Day: September 23, 2018

The Only Good Snowpal

Heading back home, the blizzard is over and Newcrest is a peaceful sea of white again. I stop in front of a house I somehow never noticed before. I love its look, its charm. There must be at least three bedrooms in there. That’s one bedroom for me, one office for me to conduct research, and one more to fill with my findings. And look at the size of that swimming pool!

Drooling over the red bricks and dreaming about a faraway future, I start gathering snow, and shaping it into a peculiar silhouette. A snowpal in a hat, the best snowpal I ever made. Finally, one that doesn’t look like some cosmic hand dropped an ugly snowball on the ground and let it lay there!

Now, I’m not one to believe in signs, but…

Or maybe I am. Maybe I am.

Diner Reunion

What is bringing me out in the blizzard, you’re asking? A high school reunion. A small, casual high school reunion, at the oldest restaurant in Newcrest, a recently renovated diner. Rumor has it it was built by my great-however-many-greats-grandparents. On the Stewarts side, obviously.

You know me, you know the only reason I agreed to come at all is Nolan, who teased and joked until I agreed for old time’s sake. They were more his friends than mine back then already.

You’d think I’d have grown closer to Bradford, what with him being my colleague and everything… but that’s a hard no. And between us, the awkwardness is palpable.

But I don’t regret coming. If this is a family-owned restaurant, then my family knows how to make pretty dang good burgers.

I also take two coffees. 

Out in the Blizzard

For someone who didn’t know what snow looked like a few weeks ago, I definitely got my share now. Maybe even, I think as I head out into the blizzard, a bit too much. Cléo, who keeps volunteering to take Cyril’s shoveling’s turn when he doesn’t feel up to it, probably wouldn’t disagree.

Family Breakfasts

Through winter like summer, breakfast as a family is a tradition that needs no holiday to be upheld. But when we have a living room plastered in pretty decorations, and a sparkling, bright tree that’s just waiting to be admired… we don’t have to debate much to move the breakfast elsewhere.

Who cares about crumbs on the sofa anyway.

(Nounou. Nounou and Loladorada do.)

Holly

Mom and Dad, still soppy after over twenty years. Some would call it “goals,” envy it. And I find it cute, really cute.

But it also feels like entrapment. I know myself, and I know I couldn’t. Heck, if I were to follow the same path as them, I would already be getting married like, yesterday. That’s a hard no from me.

Not to mention, I doubt anyone could pull off the “oh look, I had holly in my pocket all along” trick half as well as Dad.