January 10th, 2010
What a morning this morning has been.
It started off well. My wife woke me up to say I could go back to sleep. She would take our son (7) to hockey practice, and I could follow later with our daughter (3) once she woke up.
So, I got up shortly after they left and was enjoying a cup of coffee and browsing Huffpo (I’d glanced at Wonkette, but they are worthless on the weekends. The Huffington Post is worthless 24/7, but there is a lot more of it, at least) when I got a call from my wife.
They’d forgotten the hockey stick at the tram stop. It’s not far, so I left the sleeping baby and ran. I’d be back in 5 minutes and hopefully, she’d still be asleep.
It was snowing and apparently it had snowed all night. This is the deepest snow I have seen in my 11 years in Prague. It sat on the trees, lines of white shading the gray branches like a 3-D font on a concert poster. It was magical.
Fortunately, the hockey stick was still there. I grabbed it and went back home. As I opened the door, I thought I’d gotten lucky because I didn’t hear any crying, but my hopes were dashed pretty quickly.
There she was, tangling up the thread in the sewing basket, and looking at me with hurt and angry eyes. As soon as I spoke, she burst into tears.
Eventually, I did get her dressed and out the door. Kids get upset easily, and are quite loud when they do, but they also get over it quickly. We got to the tram stop, although there were a few points where I actually had to pick up the stroller and carry it because the snow was too deep for the wheels.
I knew the trams were still running, because I’d seen one on my previous sortie and, while we were waiting, two came in the other direction. Nonetheless, after waiting 20 minutes (unheard of in Prague) I decided the Metro would be a better bet.
Just as we got to the platform, one was leaving. It’s Sunday, so that meant another 10 minute wait.
By the time we got to the Ice Arena, practice was just finishing. Oh, well. We were all together and all’s well that ends well.
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