I spent Friday at home while Shannon attended an all-day psychology seminar up in the cities. Given the unpleasantness around here lately, I was girded for a bad day. Happily, it was anything but a bad day - though there was a rough patch when Vivi did her patented 50-minutes-of-screaming, 50-minutes-of-napping thing - which wrecked Julia's nap, too. Poor kids.
On either side of that, though, we had lots of fun putting toy rabbits to bed, reading and acting out Richard Scarry stories (mostly the obscure one about Pip Pip the Cat rescuing the Queen of England's ring), having snacks and lunch, wondering what Mama was doing. (Answer: trying to stay awake at her conference), and tromping around outdoors in the nice warm air (well, 15°F) - even making (after lots of coaxing) a crossing of the frozen pond down the block.
Back at home, Julia asked a litany of questions, like, "What if I was a sheep and your daughter?" and "Where did Jesus go poop?" Vivi made plain some of her dislikes (putting bibs on, taking bibs off, getting into her high chair, getting out of her high chair, being told she can't hit anyone when she's frustrated, not being picked up three seconds before she asks, taking naps). And both girls got to sit on the camel in the nativity scene across the street (yes, it's still up: the neighbors claim that the platform is frozen to the ground).
Getting up close and personal with the nativity scene naturally occasioned a great deal of discussion about Jesus and, after dinner, some role playing in which I was Joseph, Julia was Mary, and her favorite toy cat was Jesus. I'm doing a ridiculously bad job passing along my skepticism about religion to Julia. Or, come to think of it, maybe I'm not. A cat as Jesus?
After the girls headed to bed, I headed out for a ski. Opening the garage door, I was blasted by the smell of a skunk, to the extent that I wondered if the animal was actually lying, dead, in our driveway. It wasn't, but when I returned home ninety minutes later, Shannon reported that Julia had complained that she couldn't fall asleep because of a "bad smell." That kid has the senses of a wolf.
Just prior to coming home, I had stopped at the gas station to fill up. The clerk - a 20-something young woman - was obviously bored stiff and chatting up everyone in the store. She talked for a long time to the guy ahead of me in line, mostly comparing ages but also discussing his choice of to-go pizza slices. Me, she asked if I did "that skiing that's like running, only with poles?" and then, "Is that like mostly cardiovascular or is that like mostly... uh... uh...." "Strength?" I replied. "Yeah, strength. Is it mostly cardiovascular or mostly strength?" She seemed disappointed when I told her both, depending on what you wanted to get out of it. She did seem to like my late-1990s ski boots (electric yellow and blue). On disengaging from this conversation and heading back to my car, I saw the guy ahead of me in line, feeding the pizza he'd just bought to a black lab puppy.