It was my half-day at work, my aunts' as well, and we made plans for lunch. My morning was efficient and as the latest Five for Fighting album crooned from my headphones and the sun poured in, I put all thoughts of holidays from my mind and enjoyed the moment.

After lunch, I went back to my aunts' home where I "helped" Debbie by making a salad and Brenda by cleaning a small area in the kitchen. I joked with Brenda during the drive to our lunchtime stop that this truly was a Paske holiday—I was driving Brenda because Debbie was picking up painkillers, and she was hopeful Debbie would be delayed so we could have a few beers while we waited. That's the way we do it in our family—we screw with our minds and then sharpen knives. They didn't task me out too much, and I'm sure to a serious chef such as my dear Debbie, I seem fairly inefficient—the neat freak shall lie down with the cook?—but I didn't leave a mess to be cleaned.

I was feeling sluggish, but guilty they didn't give me more to do...and as a sweet gesture of unnecessary thanks (what is family for?) Brenda took me to get my nails done. Jack, the man who did my nails spoke in a heavy—well, I can't 100% place the accent...a sort of Asian-Latin hybrid—and I could barely understand a word he said.

At first he thought I was my aunt's daughter, which she vehemently denied. Then he thought I was a kid, asking which high school I attend. After he learned I was older than all that, he asked if I had a baby. I shook my head firmly. "You look tire. Like you have baby." Meanwhile, Brenda got a pedicure and Jack complimented my looks. I think. Heavy accent, remember? Being a smart ass, I replied to him that that's why I look tired...that it isn't easy looking so good all of the time.

Brenda yelled from across the salon, "You've got that right!" and expelled a breath through pursed lips as if nothing causes greater weariness than her comely face. I leaned closer to Jack, even though I wasn't certain he could understand what I was saying, and told him that it was a family trait—the attitude. I have the best time with Brenda!

I drove home, stopping for a car wash in De Forest on my way out of town...the new car will be seen by my brother today for the first time, and I want it to look all shiny and flirtatious, just as it was the day it gave me that come hither stare at the lot. Got home, looked in the mirror, and thought, "I really do look tired." Opened the mail, decided I'm sick of getting correspondence from both Dean Care and UW Hospital and Clinics.

All pretty humdrum. Then, I started getting this itch, this desire to be anywhere but here. I decided to go out and buy the new album from Chris Daughtry, It's Not Over, with my Border's Rewards© points. I picked up dinner for Nick who had a not so great day and headed home, instinctively turning my radio on as I left the parking lot.

Shortly after, I turned it off...the music didn't feel right. And as I passed the first display of Christmas lights, the tears fell, and I spoke aloud to my empty car wishing her back, wished myself gone, wished it all different...wished the holidays could just not come this year. It was such an ordinary day...I don't understand where it all came from...perhaps I stayed just busy enough to not notice the heaviness of my heart.

At work, we have a vehicle (one prone to traffic jams, I might add) known as the eForm. The majority of the eForms I come across in my lowly position concern homeowner policy changes...but I've heard such lore as the eForm that outputs local happy hour locales, brown nosing compliments, and even the occasional bag of Cool Ranch Doritos©—like a digital vending machine.

The other day, I had class—one of the final two I must attend within a year of employment at my current job. Titled, "Respect in the Workplace", we were educated on company policy, to whom we should report offenses, and the level of safety and comfort we should expect while working.

The touchy subject of inter-office romance was addressed, along with the silly nuances—you can date within your department but you cannot marry within your department—and we differentiated between sexual attraction and sexual discrimination. After an exhaustive discussion that had me pondering the possibility that a writing utensil inserted into my right nostril might just be less painful, our instructor posed the question, "So how do you ask a coworker out on a date?"

Dead silence. I can't be certain if the entire room was single-mindedly focused on nose-jamming, or if they were all dancing on that line between wakefulness and slumber, but it was so still that Sprint's pin even refused to drop! Taking pity on us and vying for a little comic relief, the instructor answered her own question:

"You submit an eForm."

It's perhaps a little-known fact that I hate winter...well, little-known if you're of the dim-witted sort. Let me say it plainly for you: I hate winter. I hate being cold. I hate the mucky mush on the sides of the roads. Because I am female and therefore altogether confusing and nonsensical: the first snow is one of the biggest thrills of my year.

It came yesterday, and it wasn't much of a thrill. I feel a little gypped. It reminded me more of that movie about global warming—The Day After Tomorrow? Hard, bruising rain through the morning, sky black as night...thunder that seemed to quake the office...wind that seemed to force the rain to fall horizontally...and then the snow fall there at the end...just in time for rush hour stupidity.

Yet, this morning, I look at this:



And my breath catches. The land is unsullied, pure and immaculate. This is God's artwork, an appreciation my mother embedded so deeply in my brother and, too, in myself. She would call me in the early evening hours to my bedroom. "Laur? Come and see!" My mother is the only person who's ever shortened my name. It sounds wrong on every other tongue. I would join her at my window, Westward-facing and luminous in twilight. We would be bathed in pinks, peaches and lavenders. The fiery glow painted our skin and transmitted warmth as we stood there and breathed it all in...and in the stillness she would say—and my brother would know what I'm going to say if he was a regular reader—"God paints us a pretty picture." Truly, stop and look. Life will seem richer. Life will be richer.

And with that, I remembered last year's first snowfall, amidst a broken marriage and a dying parent...a dying friend, and I remembered it with a smile. I remember staying with my Mother a lot after Miles left, how dually we leaned on each other, how many times we talked, how warm our conversations were, how silly and joyful they continued to be, truly exemplifying our Miss Mary Sunshine gene. You know, she might have given me the gene that left me missing parts and with extra organs...and, as I learned at Monday's CT Scan, a certain difficulty finding a veins...but she left me with a smile, an ability to see past the shadow and into the light.

I re-read her comment to my simplistic post this morning, and laughed aloud, worrying I would wake Nick. I burrowed into the sofa and enjoyed the view, still sipping my coffee as I did then, and felt inexplicably...happy.