Saturday, February 15, 2014

Weather We Like It or Not

The shovel is still by the door. We just might need it again. The way this winter is going, we might be shoveling out a place to put the grill for Memorial Day. 

Several more inches of snow are possible before this ends over the weekend. We already have about 18 inches on the ground. And on the car, the porch, the roof. And that's in addition to the foot that was already there. Our back yard looks like a mogul ski course. Or, being a writer, like a place where lots of bodies are buried.

But I have power, heat, food, drink. 

And an insane streak.

During the worst of the monster storm that bore down on the Eastern seaboard Thursday, David and I decided to go out for a walk. We bundled up, spent a few minutes trying to recall where the front steps were, and slid on out into our neighborhood. Yes, visibility was almost zero (ours and the cars'), the streets had been only narrowly plowed, and our township is out of salt. Did that deter us?

"Look at the big flakes," I sighed. 

David: "You mean the snow, right? Not the two idiots in the middle of the street."

But the snowplows kindly declined to use us for hood ornaments, and we walked the neighborhood. 


We're not going to be driving anytime soon anyway.
View from the porch. Note the bird bath. 




A few views of the neighborhood. That's our park, below. Snow up to the seat of the bench. 





Okay, this might be my favorite picture.

Last evening, after I finished work, I was texting with my friend Linda about what time we'd be getting up to shovel in the morning, and she said that her husband -- upon learning who she was texting -- remarked, "I wish I had some chocolate chip cookies." He is rather fond of the ones I make. I said I had everything but the chips .... and three minutes after I hit 'send', her husband -- having bounded over three-foot-drifts -- appeared at our front door with a container of them.

I must admit cookies go very well with hot buttered rum when the snow is falling. 

Sheila York
Copyright 2014

6 comments:

  1. Yes, this has been some winter with one storm after another dumping on us!! Great photos that show what it looks like in the quite of morning, before the slush, before listening to the grinding gears and squealing tires of cars stuck in the snowbanks and slipping on the ice. Oh, yeah, I'd much rather have chocolate chip cookies and and hot butter rum, too.

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    1. I feel they are our just reward. I do love the quiet of a heavy snow, and can briefly fool myself that it is not wreaking havoc on other people's lives.

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  2. Oh, my goodness, kind ladies, I too used to enjoy the gorgeousness of pristine snow, when I lived in the mountains of Tennessee, or used to zip down Fifth Ave on my skis here to my office on West 54th Street. Once, I too, would have exclaimed, like our new Head of Schools in NYC, Carmen F., when she looked out and saw " It was so beautiful" on Thursday!!! But, when I saw her on Ch. 1 - my thought was.... " Hey, if you had been swallowed knee-deep in the black slush waters on the curbs of Lexington Ave at every block... you might have said a word that Ch. 1 could not have aired! " Sheila, if we have snow on Memorial Day, we'll all have to eat our hats! tjs

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    1. I'm working out a menu just in case but, gosh and golly, hope it won't include grilled chapeau au slush du jour. It's snowing again out here in north Jersey. We might get another 3-4 inches. the nabe has turned pristine again. I want to go for another walk. But a new chapter is calling, rather rudely -- "Yo, Sheila, you can go out when you've written as many pages as there are inches of snow." At this rate, I might never leave the house again.

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  3. Sheila--
    You and David could have gone into Manhattan and helped some of those kids get to school!
    I, too, now l can look at the snow with a kinder eye. I've had a terrible time getting to work because of the weather and a few weeks ago I was offered the opportunity to work from home. Yippee!
    Steph

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  4. A couple of times I had to ask a gent to help me across the chasms... I had all my shopping in a humongous black plastic bag and they thought I was a bag lady! Even patted me on the back!!!Oh, well, a little putdown is good for one's soul, they say... tjs

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