Quiet Beauty

A few more juicy tidbits from yesterday.

Before we had our walking plan in place, we had indeed called Mark from the hospital to see if he could “swing by” and pick us up on his way home from downtown. Now that I’ve seen the news reports and heard the stories of twenty minute commutes taking five hours, I realize how silly that was. When I wondered aloud about what people did who had to go to the bathroom, he said it was possible to just get out of your car while sitting in traffic because it’s not like cars were moving slowly, cars weren’t moving at all. He sat for one 35 minute stretch in front of CSU without moving an inch, getting out every ten minutes to brush the newly accumulated snow off his windows.

We definitely definitely did the right thing by walking, not only for us because we actually had fun, but for the rest of the city by not adding one extra car to the roads. Braedan was most thrilled with the idea of being faster than the cars. He was hilarious the whole way — when I asked if they wanted to stop in at a coffee shop to warm up, he insisted we carry on. “Raise your hand if you want to keep walking,” he shouted from behind me. And then, upon noticing that my arms were full with forty pounds of boy, he amended his instructions to, “Or if you can’t raise your hand but still want to keep going, just carry someone whose name starts with ‘A’!”

Our only real moments of drama came before we even left the confines of the hospital, while in the cafeteria. Austin discovered the display of potato chips and Doritoes, located conveniently at the eye level of a four-year-old, and threw an absolute fit when I refused to buy them, laying on the floor and kicking and screaming. I then discovered that the hospital, as part of its new wellness initiative, is listing the nutritional values of all their prepared foods and I nearly lay down on the floor to have a tantrum of my own when I read the sodium content of Austin’s beloved grilled cheese sandwich. Chaos was swirling and it was actually a relief when we made it outside.

Aside from the lines of frustrated drivers, the night was pretty spectacular. A quiet beauty, the heavy snowfall blanketing all sound on the abandoned sidestreets, the stark outline of trees laden with white against the blue and purple sky. I wish I’d taken a few more pictures, but here are my troopers on the last leg of our journey:

This morning, we awoke to plowed roads, to Braedan’s delight since he is performing in the much-anticipated first and second grade winter concert today and was most worried about school being closed. I pulled them to their respective schools on the sled and then ran to the hospital to retrieve my car.

And yet again in the Gallagher household, all is well.