Colorado Kitchen Talk

I'm sitting at the kitchen table in Colorado, looking out at the mountains and listening to the gentle rain (yes, I stress gentle; no monsoon in Summit County, no lightning, no tornadoes, no flash flooding.)

This morning my brother and I were sitting here, too, talking about this, that, & the other, as I sipped my morning coffee and he quaffed his Diet Coke. Something came up about this house - this house, and us, and ten years ago. I think he said this house was built ten years ago. I said, "Really? Ten years ago? It doesn't seem that long. Are you sure?"

And then he put it in a not-right-at-all perspective for me. "This house was built ten years ago, the same amount of time it took you to go from 1st Grade to 11th Grade."

What?? NOooo. Can't be. Because 1st Grade to my 11th Grade was very nearly a lifetime. The years we have all enjoyed this house in the mountains? Fleeting.

Now I look out the eastern windows of the kitchen: two huge rainbows, from one pot of gold behind one mountain south, reaching up and stretching over to another pot of gold beyond a northern peak. Rural Kansas has lots to say in beauty and nature, but I believe rural Colorado gets the prize this evening. A calm sprinkle? Two rainbows? No wind? Or dust? It's like I am merely watching a movie, here at the kitchen table, and blessedly NOT experiencing the tactile sensations of dust storms, gales, and monsoons.

And lastly, here's the College Boy,
halfway on his trip to points west to higher learning...