Three Moments That Cheered Us Up Some

1. Menna sprints through our kitchen with one foot bare, prompting me to ask that tedious grown-up question: "Menna, isn't your foot cold?" To which she responds with a withering look and a haughty, "No." And I just can't stop myself -- out comes the entirely predictable follow-up question: "Why are you wearing only one sock?" Indignant surprise: "I'm wearing two socks!" And she pulls down the her pink-and-yellow striped sock to reveal a red one underneath, with white hearts on it.

2. On the way to work I walk by a pile of stuff on someone's front step that's been put out for the Blind. (Non-Seattle readers may require a brief explanation: several non-profits around here raise money by collecting used household items and selling them to thrift stores by the pound. So we all get these monthly calls from the Community Services for the Blind, United Cerebral Palsy, Boys & Girls Club, etc., saying they'll have a truck coming to our neighborhood next week and asking if we've got anything to donate. Once when the Cerebral Palsy folks called, Andrew had to tell them, "Sorry, the Blind beat you to the punch!" Anyway, you always have to label your stuff (my favorite is the Big Brothers of King County, who tell you to write "B.B. King" on your boxes) and have it out on your porch by 7 am.) Okay, now the story: On the way to work I walk by a pile of stuff on someone's front step that's been put out for the Blind -- a big box labeled "BLIND" in huge letters, and then underneath, "SHARP OBJECTS."

3. I'm walking up the hill toward school this afternoon, aware that the bell's about to ring and I'm a little late, so trying to move fast, when a van pulls up next to me with big green Starbucks logos all over it, and the driver rolls the window down and says, "You -- get in." A moment of panic: Have I not been drinking my quota of coffee? Am I being hauled in for questioning about my milk preferences? Will I be taken away to a dark basement room somewhere and deprived of caffeine until I squeal? I look closer -- it's our PTA President, who works for Starbucks. He's on his way to school too. I get in.

-- Mikala