seven

This morning I opened the curtains and found myself looking at seven and a half inches of new snow under a clear, sunny sky and temps well below freezing. I spent a half hour or so digging the walks and the car out of the snow; there were cars in the street that needed an hour of digging just to make them visible.

The kids will remember this forever as their first snowy Christmas. They’ve seen snow before, even seen lots of it, but they’ve never seen snow that lay on the ground for more than a month, and never this deep, except in the mountains, which were a novelty themselves. They’re already sick of shoveling, did I tell you that? Getting them to go out there to keep up with the falling snow is more work than doing it myself. Then, while I’m hunched over a shovel, I get a head popped out the door saying, “I’ll do that, dad.” I never know what to say to that, so I just snarl over my shoulder and they disappear.

Got a bit of a scratchy throat this morning, probably coming down with the same hacking crud that everybody else has had in the last week or so. Hope I don’t give it to Barb. We did a little cuddling last night, after she dragged me away from the biography I’m reading on Teddy Roosevelt, “unless you’re more interested in Teddy,” she said. “When I’m more interested in Teddy, you might as well shoot me,” I told her.