Posted tagged ‘winter wonderland’

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“And God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light, but the Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.”

February 5, 2016

I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t some yet unknown connection between humans and hibernating animals. This morning I first woke up at 8:30. It was pouring and the rain was pounding the roof and windows. It was not inviting so I got comfy again and  went back to sleep with Fern and Gracie as bedmates. Jump forward two hours. I finally stirred and dragged myself out of bed. It was still raining. I ran out for the papers. That’s when I noticed the rain was turning to snow. Little beads of ice were on the grass and the walkway. When I let Gracie out a few minutes later, I saw the ice on the back stairs and immediately threw out the deicer. I don’t want a repeat of last week when Gracie fell.

The prediction is for 4 to 8 inches of wet, heavy snow. It has already covered the lawns, the roads and the tops of the branches. It will snow all day into the evening.

I’m still hooked. Snow demands my attention. I like to watch it fall. I love the world covered in white. All the blemishes disappear.

I just lost my electricity for about five minutes. I didn’t panic. I groaned. I’m thrilled it returned so quickly, but now I have to go around and reset clocks on the appliances. I suppose that a minor complaint compared to the loss of electricity.

My iPad is locked. I forgot my password and tried too many combinations so it locked me out thinking I was an iPad thief. Now I have to go hunting to find out how to get into that infernal machine.

I keep opening the front door to check the amount of snow on the ground. It is falling quickly. The backyard is a winter wonderland. Some branches are already lower to the ground burdening but he wet snow.

It just happened again-the electricity went off for a few minutes. Now I’m getting nervous.

I am a picture straightener, and I want my clocks in sync so I just corrected the ones in the kitchen, a mistake. The electricity just went off for a third time. Now I’m making sure my iPhone is charged, the lantern is here with me and the heat is high for just a bit to warm the house just in case. I am not happy.

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“There is nothing in the world more beautiful than the forest clothed to its very hollows in snow. It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray, every blade of grass, every spire of reed, every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.”

January 24, 2016

“We’re happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland.” I’m lying. I’m not happy. Here I am stuck in the house, and from the window I can see way off to the driveway where the blue plastic sleeve of my newspapers is clearly visible. I know if I really wanted the papers I could put on heavy shoes and some warmer pants then trudge my way through the deep snow to the papers. I think I’ll choose to be patient and wait for Skip, my factotum, to come to plow and shovel.

We didn’t get as much snow as I expected. I think maybe we got only 8 or 9 inches. The problem is the snow is heavy and wet. Branches and bushes bow under the weight. The sky is still grey. I was hoping for some sun. Nothing is prettier than untouched snow glittering in the sun.

My dad was one of those shovelers who went out during the storm hoping to stay ahead of the snow. I used to watch him from the picture window. He’d do the front steps first then the path then the three steps to the street and finally his car. Sometimes the snow was so high I couldn’t see him, but I knew where he was because I could see the snow flying left or right off his shovel into the air.

The plows left layers of snow on the street. Sometimes the first layer would melt just a bit from the sun then overnight it would refreeze and produce the perfect hill for sledding with a layer of ice on top. This happened every day until the streets were down to pavement then we went sledding on the grassy hills.

Today I have football, the Pats against the Broncos. The winner will be Super Bowl bound.  I’ll be cheering and clapping the whole game; at least, that’s what I expect.

(P.S.  Skip has come and gone. Yippee!)

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“I know I am getting better at golf because I’m hitting fewer spectators.”

February 17, 2014

The world on Cape Cod is a winter wonderland. I took the long way to my breakfast spot this morning and saw limbs split and broken from the weight of the snow, tree branches laden with heavy, icy snow and bent to the ground, fronts of houses hidden behind walls of snow turned to ice and side roads still covered in snow and ice, including mine. The sun is blinding. The temperature is 18˚.

Today is Washington’s Birthday or President’s Day: which one you celebrate depends on where you live. The fact that Washington was not born on this day does not affect in any way the cake and candles. It became a Monday so people can have a three-day weekend. Lincoln still has his own day in some states but mostly he is just throw into the President’s Day mix.

I knew lots of facts about some Presidents which gave them a bit of nobility far beyond those of mortal men. Those facts, however, later proved to be folk tales, myths. Washington never did cut down that cherry tree and for all I know he lied through his teeth which were not wooden even though they taught me that in school. Lincoln was Honest Abe because he walked a mile to return a customer’s change. He was also an educational inspiration. I had pencils and paper. He had coal and the back of a shovel. As for the Gettysburg Address, it wasn’t written on the back of an envelope.

Nicknames in those days were flattering. Washington was the Father of His Country and Lincoln was the Great Emancipator. I think it was President Nixon’s Tricky Dick which reversed the trend.

Many Presidents don’t deserve mention, but they still get a piece of the day. Lumping them all together is a good idea because I suspect none of us would celebrate Hoover Day unless we were talking about a really good vacuum cleaning or Gerald Ford Day because there isn’t a reason for him to have singular recognition. Besides, I’m still mad at him for pardoning Nixon though I did feel bad when he fell down those plane steps. Jimmy Carter got attacked by a rabbit which is another event we don’t celebrate, and he saw a UFO though I like that about him. One slang word for a certain male body part is a johnson. LBJ called his Jumbo. That’s a fact!

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