I have been meaning to post about Friday's storm, but hadn't gotten to it. I was up early with Thing One on Friday, because she had a stomach ache. It was 4:30 a.m. I knew it was supposed to snow, and saw that it wasn't yet, so figured it fizzled out, like the storm predicted for earlier in the week.

We both went back to bed, and when I re-woke at 6:30, there was a good bit of snow on the ground. 341 schools in MA closed. But not ours. Since Boston didn't close, ours didn't close. It seemed odd to me, b/c the storm was supposed to be at its worst between 11 and 3, and the kids get out at 2. My kids had play practice, and then would go straight to after-school (on site), so they weren't traveling, but I didn't understand why they would be the ONLY schools in the state to have the kids traveling during the worst of the storm. But we are a neighborhood school, and very few people drive to our school, and there are no buses, so whatever.

I felt like a wimp for leaving work at 12:45 "b/c of the storm" and finishing up my day working at home. The snow had turned to rain, and it seemed like the worst was over. But while I was on the train, it turned BACK to snow, and while i was walking home (after stopping at 2 stores), visibility dropped, the snow was hitting my face in a painful way, and then the weirdest thing happened. There was a flash of light, and then thunder! I'd never heard thunder in a snow storm before.

I got home at 2, and beloved and i sat and watched a blizzard take place outside our window for a couple of hours. Neither after-school nor play practice was canceled. it felt a little strange to have the kids at school during such extreme weather, but it was better than them walking home during it. he went and picked them up at 5, and as they were walking home, the moon and stars were out. not a cloud in the sky.

We went sledding the next day, and beloved took some pictures of the snow .... i'll ask his permission later to post them.

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I was born and raised in Connecticut. I lived most of my life in a small town, down a windy road, on top of a slight hill. we had a long driveway, and every school day, a bus would come and pick me up. On cold days, the buses didn't work so well. Or bus drivers didn't work so well. Or something. Because inevitably, the colder the day, the longer I would wait at hte bottom of the driveway, seeing how long I could keep my nostrils frozen closed, and trying not to cry with the pain of the cold so that the tears wouldn't freeze and make it worse. Sometimes it was literally 35-45 minutes that I stood down there.

We had a pond down there, by the bus stop. It was ours. My dad had a little riding tractor which he used to mow the lawn, and when i was younger (and they were less well off) to bring firewood he chopped from the woods to the yard, so he could sell it for extra money. He also used it to plow the driveway, and when it was cold enough, the pond. My siblings and I would then ice skate on the pond. It was a lot of fun.

I don't think I ever made snowmen, though. I also do not have any clear memories of sledding. We lived in the woods, and I think I would have poked my eye out if I tried to go down any of the hills in the woods. (As much as that sounds like the funny line from that movie A Christmas Story ... once, some friends were over, and we were in the woods, goofing off, and we RAN home, and J. fell. A stick went into his eye, and he had to go to the hospital to get it out.)

Those are my winter memories. Some bad, some good. i never thought of winter as my favorite season. that was fall. the start of sweater season, the leaves, the smells.

When I moved to California, it was fall I missed. it was the seasons that went along with the calendar, it was not necessarily WINTER.

But now that I'm back ... I am *loving* winter! The snow, the ice, the COLD. I love the cold. I find it very invigorating, and will often choose to walk longer distances, rather than hop on the T at the closest stop.

I like my girls living in a climate that includes winter. they love ice skating. this past saturday, we went sledding. we've been ice skating. we have not yet built a snowman. i don't know, snowmen just don't do it for me. although our planned (hopefully soon-to-be-executed) holiday card includes a snowman ...

posted by Zuska @ 10:05 AM

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