snow what?

My employer considers today a holiday, so I'm at home instead of at work. Jenn has to work today, but is off tomorrow to help her daughter with some things and go to a lunch celebrating the Inauguration of our President.

Part of me wants to come up with some sort of deep thoughtful comments on the pairing of today and tomorrow--the day we celebrate the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr. and the day we inaugurate our first President of African-American heritage. Through the campaign process, I didn't think about Mr. Obama as African-American. I thought of him as human first, as I was raised and continue to believe that we are of but one race--human. The color of our skin should not matter, although it does to some folks. Our names matter greatly--it is our identity, after all--but that his name is not one found in WASP name lists should not matter at all. It doesn't to me. It certainly doesn't imply that he's a terrorist, as some would have us believe.

In any event, he has a tough job ahead of him--convincing those who voted against him that we ALL need to work hard to overcome the legacy of his predecessor. World opinion of the US DOES matter--we must trade with global partners after all. Isolationism is not an option, although it seems some who clamor for ignoring what the world thinks of us also rush to buy the latest imported trash at Mal-Wart.

It's a mess. I can't fix it alone, so I do what I can to make my life and the lives of those around me a little better than they might otherwise be. I try to buy locally, I use less gasoline than I might, I encourage kindness.

While it is not a significant accumulation, there is snow on the ground. It's the first time I've seen snow since moving to this house I so enjoy. It's time to go take some pictures. Later on I might go for a bike ride.