Still struggling through this damn

Dec 7, 2001

Still struggling through this damn head cold. The weather here certainly has lifted my spirits—we had temperatures near 80 yesterday. Bright blue skies, warm sunshine and a nice breeze. Early yesterday morning a man came to our apartment with a load of firewood. He put it out on the porch, chatted with me for a little bit: ‘I live out on Dairyland Road. I remember when there were seven working dairies out there, but today there are only two. And the county wants to shut one of them down because a creek runs through his land. Anyway, I’m off to work for the state for a few hours. I work at the university installing multimedia classrooms. I’ve been delivering firewood mornings, on my lunch break and after work for 17 years.’ Erin and I have a nice, small fireplace, and since our heat doesn’t seem to work well in the night, we’ll be sitting in front of cozy fires this winter.

Little Anna and I are getting along quite well. While Erin is teaching Anna to crawl, I’m helping her to learn to walk. Earlier this week, Anna and I went to the park for a stroll. With Anna in her stroller, I gave her a leaf to play with. She loves to hold it in her hand and flick her wrist back and forth. When I turned my head, though, little Anna decided to taste the leaf. She coughed and gagged and choked, and while my heart rate raced up, I stuck my finger in her mouth an extracted a nickel-size bite of leaf. She rewarded me with a sigh—of relief, sure, but probably also of exasperation. ‘Dad, you should know babies like to put things in their mouths!’

Anton Zuiker ☄