More photos from Mt. B

This is from last weekend, I think. From the top of Mt. Bachelor, clouds made an ocean and the mountains were islands.

In a ski hut in the moonlight

The evening before Christmas Eve some friends hosted an almost-annual party at the Swampy Lakes ski hut. The hut is a small, three-sided log cabin with a dirt floor and, this year, four feet of snow on its roof. Snow fell so deep so early this year that our friends had to cut snow-steps down to the floor of the cabin, and people took turns standing by the entrance, chiding, "Watch your head!" as the rest of us ducked in and out -- drawn by the roaring fire in the barrel stove and three camp tables laden with food.

I first attended this party in 2005, when my son was barely four. At that time I was the connection to all those people. We women worked part-time then, and on our days off we'd haul the kids to this or that playground, or each other's houses, to drink coffee and complain of sleeplessness and laugh and worry over our sweet, silly babies. Now I work full-time. The children are tall, lean tent-poles and they're all in school -- nearly middle school, some of them. The husbands keep us connected now, ensuring that during the long, long ski season we meet on the mountain whenever we can.

Back in 2005, I was unnerved by this party. At the winter solstice the sun sets around 4:30; the party was held almost entirely in darkness, in the forest 16 miles from town, in bitter cold and deep snow. This year, however, the moon was nearly full on the solstice, and you know what? Moonlight on snow is very bright. It's so bright the trees cast shadows. In the cold, voices carry. Also the children are so much older now, I worry about them less -- even though now they're old enough to climb onto the roof of the little cabin and leap, squealing, to land poof! in that deep snow.

At one point I walked out alone, admiring that forest turned to shades of blue in the moonlight; I walked along the trail people had made, and then further, cutting my own path through waist-deep snow. I didn't go far; it was too exhausting; so I turned: looking back at the dark forms of my friends talking around the bonfire and the children romping in the snow, clearly visible in that moonlight, and loud, very loud, the way that free people will be.

Leaping from the roof of the shelter. Near sunset.

I'll shimmer and I'll shimmer and I'll blow your house up

I have to work today but because I work from home and my children are now 11 and 8 1/2, I don't have to make provisions for them. They do their own thing. Every little while I assemble a snack for them and remind them to eat, eat like a good mother -- then run back upstairs to sit at my desk and think and type like a good employee.

My son is singing. He's playing Minecraft and watching YouTube videos of other people playing Minecraft and he also must be watching the Minecraft parody for the song DJ Got Us Falling in Love Again, or else he's watched it often enough that he can belt out the song without a prompt: Baby tonight the creeper's going to steal our stuff again...

The YouTube parodies are funny. My son didn't know they were parodies until he asked me to watch the videos with him and I noticed the flag in the title and then we went around listening to the originals, both of us declaring the parodies much better. The other night he (with assistance from his little sister) invented his own parody, not of a song but of a certain well-known fairy tale, which begins, "Once upon a time there were three little Steves. The first little Steve made a house of mud. The second little Steve made a house of wood. The third little Steve made a house of bedrock. One day the creeper came along and said, 'I'll shimmer and I'll shimmer and I'll...'"

My daughter is making bracelets. She made one for her best friend and one for me and now she's down by the TV, listening to the Kratt Brothers with half an ear as she makes another. The bracelet kit was a gift from my mother, and it includes enough parts that Sasha believes she can make a bracelet for every female she knows. She's generous that way: always making things for other people. Two days after Christmas we had some friends over for dinner, and while Blake played with their three boys, Sasha -- who found the boys too rowdy for her taste, I think -- made their mother a little purse from felt and yarn. 

Well, well. I am supposed to be working, not blogging. I need to validate a fix that one of the programmers made this morning. So, ok! Off I go!