Winter in Washington is never fun for more than 2 or 3 weeks. Usually we have just that to get the various Christmas trees up and lit and the Nutcracker sold out in its annual performances before the gray begins to get to us.
This weekend is the Cherry Blossom Festival. The trees are decked out, the sun is shining, and we are sneezing. But still we are called to drive around top down.
You can safely drive around top down in this area for exactly 7 weeks out of the entire 52. They aren't all fit together. Some happen in Spring - when it isn't raining, some happen in the summer - when it isn't so sweltering hot that you want nothing more to peel off everything you have on and run screaming naked through the streets, and then there are those glorious moments in the autumn when it is sunny, crisp and cool but not so cool that you can't throw on a jacket and challenge the air.
Of course, it was such long weekend in October that brought on the worst sick I've had in a couple of years...but who wants to remember these things?
So yesterday the sun graced us and the wind was not so bad that it could compete with the wind of top down driving. We took the new car out for a spin. First to Manassas to pick up Beau from the vet. He was supposed to return to us newly suitable for continued apartment living but alas, still he fights some sort of infection from his barn living tribulations. So we will take him back in a few weeks to try again.
Then we headed down for a quick visit with my family. A stop into my sister's place revealed that she shares my opinion of laundry and is beyond grateful for my mother's help in this. My mother watches my niece and nephew during the week so that my sister and brother-in-law are able to work. For this she is paid a modest sum and everyone rests easier knowing the children are well cared for.
A pop over to my parents house meant that we visited briefly, my father handed me a book he'd bought a case of and thought I should read and then share with the most liberal friend that I have. I thanked him, told him I'd read it but that I'd not be sharing this book with my friend and if he wanted her to read it he could enter that territory on his own.
A stop back up to the end of the driveway took us over to my other sister's house where my brother is staying while she and her family are in England. It was an unexpected visit but my brother is an unexpected man so I was reasonably sure we'd be welcomed...and we were. As we walked into the house we saw immediately that he had been hard at work fixing what needs to be fixed given the previous tenants (the family who rented it from my sister first) and some then current but now unfortunate decorating decisions made by my sister several years back.
My brother and I talked politics, about the government, and our feelings about the general state of the country at the moment. Then I told him that he was a good man for taking care of our sister in this way. He wants to give back to the family that I'm not sure has treated him fairly in his life. I could see a moment of pain pass over his face and then he was resolute again. He would do this for our sister. Even as I remember that momentary expression I feel a surge of anger pass over me. For this she'd better not be charging him rent. Knowing him, he'd pay it and still give up what he had to do this kind thing for her.
A final visit to my pregnant with identical twin boys sister-in-law and my pixie'ish neice rounded out our evening and our visit home. We caught them just as my SIL was try to wrestle her daughter into bed. My niece will be three in June and if she keeps going the way she's going my brother is going to have to re-think his views on gun ownership. Of the entire family, it may be this brother and his wife with whom we feel the most kinship, if for no other reason than there is a fair bit of wanderlust in the both of us. My sister-in-law is an artist and in her home you see bits and pieces of whimsy developing. I can't wait to see what they've come up with when the remodeling is finished.
Over the past few days I've been struggling with whether to go back and edit the various typos that appear in my blogs. I write "stream of thought" and quickly - and the end result is sometimes imperfect but always me.
Sort of like my family.
So I'm not going to edit my previous posts. Because even though they are imperfect, they are fine just the way they are...and just like my family.
NL
