On a Winter's Day

This is what it looks like outside my window right now. That's our half-dead plumb tree that drops purple bombs all over the sidewalk in the summertime, exploding their sticky mess in the path of passersby.

This is our half-dead willow tree that is a beautiful sight when it's showing off its green plumage except for a great gap in the very top which, at its worst, looks like a cancer-caused cavity, and at its best, an old bald man who can only manage to grow hair on the sides of his head.

The snow seems, oddly, to be a new thing at our house. There's a lot of excitement among the kids and grumbling among the adults. There's talk of Snowmen and Snow Forts and how our neighbor came and "mowed" the snow in our driveway, according to my youngest son. Little girl is bugging me to go out with her but she can't find her boots. This is the first real snowfall of the season but other than that, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. We've spent a lot of time in the white stuff. I could ski almost before I could walk and in Idaho where I grew up, we could walk close to the tops of the power poles on the drifts. I guess it is a lot milder here but you wouldn't know that by watching the traffic. People around here get really stupid in the snow when they're driving. They think their monstertruck four-wheel drives will stop them on a dime on a sheet of inch-thick ice. They never learn.