Regular life ...

I survived almost an entire week of regular life. Except that we had Monday off, and since I seldom have school on Fridays, I have no school tomorrow. (Note that I said seldom. Two weeks ago I would have said never, but now I do have class some Fridays to make up classes we missed during our week of snow. I know, I have a really challenging school schedule.) Anyway, I survived my Tuesday through Thursday, with nothing new to report, except my commute.

It used to be this:

1. Walk (on sidewalk) to Metro station
2. Ride Metro
3. Walk to school

Now it is this:

1. Walk down my slushy street. Climb over large pile of gray snow to partially shoveled sidewalk. Walk one block. Climb over large pile of gray snow to exit sidewalk. Cross street. Climb over large pile of gray snow to sidewalk. Walk one block. Etc. Occasionally there will be a requirement to jump over a slushy pile of melting snow or to cross the street to find a more partially shoveled sidewalk. This continues for five blocks until arriving at the Metro station.
2. Ride Metro
3. Walk to school, trying to avoid patch of ice where I slipped and fell on Tuesday, before I had really mastered the snow commute ...

P.S. Memo to the people in charge at NBC: When someone has just won a gold medal, after being injured, and is hugging her husband and clearly having a moment, the camera does not actually need to record the entire scene. Your camera crew can pan to things like snow-covered trees, and the cheering crowd, and the falling snow, after five seconds of the hugging. We are glad they are hugging. We think they should hug. But we also think they should get 20 seconds to themselves.

P.P.S. Memo to the people in charge at the Express: When someone has just won a gold medal, after being injured, your article about her achievement does not need to note that she hugged her husband for a full 30 seconds. We a) assume she hugged her husband, b) like that she hugged her husband, and c) do not care about the length of the hug. If you really need to add some extra words, tell us why the silver medalist thinks she should wear a tiara when, ahem, she did not actually win the race.

A message from my desk ...

perfect yellow Valentine roses + presidential pen cup = happy holiday weekend from my desk ...

Still snowed in ...

Outside my front door, it looks like this:

Outside my back door, it looks like this:

So tonight, we did this:

And I did this:

And yes, if snow cartwheeling ever becomes an Olympic sport, I will be recruited for sure ...

Valentine's Day cookies ...

I like Valentine's Day the normal amount. This means I consider myself a low-maintenance girl for this holiday (as opposed to some others, like say, Christmas or my birthday, which we do indeed consider a holiday here at Capital C). But I will confess that I like Valentine's Day cookies more than the normal amount. Specifically, my mom's Valentine's Day cookies. I love them. In my 28 years of experience with this, the cookies remain constant, whether the holiday brings me a date and a book of Shakespearean sonnets or a night in my pajamas watching Anne of Avonlea for the trillionth time.

Generally, my Valentine's Days have been of the cookies-are-the-best-part variety. That is not a complaint. The cookies only happen once a year. Love, luckily, does not. And a holiday celebrating love should remind us that we have it every day, in countless varieties.

This week I remembered my first Valentine's Day in junior high, when I encountered the delightful ritual of sending carnations to people at school. Some girls got dozens, or so it seemed to my 13-year-old (but appearing to be 10) braces- and glasses-wearing self. Little did I know then that you arranged with your friends to send each other flowers so as to appear/feel more liked/loved/popular. During every class period, the carnation deliverers would appear at the door with a bundle of flowers, and then proceed to call out the names of the lucky recipients. Shockingly, I heard my own name called from one such list. When I looked at the card, it listed a name I did not know. I thought about it. And I solved the mystery. (My fabulous detective skills apparently existed even then.)

The next day I approached the boy who left candy on my desk every day before Spanish class. I called him the name written on the card, watched him blush as he mumbled that the name came from Star Trek, and I really hope, but do not actually remember, that I thanked him. I did not think, back then, that short of the constancy of cookies, this might have been the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me on Valentine's Day. If my 13-year-old self were writing this, I would say that I did not like like Steve (his real name, not his Star Trek name, for the record). Sure, I ate the candy every day, and I did not dislike Steve, but it did not occur to me to even attempt to be friends with him. He sent me a flower anyway. He made me feel liked. And to a 13-year-old girl, that really matters ...

Snowed in ...

I am snowed in. Here we call it snowpocalypse. Except that I have not really called it anything until I just typed it, but other people say it all the time so I guess I am now part of we. This means I have loads of time to do whatever I want without leaving my house. Except that yesterday I had to leave my house. On a Friday. All day long. And this very rarely happens to me because I am still in my happy place where I have no worries or cares like actual adults. (OK, so according to the Ensign this month I am supposed to already consider myself an actual adult and behave accordingly. But that article did not seem to be entirely doctrinal, so I am going to take it more as helpful advice than actual commandment.) Anyway. So yesterday I had to be at school all day, which means 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. But I also got to meet and arrange dinner for two delightfully friendly federal appeals court judges and their spouses. And a bunch of other law-type people. So I guess I should not complain.

I should probably also not complain about how my school finds it helpful to post a graduation counter on the law school web page. Today it told me I officially graduate from law school in 99 days. I am down to double digits. I do not like to think about this fact. I suppose I should, since in the next 99 days I need to formally apply for the bar, decide where to study for the bar, potentially decide where to move should my old bedroom be otherwise occupied or should I remember my actual age, potentially decide how to transport all the belongings that have multiplied in the last three years, and so on. But none of those decisions seem particularly pleasant. I want to blissfully enjoy my last 99 days of my current life, sans decisions. Except that being me, even when I am being carefree, I am being careful too. I have a list on my wall reminding me what I want to do before I leave here. Which I like in theory, because it means I do fun things I really want to do, but then while I do them I remember I am leaving. And sometimes even when I try not to think about the impending end of life as I know it, I forget to forget. I worry. I forget I do not have to make the 99th-day decisions today. But I know that I have to make them soon. And I am not sure if "soon" will come before "I know" and "I am ready." I hate that.

So, moving on. Back to the snow. We have it. Lots of it. And today I left my house only to go outside and enjoy it. For now, I hope it never melts ...

I am so over thinking up titles ...

So, I actually do watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. And the food. Not so much the game. And this article will be all the Super Bowl coverage you will find on Capital C, so enjoy it. I have conveniently posted my favorite parts below:

From Sally Jenkins, in the Washington Post:

"Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

"Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn't."

Another letter ...

Dear Nordstrom:

I walk past your window with the swimsuits every day on my way to school. And your cruel publicity ploy really leaves me with only two options:

1. I imagine wearing one of those swimsuits in the current cold and snowy state of the world. And then I feel colder than I already am.

2. I imagine wearing one of those swimsuits on a beach somewhere in a non-snowy state of the world. And then I feel like I should be on that beach somewhere instead of in a sweater and gloves and scarf and on my way to school.

Both of these options leave me feeling hateful towards you. So even though I actually really love that ruffly yellow swimsuit, I would not buy it from you, even if I magically woke up one morning with hundreds of dollars to spend on skimpy swimwear and the swimwear coverage policy of my teenage self ...

Sincerely,

Callie