The Gift of a Winter's Day

Up early to enjoy all this day may bring. Michael and Heather and Ben joined us for the weekend at the lake house, along with the pooches, Ellie and Elvis. The morning begins cold, but the breeze has died away so a quick walk with Annie in housecoat and slippers isn't unpleasant. After days and nights that seemed bitter and inhospitable, this day begins as fresh and clear.
Making biscuits for breakfast is a fun reminder of past mornings when Michael was little and our breakfasts were a time for special treats. So, I make "letter biscuits" for each of the "kids." There's Michael's M, the way I made it so many times before. Now I add an H for Heather and add a B for Ben. For Mike, I make one biscuit into a tiny heart shape. Small, silly traditions that warm our hearts as well as our stomachs.
Lolling about is a weekend joy for the kids whose weekdays are spent working. Though we're retired and have mastered lolling at an Olympic gold medal pace, Mike and I enjoy sharing the coziness with company. Sadly, early searches on laptops find the news of an 8.8 magniture earthquake near Concepcion in Chile and warn of the tsunami that threatens coasts across the Pacific rim. The TV coverage of events includes an interview with the Chilean President-elect who refers to his country's "catastrophic" proclivities.
This natural disaster comes too close on the heels of the Haitian earthquake. One wonders how this will impact Haiti's need for assistance. We forget too easily when the immediate crisis is past, especially when another remarkable event takes our attention.
Our midday is spent watching the Kentucky-Tennessee basketball game. I guess my lucky socks are lucky, indeed, as the 19th-rated Volunteers made their home court fans in Knoxville happy with a win over the number 2 Wildcats.
The younger set's afternoon is hiking at Chimney Rock Park while we more sendentary ones meander down to the boathouse to check some recent work there or spend our time blogging. The joy for all of us is the gleam of sunshine reflected from the surface of the lake and also, in my case, from the window sill in our study where I write.
It is a spectacularly ordinary day in our small, safe world. We take moments through it to remember those elsewhere who struggle with snowstorms, earthquakes and tsunamis. May they soon have many days like our day today, remarkable only for its shared warmth and happiness.
"To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy power which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates...” Percy Bysshe Shelley