maturity, her conversation, her willingness to follow suggestions.

(Do you see the blue of the sky reflected in her eyes? And the pink hands? Snowdrop, on the way home, let's put on those mitts!)






At her house, she is radiant -- all smiles and playful spins. And I do notice this: if left to her own devices, here, as at the farmhouse, she favors people play. Put her in front of the train set and she'll pick up the little characters and make them climb bridges and woosh down hills while the train cars stand idle, or even get pushed out of the way!






And of course, always always, there is that joyous Snowdrop run. Round and round.






... faster and faster!






Until I remind her it's time for a nap.


Later, much later, when dusk has taken hold, I cajole Ed into a walk up and down our rural roads.

(Here we are! Sauntering at sunset!)






We watch a lone person walking the fields to the east of us. Is he planning for the season ahead? I haven't allowed myself to think much about spring, but today, I saw wisps of it again. And it felt so good, so uplifting!






Do you see it too? Signs of spring? Maybe?

a disagreeable Monday morning

You know that something is up when you wake to sunshine (after weeks and weeks of dull gray skies) and feel no excitement. (True, that sunny interval was scheduled to last only for two hours and it did just that, but I turned my back on it and refused to stir.)

Damn. I feel sick.

Well what a surprise. Snowdrop had her bout with this, her mommy had her bout with it as well. So now it seems only the men are spared. A gendered bug that hits right at the stomach.

But but -- it's not in the plan for this week or for today! I have to shop for my 17 people dinner party tomorrow!

You know how some 20% of the people engage in conversations with themselves? I engaged in one this morning:
I feel too spent to get up!
Yes, but this will pass. Snowdrop's bug passed quickly enough.
How can you invite people to your house if you have a bug that may zap them as well? If everyone gets sick the next day they'll think I poisoned them!
But I'll be fine tomorrow!
Maybe. I really have no idea.

This continued as I went in and out of that dozy state and by the time I fully roused myself I noted three things: the sun was gone, the hour for shopping had long passed, and finally -- yes, I was feeling a tad better. But doubts about tomorrow festered and so I withdrew my dinner hosting offer.

Damn these stupid bugs.

Breakfast is a modest affair. In the kitchen no less.






I do feel fine enough to look after Snowdrop (who nearly for sure was the source of this downturn) and so I tell her parents that I am up and ready to bring her to the farmhouse.

It's a cold and gray day (so two strikes against it), but she is happy to be out and about...






... even as I urge her at the farmette to hustle indoors. She may not feel cold, but I am in no mood to play outside.

At the farmhouse, she, rather predictably, goes straight for the tea set...






... and luckily, she picks up my quiet cues and spends a good bit of time drawing and then reading books. She'd found some old flap books from her younger years. She likes to remind herself how fun it was to be a wee one. With age come all those new responsibilities!






I add some new books to her repertoire and she likes those too...






Of course, Snowdrop also has her energetic side.






She can outrun me in the house even when I'm feeling peppy (and I am not feeling peppy today).






This is when I tell her we both need a nap.

She sleeps, I rest.

And then it is near evening. She eats just about her favorite (at the moment) snack -- corn. Ed comes from the sheep shed to join us. Here are three photos of our time at the kitchen table:

Ahah's coming!






Hi ahah...






Now let's play!






And then it's back to the tea game...
(She pours, she hands out cakes and tells us -- here you go, guys!)






Ed, as usual, searches her lunch bag for leftovers. Blueberries!






We finish off with a sip of "tea."






Me, I could use some real tea. I am happy that Snowdrop's back to being bouncy and strong. I'm a little less bouncy but much stronger. Most certainly, I'm looking forward to a less disagreeable Tuesday morning.