Snow day ...

It snowed and snowed and snowed here in Toronto over the last couple of days. Walking through life awakens the adventure in me. I often miss my car, the freedom and the comfort, but the adventures of walking abound. There is something energizing about having my bubble bump into others. We use bubbles a lot in Child Life, there is something about them that almost always instantly captures the attention of a pissed off child. They are able to momentarily forget all that is around them and focus all of their energy on that little floating world. Are our adult bubbles magical? Do we get as excited as a child when we can stick our fingers, toes, hugs, and kisses inside someone else's bubble?
I was walking to the gym last Thursday on campus and there was one lone red balloon on the sidewalk. It was rolling its way towards me and I could not help but grin out loud. I had a funny thought. I thought how brilliant would it be if that balloon saw my smile and decided to stop and turn in its tracks and follow me for a little while. Mocking myself as I turned to look, my smile grew ... it was following me and it did almost the entire way.
This weekend was filled with laughter. Natalie loves to laugh about as much as I do and I love having her stay for the weekend, she usually heads back to Hamilton to work in the OR. We had been planning to go to the St. Lawrence Market since we moved here and yesterday was to be the day. After fighting the urge to stay curled up in our warm beds, and pulling ourselves away from our laptops we opened the front door to a true winter wonderland. Sure that there would be frequent transit service on the main road headed to the market we started to trudge through the snow. It was not long before we realized that there would be no warm bus coming to save us and unable to make our frozen brains make an alternative plan we kept on walking. Past the National Ballet School where we saw little ballerinas prancing out into the snow. Past the men in front of the shelter feeding the pigeons. Past all the major east-west roads of downtown Toronto. Underneath a flock of seagulls which pushed Natalie over the edge resulting in two strong hands on my back strongly pushing me into a run and nearly into oncoming traffic! Under a soaring hawk that could not have been more out of place yet fitting. The fresh fruit, veggies, and hummus were so worth it.
And to prove that we are crazy we headed out yet again after warming up for a couple hours to Nat's friends house for potato pancakes and strudel. And once again TTC left us hiking and running frozen through snow banks up hills overlooking the whole downtown, hailing street cars in the wee hours of the morning.
Needless to say I stayed in today ... even though the sun is shinning and the sky is blue!