In MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, the crescendoing content of the rhetoric always causes me to sniffle a bit and pause while I'm going over it with Cody. It's just the most beautiful speech ever written by man, I believe. And, the courage and the fight for justice ... always brings out the idealist in me, and it makes me sniffle and happy that good can prevail over wrong. You can hear it and see it at this site:.

We had school today, even though the holiday, in which we paid homage to MLK, Cody ate a cupcake, and I sniffled. We also read about El Cid, health safety tips in hot weather (dreamy!), did penmanship, and the everpresent division. Perhaps there was more. I'm not sure.

I haven't been out of the house for four days! The ice isn't impairing me as much as my mental approach to the ice. It's as if my house is perched upon an icy slope high above Lake Lucerne, and if I go outside I might slide into the cold lake which I remember from the summer stopover in Switzerland. And, then Missouri might not even be a reality and I will be flailing my arms and panicing in the cold water and not doing the H.E.L.P float in cold water (which is like a cannonball posture) which Cody read about today in his health book. Ah, too many scary things out there, and I've got lots of songs and duties to perform here in the home.

I do have an appointment, though in a couple of hours to deliver some food to a family whose mother is dying. I need a cause like this to free me into the elements. If I slide into a ditch, I will get out and hoof my roast on over, because they live only perhaps a couple of miles from me.

It's snowing lovely flakes outside now. Isn't this what winter is all about: being secluded, resting up, accepting the mixture of harsh and sublime. Being in a stupor, eating too much, spatting with the husband some. Life in January in the Midwest. It's quite normal.:)