Quietude, Sweet Quietude

My first of three new words in my personal dictionary from 2014, quietude is a portmanteau (that's a mashing together of two words) of "quiet" and "attitude". And probably nobody outside of me uses it, but I find myself singing this to the tune of singer Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" so just before the chorus where SHE sings "Clarity, peace, serenity" I sing often in a whisper "quietude, sweet quietude" when everybody around me seems shouting ... and I don't want to shout; I have my own problems. (Incidentally, Fergie is connected to Minot by being the wife of actor Josh Duhamel who is originally from my now-home town!)

Today school has started again here in Minot; I got Sarah and Jeffrey to Longfellow after a good night's sleep for pretty much everybody -- YES, I'm the one that's done the paper route the last two days in below zero weather (this morning was -13 but it's warmer now, though still below zero) but Martha who alternates the route with me has been forethoughtful enough to buy us each two pairs on thermal pants (you might know them as "long johns") to wear under our regular ones and keep our legs from freezing. Also, she and Sarah are proving to be quite the bakers; try the Reese's cupcakes filled with peanut butter, oh yummy!

I remember getting home after work at Marketplace this Saturday really tired, so I was surprised to read a text from Martha to get something for everybody -- her, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I -- from Dairy Queen. I was in the mood, and business there AND in the south Broadway store AND in the mall franchise is actually pretty steady despite the cold! Welcome to North Dakota. (Oh yes, we have a store on north Broadway too that's being rebuilt come this spring!) For New Year's Day and for the most part reenacted this weekend, we rented five movies and sat down to Pizza Hut pizza and toasted parmesan bread sticks. Tooth Fairy, Tooth Fairy 2, Epic, Flushed Away, and Rango.

Rango itself has twists and turns rivaling True Lies, another favorite movie of mine (but it's not a movie that changed my life, a story for another day). This morning after dropping the kids off at work I stopped in Barnes & Noble to use the $20 gift card I'd gotten from my brother-in-law Allan and his family (whose birthday is coming up, and I've got the PERFECT gift for him, but don't tell) and held the door for a man who proceeded to ask me where to find a particular skiing magazine. I helped him look -- apparently there's a photo of his son standing in a snow deluge -- in it and he repaid me with a cup of coffee in the Starbucks there. I hope Kirk finds him, and I'm glad I could help.

Now for some quietude, sweet quietude.

David