HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROSIE!

But Rosie Knoepfle had her hundredth birthday party yesterday at church, and how often do you get to go to those? Around here there are many centenarians … anyway, Sarah and I went out in below-zero weather yesterday after I'd brought mine and Martha's nephew Mathew (Allan and Lesa's oldest child; don't worry if you don't know who's who in my family, there will be a chart one day) back to his house after he'd helped Jeffrey finish his Pinewood Derby car for Tuesday's race after I'd brought them to the house from teaching and acting in the lesson about Jesus calming the storm in Parable Playhouse to ten highly-sugared first graders (or was there a full moon that morning/the night before? I don't know) and finding out, despite my asking tongue-in-cheek to please not volunteer me for something while I'm teaching class during our annual church business meeting the last Sunday of every January, that Martha had volunteered me – and her – as two of our church's three delegates to the Western North Dakota Synod Assembly in May, I believe. It'll be a good mini-vacation for us.

Sigh. Which brings me to a book I've lately read, Marjane Satrapi's latest illustrated story – but this time not a graphic novel, like Persepolis she is best known for – The Sigh (ISBN 9781936393) which begins with a merchant and his three daughters who when he goes on one of his journeys request he bring back seemingly impossible gifts, and he brings them back for all save the youngest daughter, who sighs in disappointment. The sigh comes to life and brings Rose what she wanted, in return for something the merchant has at another time. One year later, the Sigh returns and asks the merchant for Rose herself, and she agrees to go. From there the story has elements of Cupid and Psyche, Bel and the Dragon, and Addams Family Values (I think of the last one because Sarah was watching it this weekend!), and it's a lot of fun to read! Simple, direct, to the point.

Like I said, it's been below zero the last few days, with scattered snow showers. Drove this morning and it was seventeen degrees below zero, but here in Minot you get used to weather like that. So people in the American South who complain about a little snow … my sympathy just is not with you! Major highways shutting down (as the north-south artery from Minot to Bismarck and the west-east from Bismarck to Fargo were yesterday) and blizzard warnings lasting over several days, even with the sun shining, is not uncommon where I choose to live right now. Black ice that you can't see on the roads or even sheets of ice where the city has not been able to – or in some cases, I think the city doesn't bother to – salt the roads, like the one by the north entrance of Ward County Public Library where I slipped and smacked my keister this morning are also something requiring careful maneuvering …

and I remember the Holocaust, David