Susan Senator

I’m typing through a haze of Afrin, Nyquil, not enough sleep, tickle-cough, and congested sinuses, so forgive any strangeness to this post. I am looking out my window at total white-out. Snow is pouring from the sky, blowing drifts against trees, houses, and cars. It is the Nor’ Easter they were all predicting, after all. By the time we went to bed predictions had been sliced down to 1-3 inches, or rain, as so often happens with these panic-casts. But while I was sleeping I thought I heard the roar of winter weather, and when I woke up I saw that it was alive and well.

It is no secret that I hate the winter and the cold. And yet, today, looking out at the vigorous storm, I do feel a sense of wonder similar to my springtime feeling, when I just can’t get over the activity of things that are not alive: the ground, the wind, the leaves. So much is going on out there, it feels a little exciting, like I’m anticipating a fun event.

Maybe there will be a fun event today. When it snows like this, all bets are off. All plans are suspended, while people bundle up and attempt to push back on their new workload of shoveling, by getting out there while it’s still coming down. That is Ned’s Sisyphean technique: to do several clearings of car, driveway, and walk, only to have it covered again. Mine is to wait until it is over and sunny, and then see what you’ve got and chip away at it. Sometimes my gamble pays off, and it turns to rain as is washed away. Sometimes I lose, and it becomes wet snow that is very heavy to shovel, and if I can’t finish it by the time the temperature drops, it freezes, and then you are stuck with whatever configuration you have carved — for weeks.

Ned gets the boys to shovel, especially Nat and Max. It’s amazing what they can get done, with that man-power! Nat loves to clear the cars. Max loves none of it, but does a good job. We baby Benji I guess, by not forcing him to go out every time. Today I think we’ll all go.

I wish that the fun activities that come to mind were not all food-based. I want to make the boys hot chocolate and pancakes, but the aroma kills me, trying to make do with my egg whites and low-fat cheese omelette. Or start gingerbread …. mmmmmmm I think that’s what we might do. I’ll just walk away when they start pinching off bits of it and eating it, and I’ll go get a piece of gum or slug down some heavily Splenda-d decaf. And think about how happy I’ll be on that beach in San Juan in just a few weeks.