Snow Day #2: The Second Snow Day.

Isn't the redundancy in that title hilarious! Sometimes I like to pretend I'm a college freshman.

All of a sudden this week, I had two snow days. Plus, MLK Day on Monday--and now it's a five day weekend. Wooty woot woot!

Rich is coming to Roch today, bringing Travis along with him. They're taking Kris' sister's puppy, Lola, home to love forever. We cleaned the house this morning. I had the thought that I don't take enough pictures every day. I have to remember winter in Elgin. Someday I'll want to. Plus, the clean house makes it seem like there is so much more space everywhere. I like space. I like open, white space. I mean, space. You can just fill it with whatever the fuck you want to.

My goals for this weekend are to read, take pictures, go into town and run, plan a rough calander for second semsester for the freshman--and then, for the juniors, I'll work on the calander next week. Finals week in District 535. No teaching. A big phew.

Oh, I have so much to read, too. I set that goal of a poem a week, and I really haven't followed through yet.

I think I'm falling in love with this town, and it makes me nervous. I mean, I might not get to be around next year. But it's just a nice town. Nice. I went to the Field House yesterday to run around the track. Even though the indoor track is at RCTC (the community college that houses most WSU classes) it's open to the public. So often, I run around the track and 10 year olds play basketball on the gym courts. The giant curtain is down; we can only see each other through mesh windows. Yesterday was girls' baseball practice. Parents were walking around, watching their 10-year-olds hit balls off a tee. But parents never have just one kid. They have 10-year-olds and five-year-olds. And those five-year-olds were running around the track yesterday, with me. The parents weren't really watching. And another day, I might think this be pretty annoying. But I was working with a goal of 30 minutes, and I was getting bored. So it was kind of funny when a little kindergartner hid along the curve of the curtain and waited for me to come along. He hid, waited--and when he saw me coming around the corner, giggled and took off. Then, he ran ahead of me--and I was pretty sure he didn't want me to pass him, so I didn't--and he looked back with fits of laughter every couple of seconds as he beat me in this race. I just smiled as he looked back, waved a couple of times.

And then, a couple of laps later, a little girl decided to do the same thing. She had taken her boots off, was running around the track in socks. She saw me coming, then started giggling and turning her head around. Then she stopped in her tracks, ran up to me, hit me in the side and said gottcha! I laughed, kept running (I was working on edurance yesterday, so I didn't care how slow I was going) and then turned around, tapped her in the shoulder and said gottcha! Who was she? Who the hell knows. But there must have been a cute little kid convention yesterday. And I was in the mood not to get mad at the parents for not watching their kids. It's Rochester. All the little kids are cute. Well, of course, there's a Field House bias--these are the parents who care about their kids enough to take them to baseball practice in January...

Thank God for a breather this weekend. Thank goodness I had the chance to play tag with strangers, the chance to clean, make space. At least a big fat week until things pick up pace again, until the third quarter starts and I find myself so busy I shake, tremble whenever I sit down. Now's the time for taking it slow. Planning, over-planning, calanders, reading, catching up on letters, emails, phone calls. The money comes next Friday, I've promised myself one splurge--new tall black boots since I've worn the heels off the others. Fresh starts, starting over.

And I think I'll go to Green Bay next weekend. I'll work hard this week and give myself a long, slow drive over the Wisconsin hills, listen to some acoustic tracks, sort my thoughts. Some more.