Walking though the woods on a snowy evening...

So, despite this blog being named "One Striped World", it's really Lauren's world - the rest of us just live in it. However, here's the one-striped cat of one-striped fame (and his sister) enjoying the view of the beautiful, powdery snowfall we got last night. They are loving life - luxuriating on the radiator and watching the people in the streets sweep their cars and sidewalks, drifting in and out of sleep as visions of cat treats dance in their heads.

Not to wax poetic, but as the snow swirled outside the windows of my classroom last night, we discussed James Joyce's use of snow as a device in "The Dead", and I can't help but post this gorgeous passage, fitting for a day like today:

"A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." (James Joyce, "The Dead", Dubliners)