Just looking out my front door to watch the progress of the plowing and shoveling gave me snow blindness when I turned back into the house. It is as bright a day as we’ve had in weeks. It is also freezing. The wind is so strong it is blowing the snow with the same ferocity and lack of visibility as in a sand storm, just not with the grit. Though my plow guys keep turning their backs to the snow cloud, their beards were frosted and icy with snow. My walkway is shoveled, the car is free and Gracie’s steps and stairs have also been shoveled. I threw de-icer on all the front and back steps, and it is already working. This morning’s paper is now in my hands. I just brewed a fresh pot of coffee. It is already a good day.

This is school vacation week around here. I never understood why we needed one in February having just had a long Christmas vacation, but I didn’t argue. When I was a kid, we never went anywhere or did anything special as my Dad was working. When I was older, my friends and I would get together. I remember a toboggan party at the Winchester Country Club. My friends Bobby and Jimmy and I fit perfectly on Bobby’s toboggan. We were daredevils who went down the steepest hills. I remember one hill with a slope in the middle. The toboggan flew over the slope and the three of us were airborne. When the toboggan landed, Jimmy ended up half hanging off the back of the sled. He stayed that way until we finally stopped. He wasn’t hurt just snow-covered. We looked at each other without saying a word and as if on cue, we started trudging up that hill to do it again. This time we all stayed on.

When I was teaching, I used to go traveling for the week, mostly to Europe. The weather wasn’t all that bad, it was off-season and cheaper and there were fewer tourists. I’d pick one place for the week. One year it was Rome. Another year it was Vienna. I can’t remember how many times it was London.

Today I have laundry to do. I’m tired of looking at it in the hall. Looks like a big day ahead of me.