In case you haven’t noticed, it’s still more than a bit wintery outside our windows here in the Dakota’s. Snow is generally tolerable, and a bit lovely when it’s not piled on the business end of your shovel, but these relentlessly frigid temperatures, and outerwear (and underwear) defying wind chills have worn out their welcome.

My bodies been braced against the cold for so long now that it may be August before the tops of my shoulders part ways with the bottom of my ears. I’ve been duped more than once over the past week or so by the bright sunny sky outside our window. Then I walk the dog and find myself thankful for the opportunity to pick up after him when he’s done his duty. In defiance of the tyranny of winter, I shake one mitten clad fist at the deceptively sunny sky, as the little doggie doo bag of fresh heat warms the other.

Sometimes you have to take whatever little victory you can to keep it together. Other than the Labrador hot-pocket, another little victory I’ve grown fond of, is sitting on the floor in the living room in the square of sunlight and warm carpet that the afternoon sun deposits on its way by our picture window as it searches for spring.

As many of you can attest to, sitting on the floor with advanced bodily ricketiness soon leads to lying on the floor, which digresses to napping on the floor, which then leads to waking up 30-minutes later lacking the ability to get up off of the floor. At that point, if you’ve played your cards right, you have an extra, and hopefully unused, doggie doo bag left in your pocket from the previously mentioned dog walk on the frozen tundra, and you can stay right where you’re at.

A quick update from the Institute for the Study of People Past Their “Best By” Date…they have determined that Advanced Bodily Ricketiness (ABR) is an irreversible condition brought on by living and exasperated by not dying. Who are “they”? Don’t ask questions, just trust that “they” know what they’re talking about, because, as you know, that’s what “they” say. Whoever they are.

Lying on the floor, in that lovely little sundrenched square of warm polypropylene fiber shag, I thought about how much time I had spent on the floor playing with my children back when they were “floor age”. Long ago, before they pulled themselves up and got on with all that growing up makes us get on with. So it goes.

My brother Gabe, and his wife Marki, have two rambunctious boys that have a bit of floor age left in them, and I always enjoy mixing it up with them on their level. Rug-burns, Nerf dart welts, Big Foot sightings…never a dull moment at their level. Simple, but never dull…if only that square of sun would stick around a little longer. Maybe it’ll be back tomorrow?

They say spring is coming. They say a lot of things.