I think today is as good as any, to remind you (and me) as my friend Becky says: to be kind, be brave, be thankful.
It’s the first blizzard of the year. Papa Bob is snoozing through it. So are all the children in town. It is a snow day. (It’s supposed to snow and blow all day.) I’m up, as usual in the dark, early, and starting my day on a good foot, counting all the little things I love. My Bavarian slippers. The walls and roof of my house as the storm thunders in the trees and out on the water. Pouring the hot water through the coffee in the filter into the cup, half & half, Chip carrying in an armload of snow-dusted firewood saying, “I wish I was married to me,” and when after, I looking at my phone, say “there is no muscles class this morning, no one is driving” (our fearless leader Zooms from her workout studio), he says “You’ll just have to do what I do,” and resumes his sit-ups and Superman’s on the living room rug. Then he pulls on snow gear over his shorts and heads outside to the garage to spin on his indoor bike.
He needs hip boots to wade through the snow. I listen to the radio, the dogs sighing in their sleep, and look (again) at Halloween pictures my daughter sent from Juneau and sip that really, really good creamy coffee.
My four adult daughters have all recovered from their own haunted Halloweens and a mother that failed at all costumes. The worst was the year they were garbage bags. In my defense, it was pouring. So I cut holes in lead-colored large leaf/trash bags, and told them they were rain drops.
(The laugh lasted much longer than the horror. There’s a lesson there, if you are looking for one.)
I am not in a hurry to spin to nowhere today up on my stationary bike. There will be time while we wait to be plowed out, and for my next Zoom book talk. I’m liking this shelter from the storm. I open the news on the iPad, and laugh out loud when I read the headline on the Gail Collins and Bret Stephens column in the Times: “It Was Election Eve and All Through the House… – everyone was pretty much freaking out.”
Chip is back and calling his lumberyard, Thom is there, and says they’ve sold a couple of snow shovels before 8 O’clock. Chip says if it gets worse, they can close ’til noon. “It’s your call, I won’t be there until the driveway is plowed.”
My walking partner just texted. We will have to wait until later, or tomorrow, depending. Her dog headed out with her husband as he shoveled but didn’t stay long.She dove back in through the dog door and is curled up on the couch. “This is the perfect reminder that we are not in control,” she wrote. (Adding another little love to my growing list.)
