Little Things

Saturday is the day of the week when we are out and about. And, this Saturday, I noitced plenty of nice little touches which deserve to be noticed.

* The kids don't mind going to the bank, because First Bank of Cherry Creek (we went to the Glendale branch today), gives the kids stickers and today (after kindly making sure it was O.K. with me) candy canes.

* Every office has policies and procedures, and one of my office's rules is that our expresso machine uses nothing but Starbucks Expresso Roast. I picked some up for the office today (at the Colorado Boulevard Starbucks location next to Wahoo's Fish Tacos) and was very pleased to be in the only major national retailer in all of Denver that had decided that it didn't need to be playing Christmas music today.

* Today was the first snow we'd had in Denver for weeks (although the mountains have been innundated with it for some time now), and the kids had to play in it this morning. They had a great time, but, predictably, came back into the house soaked. In particular, my son's mittens got so wet that they couldn't be used for a few hours. As a result, he went to his skating lessons without mittens, which strictly speaking he isn't supposed to do. But, thankfully, the kind staff of D.U.'s Ritchie Center decided to overlook this omission, which turned out doing little harm as he only fell once in the entire lesson, rather than deciding to use today as an opportunity to lecture me on how to be a good skating parent.

* Today was one of those days when I was a little under the weather, so, when my wife and the kids went shopping at Cherry Creek mall for one small item today, I opted to stay in the car and rest. I'd recently made the rather serious driving error of backing into a solid immoveable object, and haven't yet gone to the body shop, so the car was looking bad. I had let the seat recline all the way back, and it occurred to me that I probably looked like I was homeless. But, thankfully, no one tried to roust me.

Little kindnesses don't change the world by themselves, but a collection of them can make getting through the day easier.