Daily Kup (My Life in the Dim Northern Light)The Solstice can't come quickly enough as far as I'm concerned. These few weeks when daylight is so brief and the sun so low in the sky are my least favorites. If it weren't for all the holiday preparations needed, I'd be yelling from the treetops, "Come on, December 21st!"
At the end of each school day, I think they are giving each child a fistful of sugar and then escorting the little tykes to the bus. After the buses leave, the teachers and administrators go into the back room to smoke cigars and do an evil little dance. I watch the children get off the bus on the cross street and make their way to the house. It's below 20 degrees with a cruel wind; they have their jackets off and tied to their shoulders as capes. They meander from one side of the street to the other and then back again, pausing to kick anything that catches their fancies - an outcropping of snow, a frozen puddle, or each other. They enter the house vibrating like chihuahuas and demand immediate food and entertainment. No drama is too small. Every interaction is a transgression that demands immediate payback. They are twice as loud as the Rolling Stones at one-tenth their age.
My car has not reappeared. If it did, I could take the children some place -- like an abandoned ammunition plant -- where they could run and run until the craziness was out of their systems. Or I could pretend that I had an important errand and leave them with my husband.
"Goodyear?" "No, the worst."
F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote, "There are no second acts in American lives," is widely known and seems to be true mostly of old F. Scott himself. America is full of second acts. We are all about second acts. With all the negative examples of first acts that ended in disgrace and then redemption thanks to limited public memory or interest, it's a pleasure to entertain the idea of someone who did well and then changed to another successful direction a little later in life. Veteran leading man and later comedic character actor Leslie Nielsen died yesterday at age 84. Who would have imagined that the stone-faced guy playing so many authority figures was a 'pull-my-finger-type' practical joker?
We salute you, Lieutenant Drebin.
We were taken first to the Russian Orthodox Church that was a few blocks from our apartment. The interior was indescribably ornate. Amid the hushed worshippers, my camera was out of place and I wasn't able to capture the splendor in anything but my mind's eye. The name of the church is the Church of Christ the Savior but it's called the "Golden Church" due to the gold onion domes by the locals.
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