This morning was the first time I�ve ever been on the parental side of the potential snow day. I got up and saw that after it snowed all day yesterday, the weather was clearly settling in for a repeat performance. I spent a half an hour running around trying to figure out where one obtains information about school closings and scanned websites and radio stations for information on whether or not I was going to have a morning to work. Fortunately, AJ does not spend enough time in school to be looking forward to a day off. I was overjoyed � school is in session! But I paid for my glee by slipping and sliding all the way to school. I almost didn�t make it up the hill on the way home. I might be bringing AJ home on his sled instead of by car.

AJ was so excited about today�s snow, which looks like a proper winter storm, that he had to take his favorite teddy, Mr. Bear, outside to show him. Dragging the bear by one arm, he hauled him outside and said, �See the snowflakes, Mr. Bear? They are falling from the sky. Don�t they look like little stars?�

* * * * * * *

Also, a couple of you requested my junior year FBI story, referred to in my last entry. This FBI story is much less light-hearted. I had a good friend named R. in college who went to an Ivy League school. I met him at a Model U.N. conference at Georgetown our freshman year and we hung out at most of the conferences we attended after that. At some point, he developed a crush on another member of my school�s delegation and he used to call me and talk about her pretty frequently. He was unhappy at school and he often asked me for advice or moral support. More often than not, though, we�d just shoot the shit. He was funny and smart and had a quirky sense of humor that matched my own. One week in my junior year, we�d talked every day. This was a little unusual, but didn�t seem particularly out of the ordinary. I talked to him on Friday night about our respective plans for the weekend. He left me a silly message on Saturday. Tuesday I got a call from the FBI. They were sure nothing was wrong, but they were trying to find R. and noticed that he�d called this number frequently recently. Did I know where he was?

My stomach dropped. I felt numb. Had I missed something? Did I say something? What happened? Could he have hurt himself? R.�s family was very wealthy (he grew up in an upper floor apartment on Central Park). Was kidnapping a possibility? How well did I really know him? The FBI agent tried to calm me down and said that as far as they knew, nothing was wrong. But R. was missing. This really didn�t help, as if they didn�t think something was wrong, it hardly seemed likely that they would have been calling random numbers off of his phone records. And so quickly � he�d called me just a few days before from his dorm room.

The FBI thanked me for my time. They never called back. To this day, I don�t know exactly what happened, although I learned from a mutual friend at R�s school that he had turned up in California with a friend a couple of weeks later, much to my relief. He skipped the rest of the year, but eventually returned to graduate. I never saw or heard from him again. I often wonder what happened and what he�s up to now. But at the time, I didn�t want to be the one to call him. I was angry at him for putting me in the middle, even though I�m sure he had no idea that would happen. Most of all, I was angry at him for not telling me the whole story. But I also realized he was probably embarrassed at how the whole thing had gotten blown out of proportion. I know he was feeling trapped by his good fortune. He needed to make some of his own decisions, to cut loose. If it had been me, I�m not sure I could have made that call either. So if you�re out there R., I hope you�ve found the life you want.

0 people said it like they meant it