Well it finally stopped

After 30 hours of continuous snow, it has finally stopped. There is at least 20 inches on the ground. 20 inches of white stuff. We no longer have cheap labor as both children have moved out. Its up to the hubby and I to blaze a trail to the shed and get the shovels. And start digging. Because of the sheer volume of the stuff, you have to shovel layers. So you are essentially shoveling three times in one spot before reaching the ground level. We are not young anymore. And we definitely are no longer in shape (shape being a relative term--I for example am sort of round--that's a shape, isn't it--but I digress).

We do have a small version of a snow blower. We hadn't used it for a couple of years, so getting it to start was a gamble. After much blowing and blustering both by man and machine, it sputtered to a start. It worked on the driveway which was a blessing. The drive is not paved, it's lined with red stones and it is very long, seemingly more so with all that snow! It was used as well to clear the walkways, which I had already cleared with the handy dandy shovel, the one which holds onto the snow every 4th shovelful, so you have to bang it to release the hold, then re-shovel it back up again. It would have been entertaining, except I was too tired by then to be amused. I went around whacking the bushes to remove the snow which threatened to snap off the branches. Amusing sidelight--the next door neighbor is fanatical about leaves on her lawn; even blows them in the dark--by whacking the shrubbery, I loosed some leaves onto her pristine white yard. I anticipate the leaf blower will be whipped out posthaste to eliminate the offending debris.

Our neighbor on the other side has one of those industrial strength snow-blowers. The kind that can pick up and throw snowmen before they have a chance to retaliate. He is a considerate and kind man, helping out the neighbors all around. He has offered to help us clear our drive, but the results of the last effort--flinging red stones causing all to take cover under the bushes out front, he does not offer to help us out with the driveway. Instead, he has that cheap labor I mentioned before, children, come over and work on the ice encrusted sidewalk in front of our house, where the snowplow has filled in the nice pathway made by my trusty shovel. I offer them hot chocolate and cookies, since I have no money, I couldn't get to the bank. They smile politely and keep shoveling. I bet they complain to their dad when they get done.

When the sun finally goes down at the end of the day, my husband and I and the heating pad are happily ensconced on the couch, watching football. The Christmas lights the neighbors have put about look wonderful on the snow. I really do like snow to look at. Just not to shovel. Happy Holidays.

The End of the Day

It's technically the end of the day for me. 9:30 at night signifies that its time for "sleepertowns" as Jim would say. I begin the routine of answering last minute e-mails, putting away things standing longingly on the side of the sink which have dried and I've ignored, I perhaps play one more game of computer solitaire hoping to beat it this time. My eyes get droopy and my hearing aids come out (hope nobody calls I want to talk to).

But tonight there is a sense of anticipation before going to bed. Tomorrow is predicted a HUGE snowstorm. I have milk, eggs and bread in the house and I have no where to go tomorrow. I'm looking forward to a day of baking and decorating and doing all the holiday things I can't do during the week after work, 'cause I'm too tired.

So I'm not real tired right now, I'm looking forward to the snow and the wind. Of course, when I have to go out and help shovel the 3 mile driveway, I will not be quite so excited. But right now, before it actually begins to snow I feel a small excitement building. It's probably a hold over from my childhood days. I wonder if the meteorologists are exaggerating as they tend to do. I wonder if I'll be able to teach my class on Sunday. I wonder how it will look and sound and feel. When it snows its so restful and quiet. For a person who wears hearing aids to say it's quiet, well, then it must be quiet. But there is a hushed kind of breathing the snow has, that I just love.

A snow day before Christmas. I'm really looking forward to waking up tomorrow.

Girl on a sidewalk

Out of the corner of my eye
I saw a shape on the sidewalk
Because it was not something that belonged there
I stopped
As did another.

The shape was a young lady,
Laid out by a bicycle fall
Her backpack flung off to the side
The bike lounging lazily on its side near her

She was wearing red pants
Blood red, but not hers-blood that is
And they were short, too short for the cooler weather
She didn't appear to be shaken or scared

The other lady who stopped and I hoovered around her
Without touching--I work in a school, I know what I can and cannot do
As she picked herself up and accepted our
Mother-like admonishments: are you alright? are you hurt? can you walk?

She was almost serene in her re-assembly of stuff
The only give away, the bright red flush to her cheeks
And I wondered, since I didn't see it, did she really fall?
Or was this some experiment to see if someone would notice?
The other woman offered to drive her home, but she politely refused
Even though, she told us, she lived quite a ways away.

She got back on the bike and began to pedal stoically on
Without a backward glance to the would-be rescurers
Her pony tail bouncing at each crack in the sidewalk.
We looked at each other, the woman and I and I could see her question, too.
Did she fall? Was she running away and stopped to rest? Was she trying
to see if anyone cared that a young lady off her bike in red pants would lay on
the cold sidewalk on a winter afternoon?
I wondered as I drove on and I still do, sketching scenarios of the whys and
wherefores.

the dentist in your mind

Okay, I don't like going to the dentist. He isn't a bad man. He goes out of his way to be gentle and speak gently to me. He knows I have sensitive teeth, so he makes sure I have enough numbing agent in my mouth before he even attempts to drill anything. He is really a great guy. His son has joined him in the practice and from what I can tell he is also gentle and kind, although kind of young.

Ah, but the anticipation is always worse than the actual event. I imagine all sorts of horrors: he'll have a substitute there and they won't have read what a fanatical, whimpering bowl of jello I am and will say, "Novocaine? No one uses that stuff anymore!" and commence drilling; he will look inside my mouth and tell me that the entire right side of my face will collapse unless I remove all of the teeth there--okay that actually wouldn't be so bad, they at least knock you out for that; the scenarios are endless. They all end up with me whimpering in the chair and begging to be left alone. I prolong any visit as long as possible. Even if a tooth is bothering me. I just know he'll find something that has to be taken care of that day and it will NOT be a good thing.

I used to go to a dentist who would give me laughing gas before even coming at me with the Novocaine. THAT'S how nervous I was. They don't do that anymore. I did however see one ad in a local paper. The guy was advertising that he guarantees no pain while he works on you. I was wondering how he could say that? What does he do? Hit you over the head with a bat before he begins? But no, that would be painful. Maybe he gives you whatever the oral surgeon gives you to knock you out, so you don't care what he does with your mouth. I kind of like that idea. I think I'll bring it up to my current dentist the next time I see him...in another couple of years...you know, when I can no longer put it off.

a question of light

I'm sitting on the bed around 9:30 at night and the quirky lights have just gone out up stairs. But the light over the pillow is still on. It illuminates the left side of my face and causes a reflection on the screen of the laptop I'm writing on. It is the reflection that got my attention this evening.

I have always thought that I was not vain. Until I colored my hair to cover the gray. And started applying make-up a little more than haphazardly. When my reflection is seen this evening, the lines around my mouth and onto my cheek are in more vivid detail than perhaps I'd like. I can see the fine fuzz of hair on my face--it gives my left side a sort of silvery cast. I got thinking about our ancient ancestors and when the facial hair began to disappear, did they miss it? I'm wearing my old roundish glasses and I realize I'm looking at my mother's face as much as my own. I have always thought my ears too big and in this half-light the lobes of them loom large under the fringe of my short hair. I read somewhere that your ears continue to grow all your life. Yikes! By the time I'm 80, I'll have elephant ears, flapping along with my jowls and loose upper arms. I could be a one man band in my declining years.

I realize the lines radiating from my mouth are "laugh lines" and they resemble my Dad. Not too much of my outward self resembles him. It isn't a bad legacy I guess. I cannot see the whole of my face, I don't like looking at it that much anyway and avoid it except for the make-up, hair routine in the morning. I don't hate my face, I just don't pay much attention to it after primping it for the day. But the half shadow makes me look a lot more serious--except for the laugh lines. I look tired I think. My eyelids are sort of droopy, maybe I'm trying to look interesting for this piece? No, I'm just tired.

That small group of hair at my temple which never seems to do what I want them to do are flipping out horizontally again. When I wake up in the morning, they are almost determined to be doing anything but what the other hairs are doing. They are my defiant streak I guess.

I keep going back to the lines on my cheek. They are deeper, more etched. Some would say it gives my face character. I just think they are part of a canvas that each day I paint over without obliterating them. Not that I'm trying to, really. But I don't go out of my way to point them out either. And so to bed. Time for another night of observations to go the way of the quirky lights. Over and dark.

And the good news is...

I got an e-mail from a really wonderful friend--kind, funny, so compassionate it makes your teeth ache--that she has been asked to write a book. Now, I know she likes to write, but doesn't really do much of it at all. And I'm sure she can string her thoughts, words and deeds together in a coherent and probably moving tome. But let me remind you of this--someone ASKED her to write this book.

Here I am slogging away for months at a time, refining, refining, touching up, throwing out lines after lines, pages after pages in the hope that someday I can submit either one of two stories to be published and ... someone has asked her to write.

To be fair, I haven't got the "low-down" yet on what the topic is and whom it was that asked her. She so excited I could hear her voice go up a couple of octaves just from reading the e-mail. I'm going to call her tomorrow and find out the details.

But just for now...someone asked her to write a book. I'll be a better Christian about this later I think.