it’s cocoa for coldo

mes amis—

in honour of it being a whopping 29 degrees today, i’d like to celebrate the first truly cold day of the season with a hot cocoa from none other than dunkin donuts.

ma che buono

 

oui mes amis that chain is germane to a day like au jour d’hui!

my sips take me back to a more innocent time. a time when zipping my own coat wasn’t even a concern .. if i buttoned myself i received high praise .. my attendants tucked in my own mittens, naturellement. si, amici miei, i was spoiled as a youth and have been forever ruined. sledding and ice skating were always followed by hot cocoa interludes. i ruminate on ice-skating especially. my frugal father, a new englander through and through, would always bring a thermos full of hot cocoa, claiming our swiss miss superior to whatever was served at larz anderson, the park where we skated.

 

the anderson rink

i loved drinking from the thermos between bouts on the ice.

but more than that i loved seeing my father in this new context. mon pere on ice was a private thrill, a revelation. this man, so reserved looking in his usual monday through friday business suits transformed into a graceful swan on le rink. never a show off, he’s simply inform me he was going to take a few laps on his own and off he’d glide, leaving me in the ice dust and in awe. plus, he always wore old fashioned hockey skates as though it were the 1940s! remember, this was a man that insisted on keeping the toboggan from his childhood in our basement though i don’t think we ever actually used it. “piece ‘a crap!” my mother might have proclaimed

they do glide

and so i salute my poppalino, a man who still recites bits of ancient greek he learned in high school yet watches fox news with reverence, on this cold and olden day. here’s to the contradictions that lie in our hearts and souls!

a presto,
kippy