A is for Anticipation (part two)

I mailed this card to my friend, Shannon, whose blog, moving honestly, is a most aptly named blog. The barn is from a falling apart copy of Ox-Cart Man, written by Donald Hall and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. Honestly, I’m not 100% sure where the bunny or the background came from. I’m pretty sure that the rabbit was in an over-sized scribbled-in copy of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The snow scene — I just don’t know. I should keep better track of these things so I can give appropriate credit.

But here it is — April 1 — and I woke up to snow.

Every day, my father looks for blue skies. “Do you think we’ll see any blue skies today?” he asks every morning, peering out the window, not unlike my rabbit, wishing that he wasn’t seeing snow.

I left the house early this morning. My husband knows how stressed I have been lately and offered to hold down the fort so I could do something fun. I made plans to meet one of my children for breakfast.

My drive was beautiful. Snow clung to the trees and mist hung like a curtain on the hills. I finally pulled over to take a picture.

“Fred” treated me to breakfast. When we were going through the line, I answered a trivia question and won a free blueberry muffin from the chef. He rang wind chimes over the register when I told him the correct answer. His glasses were modeled after Elton John’s — white and rhinestone encrusted. I tried to refuse the prize because he had given me a hint.

“No, no,” he said, “I only told you what I wanted to tell you.”

He smiled, handed me my muffin, and started singing. It wasn’t “Good-bye Yellow Brick Road.” “Fred” says he sings all the time.

We went to a craft store after breakfast. I needed more Modge-Podge for my collages.

“Do you want me to ask where it is?” “Fred” asked.

“No,” I said, ” I think I’d just like to wander and find it.”

So we wandered, not in any order, sort of serpentine.

A man in the poster section called to us. “Hey! Look at this one,” he said to us as we walked past. He lifted a poster out that showed a silhouette of a cowboy riding a horse against a backdrop of red sky. “My wife knows this guy. She used to live in Wyoming.” The man was older, wearing a red flannel shirt and a NASCAR cap, and glasses with photochromic lenses — and he was pleased as punch that he was that close to celebrity.

“That’s pretty cool,” “Fred” and I both told him.

We continued our lazy search for Modge-Podge and eventually found it.

When I finally got back home, my dad asked if I had seen any blue skies.

“Not today,” I told him.

“Are we going to see blue skies sometime?” he asked.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

He’s living in anticipation of those blue skies. I know they’ll come. Sooner or later.

But for today, I’m going to live in the moment. I’m going to eat a blueberry muffin given to me because I knew something about David Cassidy, and revel in the fact that I met a man whose wife knows the guy on a cowboy poster.

It’s a good day.