Dear President Trump,

Unlike the White House’s weirdly delayed snow-Tweet showing a few lame flurries that happened last Tuesday (seriously – you all are so out there), we got actual snow here overnight (3” in our neighborhood). I got to duck driving in it because I woke up with a sore throat and had nothing on my calendar that I couldn’t do by phone (I decided to take the day as an official sick day anyway so I could nap and goof off some). Since I’m not all that sick it was really a nice day overall. The one little bummer from my point of view is that on the two dog walks I took (again, I’m not all that sick) is that I didn’t see any snow-people – not a one. Granted, schools were on just a two-hour snow delay and weren’t cancelled and it’s insanely cold for here, but still, there’s usually at least one brave, nutty family that gets it together to roll up all the snow in their yard to make a grass-laden snow-person or two. There’s more snow forecast later in the week, so maybe the green snow-people will turn up in the next few days.

Just to snip a dangling thread, I’ll circle back to tell you that our odd day Saturday was largely occasioned by having prepped for the delivery of a new mattress and box spring that didn’t end up happening. Because we have a whole bunch of very breakable stuff on the open shelving that runs along the stairwell the mattress needs to travel up, we spent all morning moving (and then cleaning) all that stuff. We also had someone out to give us an estimate on a new garage door since the one that’s there is ancient and pulling away from the doorframe.

I know none of this is very interesting and thus this letter is sounding more like an old-timey report from the hinterlands than usual (or at least I hope my letters aren’t usually so pedestrian), but sometimes ordinary is nice. Sometimes ordinary is restful and ok, even if it’s boring. Basically, ordinary is an antidote to the toxic stuff we are subjected to most of the time with you at the helm.

I’ve been paying attention to what’s been going on, but I just realized that you’ve been oddly missing from the headlines. I wish this was just a straight up welcome break from the mayhem, but you’re like the bad kid who’s quietly getting into seriously dangerous things when he hasn’t been heard from in a while. So, what are you up to? Are you tormenting someone (blackmail and bribery are usually done on the q.t.)? Are you working on a plot to steal something or take over some country (again, typically done on the q.t.)? Are you holding very still and concentrating very hard so you don’t miss any of the directions Vladimir (MbS, MbZ, el-Sisi, Netanyahu, and/or Erdogan) is sending you (absolutely needs to be done on the q.ts – right?)? I hope I’m wrong and that you are just taking a break from being a terrible human being – wouldn’t that be nice? A pipedream if there ever was one, but it would be nice. Sigh.

May we be safe to do ordinary.
May we be willing to be bored and not stir up trouble.
May we stay healthy through cold and flu season.
May you not further escalate tensions with anyone.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson