Another year

Sasha and I spent a mellow New Year's Eve at a friend's house, having dinner with a third friend.  Then we came home early since I'm heading to CNN shortly to be on Howie Kurtz's "Reliable Sources" show at 11am Eastern (the segment is around 11:30am) to talk about the Iowa caucuses.

I spent Christmas in Chicago with the family, and the dogs.  We had some relatives visting from Panama (it's funny, my cousin is Latino but I'm not, even though his parents immigrated to Panama from Greece when my family immigrated to the states from Greece - it's interesting to see how even ethnicity, or race I guess, is somewhat fungible - then again, can you call yourself Latino solely based on your citizenship, or is it something that per se is only based on genes?).

Anyway, my cousin brought his two adorable sons with him, aged 9 and 12, who came to Chicago to see snow for the first time.  No luck while I was there, but they did get to experience cold for the first time.  It was fascinating to watch them.  First, they insisted on going outside in 38 degree weather with only a tshirt and a sweatshirt on.  The 9 year old explains that he doesn't need a jacket, "I have two layers on."  Ha.  He was back inside in 2 minutes!

Then we go take the dogs for a walk in the park.  Halfway through I see the 9 year old with his shoes off, just walking along in his socks.  I ask him what he's doing, and he tells me he took his shoes off because he wanted to feel what cold feels like on feet.  I explained the concept of frostbite to him, and told him to put his shoes back on.  As we're trotting along to catch up to his dad, shoes now on, he says to me, "it's interesting, I can't feel my feet."

Absolutely adorable.  It was like going to the park with Mork from Ork.