I stepped out from the electric glow of the taxi's interior and the groud was frozen and frictionless beneath my feet, so slippery as to defy the fictionless situation in a slapstick manner. I caught myself on the clothes carrier bolted into the roof of the cab, swinging helplessly and staring out at the delosate landscape. It was really quite white. It was really so cold. It was coming in and out of view between rising clouds of my own breath.

Paula pressed her palm into the tender collection of muscle that lined my spine and I slid forward over the icy ground and the toe of my tennis shoe snagged against some rougher terain. I stood uncertainly, unwilling to give my trust to something which had betrayed me so recently. Paula persisted at my back and I took a step forward into the snowy bank. It smooshed like popcorn beneath my soles.

I looked back and a bag was thrust at me. I caught it only barely as it plummeted downwards and towards the wet wet ice. She smiled, Paula, and she was swinging her feet over the taxi bench towards me, I could only free a hand in time to catch hers as she reached up for me. Her smile was so precious, her hair was golden and her cheeks smeared with rose petals which spread to her nostrils and over her nose as she got caught up in the white white winter air. She sneezed.

Love is really cute.

I press a wad of bills into the frost covering the driver's window, which slowly creaks down a few inches to reveal a set of gloved fingers. They gladly relieve me of my money and retreat to their warm automotive sanctum, and just in time too as the taxi's wheels begin to spin and we are soon left only with its smoggy memory.

Paula is hugging her bag and looking a little chilled, her cheeks are steadily growing more rosy and I grab her by the elbow and we march through the ankle deep snow.

My house is sitting inside of a ring of fencing and the fencing is buried under a layer of pure white heat. The sun has just peaked out from under the mountain tops and lifeless tree branches to glare down at the snowy snow before us, it burns to see. I put my hand on my forehead and my skin is so so burning and so so cold at the same time.

Winter is perplexing.

I knock on the door a few times and press down on the shiny handle, in all its shining glory and the dark dark interior of my parents house is flooded by the glaring eye beams of the big bad sun. I kick my shoes off and its so easy to do, I lost my shoelaces yesterday! Paula sneaks in behind me and gently closes the door, but not enough, my childhood pup comes bounding through the living room and, oh, is all barks and bow wows.

I catch his woofy paws and I pat his woofy head, Paula bends down to scratch his woofy ears and he pulls back at his woofy jaw muscles and gives us a woofy smile. I say to him sweetly, "You've surely woken everyone up, King!" and I have some tears in my eyes because it is so sweet to see him, it doesn't burn at all.

Mom is coming down the stairs and she doesn't look sleepy at all! I think she may have been awake prior to being woken by rude pups who are too excited for their own good! I say, "Hey," and she is all hugs and cheek kisses and the whole room is ablaze with hugs and hugging and woofing pups who are too old to be so excited truth be told. I am smiling so much that it hurts and how wonderful is that?

Who is missing? Dad and Tracy are not here, I am shocked and must inquire, "Where is everyone?"

Mom adjusts her bathrobe, which is all covered in hugs and barking, and runs her hands through her hair, "Its a surprise!"

I was surprised!

"What?" I asked in the long way that only a child who has to know would ask.

She gives me that look, the looky look that all children know, the one that tells you that its a surprise duh. The look that makes you want to know what the surprise is even more, oh gosh, I am surprised at how wonderful the surprise makes me feel. I am surprised when a childhood pup jumps up and licks me on the cheek. I am suprise when Paula giggles at the look on my face. I am suprised, oh gosh, oh my.

Surprise!

We are on the couch, my Paula and me, and we are smiling like two housewives at a botox convention. Our teeth are singing, "Gleam, Gleam, Gleam," and our cheeks are singing, "Glow, Glow, Glow," and our eyes are watery cuz' we just got out of the cold.

My mom is staring at us from the kitchen and she is all smiles and also some pancake making, though I prefer steaks and pie, they are smelling musty like all good pancakes should on a sleepy smile morning. I let my neck slip for a second and I bonk heads with Paula, she giggles and twists from side to side and our hair is rubbing and maybe frizzing a little. I don't care, all I care about is her warm warm heat. I am pulling it up through her hair and I'm defrosting my frosty frozen fingers.

Love is so warm, its so cute too!

King, my lovely pup has his head on my knee and when I shift my weight to rub my hair into Paula's he is following me with his doggy chin, he is whining for some pats. I give some pats to my pet and he is smiling.

If the house were singing I think it would be to busy giggling to even get a stanza in the air! I am giggling and so is Paula, mom comes out and she asks, "Whats so funny?!" then she giggles too!

"Puh-puh-puh-puh-puh-puh-puhncakes!"

"Pah-pah-pah-pah-pah-pah-pahncakes!"

"Oh me!"

"Oh my!"

I have a fork and its deep in pancake territory, I cut it like a stick of butter, which half of it pretty much is! I bite a 4 stack of pan-triangles and oh me oh my, flavor invasion! I smile across the shiny table at my pancake making mother and there is syrup all over my lips so the light reflecting off the table hits my lips and they sparkle.

The door crashes open and it seems its been turning from snowy morning to just snowy and through the door enters a cold cold wind carrying a thousand little white stabbers, who stab into the skin that covers the muscles on my neck. Ow, ow!

Oh, and Tracy and Dad too.

I turn around excitedly and toward their wrapped up and unwrapping figures I yell, "Hey!" but it comes out pancake.

Tracy and Dad are standing at the doorway and rubbing their hands like they're making play-doh snakes. They dropped the bags they were carrying and King is nose deep in investigation. When he finds something he likes he bites down and no one reacts so quickly as to prevent total anihliation.

It starts snowing inside, first wrapping paper and then more.

And after that cardboard, and aster that some more.

Then it stops and Tracy is trying to pull a doggy bone from my doggy's mouth. Kings has his mouth on the ribbon and its tearing and my eyes are nearly tearing up, its so funny but its so sad.

I get up from my seat and I pounce on King and distract his ears while Tracy frees the doggy bone from the doggy's grip and falls back on her backside, she is quick to hide the toy on a top shelf of a cupboard and I lay with my head against the doggy's ears, he is panting because he isn't used to such exertion. I let my tongue hang out and he whines because he knows he is acting silly and I've caught him in the act.

I roll of the doggy and ask Tracy, "Sup pup?"

She gives me her hand and I stand up into a bear hug, I can't stand it but just barely.

Dad was already on his phone and on the couch and he looked focused. I sat down next to him and put my ears close to him to hear what was going on in there, it came out mostly, "Business, business, business," and then sometimes it came out, "Small talk, business, business."

Small talk is usually an interlude between seriousness.

He turned and smiled at me for a moment, then covered hi mouth piece and whispered, "I'll turn it off after breakfast, okay?"

I made a serious face "Maybe before would be better, breakfast is serious business too."

He nodded and mocked a look of determination back to me. I slid off the couch and returned to the pancake festival slowly, stopping to ruffle Tracy and Paula's hair before indulging in another stack of flapjacks.

"What are we gonna do today, Nessy-poo?" Tracy coo'ed at me with a mouthfull of buttermilk so that it came out, "wha awwe gwunna oo' a-day, Essy-poo?"

"Are we still gonna go see Jeffy-weffy?" Paula added in with a silly voice.

"Uh-huh! We're gonna go see him for lunch!" I was excited!

"Is Prince Poo gonna be there?" Tracy wondered at me.

"I dunno, he says he doesn't want you fainting again."

Pancakes are hard to evade, they are like ninja stars.