This morning AJ and I were playing dragons. His new stuffed Valentine dragon, which has acquired the name of Rory (Actually, it�s probably supposed be Roary, as he tends to roar a lot, but I kind of like the Celtic reference of the first spelling) was playing with his friend Little Dragon, a small, chubby, plastic dragon that came with AJ�s castle, a Christmas present. Rory (played by AJ) came over to the castle and invited Little Dragon (played by me) to a movie.

Rory/AJ: Helloooo! Little Dragon!
LD/Harriet: Hello. How are you?
Rory/AJ: Good. Would you like to go see a movie with me?
LD/Harriet: Sure. What are you going to see?
AJ (in a whispered aside to Harriet): What should they see?
Harriet (I�m not sure. What do you think the dragons would like?
Rory/AJ: How about, �The Dragons Go South.� It�s about some dragons who go south for the winter because it�s too cold.
LD/Harriet: That sounds great. Let�s go!

The dragons jogged across the room and climbed up the pile of cushions in front of AJ�s bookshelf (�The pillows are the stairs in the movie theater,� said AJ) and sat down facing the side of AJ�s playtent, which served as a movie screen. AJ said, �Hey, we can make a movie with shadows!� So he ran to get his flashlight, set it up behind him, and made a shadow of what looked like an enormous rabbit on the side of his tent. The dragons and I were amazed.

LD/Harriet: Look! It�s a giant bunny!
Rory/AJ: No, no. It�s a dragon. Those are his horns. He�s going south now. (The shadow travels down to the bottom of the tent and disappears and the dragons applaud, insofar as they can, given that Rory�s arms are too short to touch and Little Dragon�s don�t move.

The weather here has been very strange all day. We�ve had thunderstorms and enormous hail so violent that the barn hands took all the horses indoors. Mostly, though, it�s been raining slushy snowballs. The driveway is a miracle of aquatic engineering. It looks simply wet, but it is actually covered in about two inches of clear snow. It is so nearly melted as to almost be liquid, but not quite. It�s just solid enough to stay put instead of draining off down the hill.

AJ and his dad went out to shovel. We bought AJ an AJ-sized shovel for this purpose last weekend and he�s been itching to use it. AJ came in fairly soon after going out.

Harriet: �Did you do some shoveling?�

AJ: Yes, well, but soon after that I became snowsick.

Harriet: (smothering a giggle at the correctness of AJ�s prose) Snowsick?

AJ: Yes, well, I was just really, REEEALLY cold.

And so we snuggled under a blanket and watched Bambi while the rainsnow drummed on the roof.

Snowsick is the perfect word for February.

[Second entry today. Click back for pondering on aging and memory]

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