Snow Day

Weather reports for New England have been dire, and they tell us it is not over yet!  Fifty inches of snow in the last month!!  Parking lots look like ice houses and the pavement is cloudy white with salt.  Some of the icicles clinging to the eves behind my house were eight feet long…EIGHT FEET!  Tonight’s forecast is negative – literally – seven degrees below zero.  Twice now, the college has asked us to stay home to avoid the dangerous commute.  This is not what I am used to!

Some people have taken advantage of the time off to prepare for the beginning of school on the 24^tt .  Not me!!  I played hooky with a vengeance!  Santa brought me books for Christmas so I lounged on the couch in flannel jammies, lost in glorious fiction. 

The first time, we knew a day ahead, so I stayed up late and watched my first ever LIVE episode of the Daily Show – ignoring bedtime, secure in the knowledge that the alarm was NOT set.  I crawled into bed at midnight, wrapped myself in billowy down and fell asleep dreaming of snow fairies and lazy mornings.  Remarkably, sleeping in is so much more challenging when you are sharing the night with snow plows.  I am grateful to those guys – really – who must have been miserable out in the cold at 2 am – and at 4 am – and at 6.  Despite the vigilant attention of our nighttime caretakers, the cars in the parking lot looked like biscuits bobbing in a pan of white country gravy the next morning.  The patio was knee deep and the height of the walls and gate had been raised accordingly.   Twenty-four inches, baby!!

Friday, we woke early-early to the phone ringing downstairs.  Again, no school, so I crept back upstairs to relish my sleepy windfall.  All morning, cookie sized snowflakes drifted down like a cold version of Asteroids, gently but relentlessly covering the grimy leftovers from the last storm.  Neighbors bond in the Brotherhood of the Shovel…clearing not only their own cars and walks, but those of others while they are out.  The good news is that there is plenty of clearing to go around.  Let me take this moment to tell you how much I adore my husband, who swaddles himself in wooly layers to perform these rituals – leaving me inside, toasty and dry.

And today – it happened again.  School is closed, effectively scotching my trip to UMass Boston with my boss.  (Color me bereft!)  We are not surprised.  Children here have been wearing pj’s inside out, sleeping with spoons under their pillows and flushing ice cubes down the commode – all to buy us another day of winter vacation.  This time, the snow has stopped early, and the ever diligent plows are making progress, scraping and stacking huge mountains of ice.  By noon, we will be able to dig out the Yukon and go adventuring!! 

God I love snow days!!