hold your kids tight...

tomorrow, a 15 month old is laid to rest.

a good friend of mine lost her daughter on friday morning. two little girls lost a baby sister, and a father lost his love. there was no warning. during the course of the night, the toddler went from playing with her sister to a horrible, inexplicable fate...

it's impossible to find the words to describe the sorrow that i feel for this family. the worst fear a parent could realize. i can't begin to guess how many times i've crept into ian's room late at night, leaning in close - anxious for the sound of a breath. the instinct of protection is inate, and there's no greater fear in my heart than the inability to protect my son. knowing that my friends are experiencing that most basic fear breaks my heart, and leaves me helpless to console.

i know tomorrow's funeral is going to be incredibly difficult to bear. seeing parents say goodbye to their little girl, not being able to fathom the sense of grief and loss that they are experiencing. and realizing that - no matter how protective we may try to be as parents and no matter how intensely (or intently) we love them - we can't control everything... their fate at times belongs to something even larger than we are.

it's not snowing anymore...

it's been pointed out to me that's it's been a bit since i last posted. and here i'm thinking - it hasn't even been four months yet... what could possibly happen in my life in four months to write about?

i'll give 'em this... a few things have gone down. small things. like i finally sold my house. (does my contracting on a new house, cancelling that contract, contracting on another new house, planning the remodel, discovering that the seller owes much, much more than i was paying and - ergo - his bank refused the sale one week before closing, count as news? nah...)

oh, and i moved into a new house. (do i mention that - given the homelessness threat of aforementioned sale falling though - i had to scramble to find a rental for ian and myself given that one week is a::little too little time to find and close on a new house?)

and then there's this triathlon i'm supposed to do next weekend. (it's called wildflower. somewhere in california - you may have heard of it. i signed up in december, and then came january and february and march and april, and an extended cold and a move and a whole lot of stress and a decision to back out of the race... except that, thanks to my sister'sgentle urging, i won't be able to not compete.)

and then there's this consideration i like to call bealms. (but that's not even a real word, so how interesting could that be?)

i suppose there could be something interesting about my ex-wife's most recent decision (more than parentheses involved there) and my new rug (deep, plush shag) to talk about... but i can save those stories for another day. and really - i am hoping there's another day. because i do need this outlet - and i think it's become a deeper need than the living vicariously through all your lives that i've been doing...

i think i'm back. at least, i hope i am...

another storm spoils the new year...

a fresh storm is moving in today - before we've even had a chance to unbury all the cars on the road and clear the icy, crater-laden side streets. the forecasters can't seem to decide if it's going to bring us 8 inches or 30 inches - or any number in between, for that matter. however, it's enough snow (and coming from the perfectly wrong direction) to cancel the trip that ian and i were supposed to take to new mexico. it seems that the universe is conspiring against us seeing my mom this year...

for this, it better be another darn good storm. we could use some more snowman and sledding time.

blizzard, redux...

this was dusk last night. the snow had stopped, but digging-out hadn't begun. today i made it to the office. tomorrow is my birthday. but through it all, there is snow.

blizzard of '06...

the first photo above is the view from my front porch across our courtyard. that drift runs down the center of the courtyard like the spine of an eel and is nearly 5 feet tall. we had some serious wind last night, so while the accumulation totals may not be great (not quite 2 feet), the drifts can be much more impressive. the second picture is a view out my window to another five foot drift that covers my fence and rosebushes. quite the storm...

i set out late this morning with some neighbors on a trek to the grocery store and to pick up ian. k lives a mile down the road and the grocery store is another couple blocks away, so i threw on the kid backpack, took the snow shovel in case there were any snow emergencies along the way, and we walked through the drifts...

it's the rare day in the city when the snow is enough to paralyze the movement of traffic - but today is one of those days. the streets were deserted of moving cars - but littered with buried vehicles strewn across the streets, unable to make it to their destinations in the storm. human foot tracks provided an unpacked trail, unleashed dogs frolicked in the pure white drifts, and friendly neighbors were dressed in all sorts of ski and snowshoe gear to traverse the temporary landscape. it was a beautiful walk, and - due to the 30-something extra pounds on my back, a shovel in one hand and some groceries in the other, i arrived home with a healthy sweat to watch rudolph the red-nosed reindeer with my little boy...

unfortunately, the blizzard brought a level of loneliness last night that was very nearly paralyzing. but with ian around the rest of the day, hopefully i can fend off the loneliness and huddle inside and out in the pre-christmas storm. and so long as things clear up in the next couple days so that my brother can get in from nyc and my parents and sister make it down from the mountains, we can look forward to the first white christmas in a while...