12-27-12: tainted snow and miserable frenchmen

   Today is December 27. Christmas was nice. Yesterday we saw Les Mis, and it was wonderful, exactly what I expected it to be. Amanda Seyfried was a great Cosette, even though Ash and I doubted her abilities. I loved Eddie Redmayne as Marius! Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway were both amazing. It was all just so great, really, and I can't wait to see it again.  When we entered the theater, it was a typically cold, cloudy winter afternoon; but when we emerged, the sky was yellow as snow heavily fell. Jack Frost had paid us a visit, spreading a wintry coating across the silent earth and the willing citizens. In the theater parking lot, the snow was undisturbed, as yet untainted by the disgusting excretions of cars and engines and machines. It was beautiful and pure. It made me think of how nice things are until we ruin them. Sure enough, when I woke up the next morning, today, people had shoveled all the snow away into brown, slushy trenches at the sides of roads, clearing the way so that humanity could continue. Humanity doesn't like to be interrupted by things as bold and unwanted as a bit of snow.

   We - my dad and I - drove along on the highway as weird obscure music crackled from the radio. People flew along the road like it wasn't even snowing outside. Canadians are cool like that. We turned into the parking lot of a bookstore, and there were no cars on the pavement, just perfect snow. Everything was so gorgeous, and now I look back and realize that it was one of those moments. You know, the ones I talked about where something happens that's so special that you don't realize how much it will always mean to you until you look back on it?

    There's a ton of snow outside today. It's what the people back at home would go into bunker mode over.

     Now I leave you with a quote from Les Misérables: "To love another person is to see the face of God."