Blowin' In

Dad enjoyed spending Christmas in his own company, thinking of days when he would skate on frozen ponds in the middle of Chicago. Mostly, he liked to think about my mother. He would toast his love, quietly, with a small drop of Baileys mixed into his instant coffee. White Christmas

One lovely June evening, we found ourselves walking away from a riverfront music festival and into an inevitably dank, clichéd hotel bar. It felt counterintuitive to say the least, but we were heading toward a promise, the promise of a great Irish music session. It’s a powerful lure.

Excited by the game, the squirrels tease my spaniel; lithely scampering atop the fence with the