Andy Smallman

Today’s photo is hot off the scanner. That’s Melinda and me, you bet. And the animal with us is a horse. Our horse. A 3 year-old filly by Table Run fresh off the racetrack. Yup, way back in 1991 we rented a farm on the Sammamish plateau and bought a horse. Melinda named her Sasha.

My horse trainer friend Tom, who brokered Sasha’s purchase for us, said a couple of funny things the day he delivered the horse. The first was said with a little more serious tone than the second. He told me that he hoped our friendship survived him bringing us a horse.

The second thing he said, punctuated by his big booming laugh, is something I’ve heard in reference to other purchases, like cars and boats. About the horse Tom said, “You can never tell your favorite day as a horse owner. The day you buy the horse or the day you sell it.”

Today’s Question: Have you ever made a purchase like that?

I’m a self-proclaimed nostalgia sap. I love looking at old photos and reminiscing about the past. As such, I have a strong desire to get all of our old photos digitized. We have thousands, literally. And I’d like to get them into our iPhoto library, next to all the digital photos we have from the more recent past.

Scanning them all, one by one, takes a lot of time. For instance, it took me about 3 minutes to scan in today’s photo, which was taken in Olympia, WA on January 1, 1991, the day after Melinda and I were married. We went to Olympia to announce to some close friends that we had gotten married (a surprise to everyone but Melinda and me). I’m very pleased to have a digital version of this picture. Like I said, it took me about 3 minutes to get it.

But thousands of pictures at 3 minutes each is thousands of minutes of my time. I could pay $200 to have 1000 pictures digitized and put on a DVD.

Should I do that?

Today’s Question: What are things you know how to do but pay to have someone else do them for you?

For this unexpected “no school” day, I accompanied Melinda and Ella on what would have taken place for the two of them today if school had been in session, a trip to Alpental for a day of skiing. That’s right, Ella & Melinda go skiing every Friday. Ella does it as part of the independent study program provided to students at PSCS. And Melinda does it because she has Fridays off. Normally, Melinda’s parents go with them but they had another event. Home from school, I decided to tag along.

Today’s picture is of Ella up on the slopes just before her first run of the day. I took this picture and a couple of others before retiring to the lodge with a book (“The Virtue Driven Life,” if you’re interested). It was a tad chilly up there and I’m not a skier. I blame the latter on my Nebraskan roots although I’m sure it’s either far more complicated or much simpler than that.

Today’s Question: What sports do members of your family play but you don’t?

For the second of what I’ve learned will be three snow days this week (yes, school has been cancelled for tomorrow) I present this photo of Brayden, son of PSCS teaching staff member, Scobie. Scobie managed to swing by today for a visit and told us about his epic day sledding with Brayden at Gasworks Park, from where this picture was taken.

Now to understand Scobie you have to know that he is a design genius. When he realized that they didn’t have a suitable sled, what did he do? He made one. In his shop. In 20 minutes. And it was so much the best one on the hill that others asked where they could buy one.

Yeah, that’s Scobie.

Today’s Question: What is something you made for your child or a parent made for you?

As a kid, that’s a priceless phrase. Snow day. Not only does it mean no school, it means getting to play in the snow! Such is the experience we had in Seattle today, a snow day. And as it turns out, due to concern for icy road conditions in the morning, we’ll be having another one tomorrow. Wow!

This got me thinking about other phrases that bring smiles to the faces of kids. Help me out by answering today’s question, okay? Meanwhile, enjoy this photo of Chloe from a snow day of a year gone by (click on it to enlarge it). Speaking of Chloe, she just emailed me from college, commenting that Seattle is pretty wimpy compared to our Canadian neighbors. She’s got 6 inches of snow and a negative wind chill factor and is busy writing a paper.

No snow days in college, I guess.

Today’s Question: What phrase or word makes kids smile?

I like to joke with the students at PSCS about the REAL graduation requirements of the school. Our handbooks and school literature all say something about attendance and senior projects and stuff like that, etc, etc. But the real deal is much simpler.

To graduate, the students have to take a “Kurt Vonnegut” class (facilitated by ME) and their parents have to appreciate the music of Tom Waits (I explain that I just can’t expect teens to appreciate Tom Waits, but their parents, now that’s another story).

I got to thinking about this today as I found this picture of Chloe from 1993. Way back then I was trying to get her to appreciate Elvis Costello and shared with her this magazine article over graham crackers and juice, the afternoon snack. I put on his latest CD, “Brutal Youth” (an apt title if ever there was one for a baby with a father like me) and we got busy.

Today’s Question: What’s important to you that you want your kids (or someone else’s kids) to know about?

On this holiday Monday I spent several hours organizing family photos for a couple of scrapbooks I keep, one for each of the girls. Each book has 12 photos from each year of the girls’ lives. I’m a little behind, having last updated the books for 2007. And with the plethora of photos from France last year, this takes some work.

I’m also monitoring the weather (if looking out the window and wondering if it will snow tonight counts as monitoring). I just heard that the Seattle School District has delayed their start by two hours. That means nothing for PSCS. We don’t operate on a delayed basis. We are either opened or closed and we base our decision on whether or not the SSD is closed. So as of right now, PSCS is planning to be open regular hours tomorrow.

So with scrapbooks and a snow forecast in the forefront of my mind, I present this photo of Melinda and me from last July in our backyard pool in Nantes. Good times. Warm weather.

Today’s Question: What is your reaction to the expression “snow day?”

I was working on the first entry this afternoon for my a blog I’ve been asked to write for Ode Magazine. The topic of my post is the significance of holding hands and in my “research” I came across a story about a couple in Iowa who had been married for 72 years. Last fall they were involved in a car accident, sadly, and in the emergency room it became clear they would not survive their injuries. They were placed side by side and held hands. The husband died an hour before his wife. After he died, her heartbeat registered on his heart monitor, apparently through their holding hands.

Their son commented, “Dad used to say that a woman is always worth waiting for. He waited an hour for her and held the door for her.”

Today’s photo is another old one, this one of my dad walking with Ella and Olivia. I chose it, of course, because they are holding hands.

Today’s Question: With whom have you held hands so far this year?

This photo was taken many years ago on, get this, a cruise ship. It’s of Ella (on the right) and her cousin Olivia out on the dance floor. It was just the two of them and it was pretty darn fun to watch them.

Ella has always wanted to dance. To nurture her desire, when she was a preschooler we signed her up for a class called “Creative Dance.” At the first session, Melinda and I tried to spy on her without being seen (to see if she was having fun) by peeking through the tiny window in the door. We watched her spin and twirl and move, all with a smile on her face. Confident she had a great time, when class ended we asked her, “Did you have fun?”

Her sweet and profound answer was as prompt as it was telling. “I don’t see how they can call it CREATIVE dance when they tell you what to do!” she exclaimed.

Today’s Question: Do you like to dance?

Years ago I started offering “kindness classes” at PSCS. That may sound strange, as in, “How can somebody *teach* kindness?” Well, actually, I don’t think I *teach* it. I try to give people opportunities to access the inherent kindness within them. Like I said, I started doing that years ago with teenagers at PSCS.

Over the years the idea spread, including going somewhat viral on the Internet a couple of years ago. My classes have been tweeted by the likes of Deepak Chopra and promoted by bestselling author Dan Pink.

I’m telling you all this now because I’m starting an online kindness in two days on Sunday. To participate or check it out, take a look at the Kind Living blog on Sunday night. I’ll have posted the first theme there by then.

Today’s picture is of a kindness act perpetuated by a group of PSCS students back in 1997. That’s Zoe, Gus and Johnny surprising Melinda in the PSCS office with a bouquet of flowers.

Today’s Question: What acts of kindness did you notice today?