Going postal

Sitting here working, listening to the Rockies game, and this ad comes on. I'd heard it a googaplex of times on Rockies games, where ads replay ad nausem over and over all summer like some KGB -- or CIA -- torture. This one was about the U.S. Postal Service's new automated teller service. And even though I had blocked the ad like psychic-spam from my mind, a phrase punctured through and stuck me: "Sometimes," a dumb-blondy voice squeaked secretively, "I say 'thank you' to it. That's weird, right?"

No. Unfortunately.

Yesterday I was in our own busy little down-town post office, waiting in line with several others and next to a woman with a baby that I'd struck up a non-verbal conversation with, when the upper half of a uniformed woman spoke through the firedoors from the lobby. "There's several of our new automated postage machines out here, if anyone would like to try one." She smiled. We in line smiled back. She smiled again. We smiled again. She stopped smiling. She slipped back out the door. And we went back to our waiting, together, to interact with a real, live human being.

Now that's weird, eh?

An early summer ski

Had the good great pleasure recently to head up to Ophir Pass with several ski-hankering companions for a long, lovely ski. Booted up, and skied down on hardpack topped by an inch or two of good corn. The pass itself was not open yet.

Surely yet another of the great blessings of life in (or near enough) the high country.