Greetings from Minnesota

It's been snowing for 2 days. Christmas just ended. Two days full of Swedish meatballs and prime rib and candy up the wazoo and singing and lounging and driving over the, amazingly, drivable highways of the central part of the state, to the various homes of various family.

Now I'm just back from a late night tromp down the road from my mom and dad's place, here in Buffalo, for fresh air and some quiet after these days of talking. The streets are slushy, so I stayed on the sidewalk. Or what used to be a sidewalk. Tonight it evidently doubled as a snowmobile path.

It's so very Minnesota.

This is a good thing. Minnesota is a good thing. This girl's reflectivenss gene has lain dormant these last several weeks .... stymieing production of a Christmas letter and Christmas gifts and general goodwill to all people. Which is a fancy way for saying that I've been damn crabby.

It's difficult to stay crabby when hanging out with family members who drive through both slush and wind to be there, and the toddler nephew toddles about dressed in a toddler Santa outfit and the red zinfandel is flowing, followed by coffee and then a couple cans of Grain Belt beer apiece and dozens of tangential conversations and so much homemade food goodness there's no room here to elaborate.

Here is when I must recall some folks don't get even one of these many luxuries .... and when I know I must be so. very. grateful.

And then, after all that, I get home safely. And I get to put on the Sperry Topsiders and skate down the snowmobile paths of a traffic-free road as the flakes just keep falling on my bare head and hands.

Crabbiness, begone.