white out

Predawn, of course. I do love that boy.

Christmas was a blur of a whirlwind. My parents were going to leave yesterday morning to head back to Connecticut from our little Southern Virginia corner, but Mother Nature had other plans.

A little later in the day.

Toots lifted it out a little, it was actually at the red foot marker when I stuck the measuring tape in for her to hold steady.

Our shed at the 15 inch mark on the roof.  We discovered that sometime in the past few years that we’ve lived here, the snow shovel was moved out to the shed from the garage. Because we never needed to use it on the driveway. I trekked across the yard to rake the snow from in front of the shed door to retrieve the snow shovel.  Something is wrong with that picture – I used the rake to dig snow to reach the snow shovel.

This is the beginnings of clearing off four cars. Snow is taller than the broom head.

This is my parents’ car yesterday afternoon.  Grounded. They are driving Mr. Cynic and Captain Comic to visit their father up North.  The boys were so disappointed to not leave.  But they head out shortly. Packing the car now. I know, I sent Honey out there.  Look, I started the driveway and car clearing yesterday and my fingers paid a hefty frostbite price because I do not have good weather gear anymore, because I live in the South. But I had fun, I love this stuff, even if my circulation doesn’t.

That’s right, I said it, I love shovelling out the cars. I may be alone in my joy, but it’s mine.

So, yesterday afternoon and evening we played games and looked at old family pics my cousins posted on Facebook. My mother was cracking up at all the old memories. 

1974, My mom is the babe front row right in the serious navy and red print polyester, next to their mother, with all her siblings. Her brother behind her, and her sister in red to the left are the only ones still living besides the baby, my mom. That sweet little grandmother in the front next to mom gave birth to everyone else in that picture, starting with the twins in back.  She also rather raised quite a few of her 26 grandchildren.  She was da bomb. I miss them all.  Daily.  We sure had a lot of fun together at family gatherings coming up.  We lived the farthest away, so saw them maybe once or twice a year for about a week or two.  But boy, that was a crowded, boisterous house full of fun, food, love and family.

I walloped my mother and mother-in-law in Scrabble, and they conspired against me in Apples to Apples later.  They both usually kill me in Scrabble. It was payback.  But we had lots of fun. Even Honey and Papa played Apples to Apples, and Capt. Comic for as long as he lasted, which was pretty long for him. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, they are on the road now.  I forced a kiss on Capt. Comic’s cheek while he sat in the car. “URGH!  You know when you kiss me, Mom, I imagine the microbial bacteria multiplying right away and I have to wipe it off immediately!” 

If only he felt the same way about showering and brushing his teeth….

So the house is quiet.  Maybe tomorrow when everything in town opens again, I’ll be able to start cranking on my ending edits and get my manuscript out to my writing group.  Grandma said she would take Toots out with her in the morning on her usual exercise excursion.  Time to get back to the routines now the gluttony time has passed!  Oh yea, I should do that, too….

snow

I love snow. 

view thru front window and yucca

When we lived in Massachusetts, we got a lot of it. And that is an understatement for the region we were in. Here, not so much.  Last night they cancelled schools all over Hampton Roads just because of the threat of snow. When we lived in the snow valley up North, we’d be up before dawn shovelling three feet of heavy white off our cars to get to school which didn’t even have delays most of the time.

Everyone around me thinks I’m crazy the way I profess my love for the winter white.  But even if I was born in Atlanta, it snowed on the day I was born.  And you know what?  Every birthday of my life, it has snowed.  I consider it my special blessing. Like a promise from the creator, an inside wink.  Last year, it did not snow on my birthday here in Hampton Roads, Virginia, but it did where I grew up in Connecticut.  When I talked to my dad, I was thrilled. Because once again, even if not directly for me, it did snow on my birthday. Other birthdays here, I have spotted lonely tiny flakes.

This morning, Captain Comic was the last to know about the cancellation (ha, he finished his homework…)  Upon being informed:

Captain Comic: Woo-hoo!  Wait – (quick confirming look out the window) There’s no snow.

Mom: We’re not in Massachusetts anymore are we?  Funny isn’t it?  But they are not prepared for snow on the roads down here the way we were in MA.

Capt. Comic: Oh right.

Mom: Remember all the snow we used to get?

Capt. Comic (wistfully):  I loved crawling through the tunnels…

And that about sums it up.  My favorite place to live my whole life was in that little town exactly because of all that snow and sledding and snowball fights and building snow forts with the boys….but it’s fine that I traded for the beach in close proximity here. Where I grew up in Connecticut, I was lucky to have both the great sled yard of the neighborhood and a bike ride to the beach.

Anyway, today there is snow, and it’s slick and beautiful.  Even I won’t drive in it. and I watch the tiny flakes swirl in the wind, fast and dancing out my window.

camellia from an upstairs window

Capt. Comic has already been out to ‘the hill’ – really a berm at the back of the neighborhood baseball field. He was so excited.  No layers or boots speak of, just his coat as he dragged the blue plastic sled around the bend. He came back in shortly after, wanting hot cocoa.

Toots has been watching it swirl and fall out the window, entranced by the magic that has always been such a joy for me.

same upstairs window looking straight out.

And even Mr. Cynic awoke with a smile, and headed out in it to ride his bike to the next subdivision to his friend’s house. I just hope he found some gloves to wear…He is disappointed that his Jazz Choir’s Winter Concert is postponed, and he hopes that it is rescheduled for tomorrow rather than cancelled altogether.  He “worked too hard for the past four months to not perform!” And he wants to wear the red sparkly vest and bow tie. It’s like a badge of honor.  I never would have suspected, though the kid still rocks a necklace, much like he did as a toddler.

My Christmas shopping was slightly thwarted, I tried to drive, but it was too slick even for me.  I was smart and turned around at the first corner.  I can’t say the same for the rest of the people in this area who are currently on the road.  That’s part of why not just the schools, but a lot of other places are closed today.  It’s okay, I did a little online shopping and shipping said it would get to my nephews in time.

Hmmm…the flakes are getting a little bigger….that means it’s a hair warmer and beautiful.  I may finally get in the Christmas spirit after all.

Life is good. Wear Boots.

hee-hee-hee

It’s snowing.

I’ve never been so happy in my life.

Oh wait. I gave birth three times and married the love of my life, but this is

Snow.

Second time in three winters here. SNOW! Snow!

Snow!

I love snow.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Oh the weather outside is frightful….but not snowy. We’re completedly surrounded on all sides but one by water, and sit at sea level on the Mid-Atlantic Coast. While it seems that the entire country is getting buried in piles of white, beautifying the dead landscapes in a quiet fluffy blanket, we are getting more rain and wind to flood the flood warning areas. Again, I am thankful that the major selling point of our house was that it sits in the middle of the high and dry zone of the tidal flood maps. But being former Miss New England, this no snow business is depressing. I have serious longing for snow, like I lost the love of my life.

3.1.2009, the one snow we’ve had in three winters here.

I love snow. I miss the bones of the earth and trees covered in a glistening, twinkling white. I love seeing the squirrels zip around and fluff their tails on the branches of empty trees, just laid over in winter white – a lady dressed for a holiday ball wearing a wrap over a sparkly dress. The comforting quiet of a dawn rising, muffled after an overnight snowfall. The way the whole word glows in shades of blue on a crisp night. My favorite playing with my kids is in the snow: the angels, the snowball warfare, the building of forts and castles and snow men and women. I even enjoyed the shoveling the car out or the walk depending upon my urban or suburban living arrangements. I grew up with the neighborhood sled hill as my backyard and we regularly went with a big group of families up to Vermont to ski. Snow just makes me giddy and lights me up.

When I lived my whole life in New England, every year on my birthday, it snowed. Sometimes it was a lot, a solid dumping, other times barely a flake. But each year, I felt it was my special present from the Great Spirit that yes, I should celebrate the day I arrived, that my life goes on. I guess people who are born in other seasons and other climates must find their special gift in a sunny sunny day of summer, a raining bloom filled promise of spring, or a bright leaf of Fall. I’ve begun to watch for snow reports in New England on my birthday, just to be sure that yes, it is snowing once again, just for me. Even if it can’t where I live now, the beautiful hills and trees of Connecticut and Massachusetts still get a pretty dusting, and old Commonwealth Ave is blanketed in quiet over it’s majestic trees and Victorian architecture in the city I love.

I know that all the lush and stark beauty of snow is temporal, and becomes muck and mud and sleet and freezing rain almost as soon as it comes, but that’s exactly the reason I love it so much. It’s beautiful and surprising, yes. It’s also fleeting. Just like the blooms of spring, the bright hues of fall, the lazy heat of summer and the light in the sky shifting at sunrise and sunset and all day and night long.

I’ve never seen the same sky twice. Nor the same snow. I just wish I saw more of it here.

In the time since I started this post, I paused to give Baby C a bath, and by the time I returned to my desk to continue, that old song line I opened with is no longer applicable. The sun has broken through, the sky is blue, and now I may be able to at least go put the gardening tools away that I left out days ago, anticipating an attempt to finish putting to bed my plots which I should have finished last month.

It is 58 degrees Farenheit outside, and I should appreciate that here it is near mid-December, and I can go outside without gloves, hat, scarf and boots. I was never very fond of the cold.

But Christmas just isn’t in the air for me without a nip in air to nibble my nose and a layer of white coating the ground and everything else.

My apologies to the Southern Hemisphere. You’ll get yours in six months.