The Thing About Snow

Something happened last night that I had, up until 5:30 this morning, forgotten the beauty of; it snowed! It’s not the very first snow of the year, of course, but the previous two times didn’t count for much because the sky dumped about a half-inch of thick, white flakes on us, which melted away within twelve or so hours.

This morning when I stepped out onto the porch, there was a heavy blanket of the stuff- three or four inches, and if I had any sense at all, I’d be out there right now, building a miniature army of snowmen (Calvin & Hobbes style).

But alas, in my old age, I greatly prefer to sit inside and drink hot coffee and contemplate the snow, rather than play in it…for now. At least until the sun comes up.

Call me crazy (and plenty of people have), but I love winter. Summer time is too…skimpy for me. I have never been a fan of wearing short shorts and halter tops and running around barefoot in the sun-baked grass. Even as a little kid, long before I ever had to feel self-conscious about things like my body, or the lack of a tan on my legs, I generally wore jeans and even sometimes a sweater in the dead of summer.

These days, I suffer through the heat and impatiently await a time with more reasonable temperatures…if -30 degrees can be called reasonable. It feels alright to me, once I’ve put on some Smart Wool socks, a pair of tights, a pair of jeans, boots, an under shirt, a t-shirt, a hoodie, and my heaviest winter coat and a pair of gloves.

Not that I haven’t been known to spend time outdoors in the winter months with nothing more than pajamas and flip-flops on, but I think I’d like to keep my toes, thank you very much, so more often than not, bring on the snow boots.

I actually enjoy having to bundle up. I enjoy frolicking (oh yes, I said frolicking) in the soggy snow until my toes go numb, and then I enjoy the struggle of getting my boots off of my feet without also removing my socks in the same motion.

I even like shoveling snow. No, really, I do. There’s something about it that makes me feel really good; maybe the exercising in the cold part, I don’t know. I actually think it’s a bit of a bummer that it’s far more effective where I live for my husband to borrow a snow blower and make a bunch of paths through our yard and all the neighbors’, too.

I prefer blizzards to every other type of natural disaster. No matter where you choose to live, there’s going to be some kind of force that could potentially destroy you, and I’m kind of partial to the sort of forces I can choose to take part in or not- therefore, I live in an area where there is no chance for a hurricane, tsunami, or major flood. There is little chance of an earthquake, and a tornado is an extremely rare event here. Wild fires can cause major damage, but they’re hardly ever close enough to where I live to be an immediate danger to my home. But blizzards…

I can stay in the house if I don’t want to freeze to death or get lost in the blinding snow or slip-slide down the highway until I crash. I recently explained this to people. Blizzards can be watched from the cozy warmth of the sofa and a fuzzy blanket, whereas tornadoes and earthquakes and floods and hurricanes…they don’t bother knocking before coming in.

I have friends and family who have tried to survive in this area of Colorado, and who gave up because the snow lasts too long and the temperature drops too low. Maybe someday that will bother me, too, but I can’t really imagine it. I don’t think I could ever live somewhere that snow wasn’t pretty much guaranteed for Christmas, or where temperatures rise over 100 frequently (scratch that, I lived for 5 years somewhere that snow wasn’t guaranteed for Christmas and temperatures often liked to reach 105 in the summer. Any place where people die from the heat because they haven’t got air conditioning or a swamp cooler is too damned hot…the hell with that, I say!).

Everything is so much prettier, covered in snow. For instance, our house is heated by propane, and therefore, there is an ugly old tank outside that cannot be disguised despite somebody’s attempts at setting a few rocks around it, and planting a tree by it. No dice. But a few feet of snow, that does wonders for hiding hideous junk in a yard.

On a slightly related note, Clint crawled out of bed a bit ago and with his eyes half closed, he shuffled out to the living room and said, “F*#@ snow.”

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen.

Twenty-Six is the New Forty-Two

When I got out of bed this morning, I felt like I’d been hit by a train. Joints were cracking, muscles groaning, eyes refusing to open properly, the works. I shuffled out of my room after wrapping myself snugly in a fuzzy robe (much like the one I remember my mother shuffling around in when I was a kid), and took care of the baby.

Immediately after getting Baby settled in with his breakfast, I made coffee. While that was percolating away, I spent a few minutes examining the Weather Station- not on TV, mind you; we purchased a weather do-hicky-thingamajig that hangs on the wall and informs us of temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed and direction, and the future forecast.

The coffee machine beeped three times to let me know it was finished burbling, and I dispensed a cup (my husband, upon discovering that our previous coffee pot had a tendency to leak all over the place, brought home this fancy-looking machine that you have to hold your coffee mug beneath and against and VOILA! steaming cup of coffee is dispensed, not poured) and sat down on the sofa. More cracking and groaning.

After a few sips of life-giving caffeine, my brain began to unfog and the wheels started turning, and a terrible truth dawned on me:

I’m OLD.

And not just OLD, but BORING.

Old and boring.

At twenty-six.

At least, that’s what all the evidence points to. Evidence that I should have realized was there long before now, but for some reason was able to over-look it until just this morning.

Old people are forever consuming cup after cup of coffee, in order to feel even a fraction of that youthful (obnoxious) pep that they lost at some point along the road of life.

I am forever consuming cup after cup of coffee, in order to feel even a fraction of that youthful pep that I lost sometime in the last year.

Old people watch the weather in a hawk-like fashion, waiting for who-knows-what, never losing interest in the ups and downs of temperature and pressure.

I watch the weather in a hawk-like fashion, waiting for the Future Forecast function to predict something like forty feet of snow, and I never lose interest in the subtle changes of temperature or pressure.

Old people, being old, have a hell of a time getting out of bed.

I, being old, have a hell of a time getting out of bed.

Old people crawl into bed by eight o’clock at night.

I fall asleep on the sofa by eight o’clock at night.

The absolute worst part of it all is that old people, having lost the effervescence of their younger days, never do things like staying up all night playing video games, or jumping in puddles just because there are puddles present, or army-crawling through the yard for the sheer joy of having the energy and ability to do so.

I can’t remember the last time I stayed up past midnight.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a puddle and thought, “What a good spot to put my feet”.

The last time I did something solely because I was overflowing with energy was…

When? Five, ten years ago?

Some people say, “You’re only as old as you feel.”

Some people say, “You’re only as old as you look.”

Well, I say, “Today I feel eighty years old, and I’ve just discovered that I have gray hair (which shall promptly be dyed and denied), and I’m developing wrinkles at the corners of my eyes.”

So. If I feel eighty, look thirty-five, and am actually twenty-six…(excuse me a moment while I screw up some calculations)…

I’d say I’m slightly past the beginning of middle age, and a mid-life crisis should be just around the corner.

Disclaimer: I refuse to be held responsible for any repercussions that may stem from any of my possibly negative assumptions regarding people who have reached a certain number of years and/or level of dullness. After all, I’m one of you now.