noon years eve, little adults do dinner and games

...before helping others

It could have gone either way. 

I could have flipped out. No one would have faulted me:3 days in a row of post 5 am wake ups. A month of work to make Christmas not feel like an empty gaping hole in the calendar. A torn muscle in my back. Shoveling alone. Feeding chickens in the dark. 

And then the 3 hours of sledding. Driving down the mountain alone looking out of the fog forming in the corners of the windows.  

Standing alone in the snow loafing on the side of the road like a smoker. Waiting for the girls to appear out of the white woods. 

Loading them up and driving back up the snaking canyon road to repeat. 

Not a nap insight.

So you could see how scraping ice off the inside of the car windows at 7:15 am, 7 degrees, might have sent me into a fit of justified mom ranting but it didn't. 

I was working on the back window when I discovered Beach's entire winter wardrobe still in the car frozen-stiff between the sleds. It was the reason for the coat of ice inside the windows.

Now the reason her stuff never made it inside was because she carried in everyone else's stuff. 

I had watched it happen. Not realizing what was going down until the moment I found her crystallized clothing turning my car into an ice cave.    

She had loaded herself up with 2 of the 3 bags of produce we picked up on the way home. Then gathered the items her friend who we had already dropped off had left behind. 

And just as she was heading for her own gear Sophie half way inside the house asked her to grab her bag for her...please. So of course Beach did.

She had given up her favorite sled to Sophie when Soph wanted it. Given up her new hat. She took the bad spot to sit in the car. She cleaned up the mess they all left in the kitchen making cookies, cocoa, and popcorn to take. 

The frozen clothing also explained why she helping me scrape the car off without a coat on. Which I had given her some grief over thinking she was just being lazy.

Instead of me chewing her out for not be responsible we had a different conversation on the same subject. 

You know the one flight attendants give before each flight takes to the sky: secure your own oxygen mask first before helping others. 

She's a good kid but I know she wasn't listening. She was plotting on how she could do both at once. I know because she gets it from her mother.

now reading: Ghosts (a graphic novel)

little mountain (extreme sledding)

On Little Mt. there is a sledding run that takes you down through the trees dropping into Emigration Canyon.  It has 2 different legs divided by the road. 

It requires a car to run "shuttle" back up to the top. Since I have a pulled muscle in my back I couldn't join in on the action I ran the sled shuttle for the girls. Well, that and the fact that I was the only licensed driver.

Before we left they made cookies, popcorn, and hot chocolate for the car rides between runs.Hardcore and smart!

 The bottom of the 1st section of the run & the bottom (ravine & creek included) 2nd & longer section.

without you, mlb

without you

there is less trash to take to the bin

less laundry

less Amy Goodman in the morning pushing the blade 

and no Reggae 
at all- ever

without you

I don't find your truck or your trailer  

parking me out of the driveway

no one drinks the last beer with half-lit apologies

sugar does not collect like dust on the countertops

no wars fought over how the dishwasher is to be loaded

no battles over who should feed the cats 

and who should gather eggs

no half cooked dinners

no apologies for running late - always late

without you

the house is almost kept perfectly clean without effort

the porch free of forgotten socks

the bed made

the towels folded

the coffee just so

but without you

the nights are plain & overcooked like cafeteria food

the chickens are stormy
the cats at war

and the squirrels are mounting a return

without you

I lock the doors- all of them

I ignore the work of building a fire

I talk to myself... in public
I turn on and off lights and tv's but the house always looks asleep

and I walk in the same day 
over and over... and over again

without you.

5 am chickens in the snow

winter work

a white Christmas