I am spending the day in my aunts' home. They live further in town than my parents do—so I can walk without threat of unrestrained dogs hungry for moving human legs...of farmers too busy drinking scalding coffee behind the wheel to keep their oversized tires off of the visiting North Carolinians.

Yes, I got it in my head to go for a walk. I've missed my outdoor walking. A treadmill just isn't the same! It snowed yesterday, and the plowed flakes rose like small-scale mountain systems along the roadways while their residue froze to the pavement in a devilish play to trip an unsuspecting victim.

Just before ten o'clock this morning, I prepared myself for the journey. Cuddle Duds [Oh FINE—long underwear, if you MUST know.] in place and socks doubled, I made my way to the door. Lo and behold, the temperature didn't bother me in the slightest!—if anything, I felt a touch too warm in my jacket and scarf. Isn't that just lovely that with mere weeks left to my visit I finally acclimate?

There's an art to walking in slick conditions. The trick is to forget all censure for scuffling feet that you suffered in your youth. Now, I was a good girl, and I always wanted to be polite and well-mannered. Unfortunately, this paved the way for me to develop a very lummox-like behavior during the winter months. (I had to go and use the word lummox, didn't I? Now I'm going to have Singin' in the Rain in my head all afternoon! "You and who else, you big lummox!")

I broke my ankle my first time ice skating. Come to think of it, that was also my last time ice skating. I was eight years old. I wasn't able to glide. I kept hearing reprimands of, "Pick up your feet, Laura!" streaming through my head. In Girl Scouts, a mere year or two later, my troop went roller skating for several hours one afternoon. My backside was black and blue enough that I avoided seated positions for the better part of that next week. Unsteady surfaces have never been my forté. But, boy!—get me in a pair of flippers and I could pick up my feet like nobody's business!

The point, Laura! The point! Where's your point!? Alas, this disconnected way of communication is what Miles lives with. Gives you a new respect for the lad, no?

Well, good...because I'm about to be brutally honest.

Plainly, living with Miles has taken the sheen off of my polished manners. I. NAVIGATED. THE. ICE. No fall-n-go-boom for me! What a disappointment. *sigh* All those years of awkwardness for naught thanks to one down-to-earth workaholic.