Snow

This recent snowstorm was pretty dang irritating, if you ask me. First of all, if there’s going to be a bunch of snow, I think there should be a snow day.  Right? We didn’t lose any school time to snow this year at all, so it’s not like we didn’t have room in the snow-day-budget. It  was M who pointed out that Monday was New York State ELA Testing Eve, and possibly the schools didn’t want to miss out on giving everyone last-minute pointers and reminding all the parents to enforce bedtime. Dammit, another reason to hate those stupid tests. Which we are refusing again this year, by the way. The concessions/modifications are pretty cosmetic and the newly-elected head of the Board of Regents, Chancellor Rosa, has said that she would refuse the tests. So the girls are getting a ton of reading done this week!

But anyway, I was also aggravated because I hate driving in snow, and I had to go out at peak snowy-everywhere time to go join the girls from my Girls Circle to listen to Jacqueline Woodson, author of Schenectady County’s One County One Book selection, Brown Girl Dreaming. Which I was very excited to do, up until the timing was exactly awful enough that I had to navigate my way to a new location while driving through buckets of snow. All the while wondering if the kids were going to make it via school bus. They did, and it was good, but it sort of put a wrench in the works. Also, she read quite a bit from the book, which is not my favorite when I’ve already read the book. In fact, at the much-beloved Savannah Book Festival, there’s a rule that authors aren’t supposed to read–they’ve got to come up with something else to talk about. But luckily she talked, too. One thing I liked is that she said the “How to Listen” haikus sprinkled around the book are supposed to be taken together as writing lessons. So now I have to go back and review them all.

Also, my daffodils do not like the snow:

Meanwhile, some flowers can’t take a hint:

One thing I did enjoy about the snow was that my girls were stellar helpers. Perhaps it’s because I had a busy day and I was hosting my Snobby Book Club that evening, so I was looking a bit wild-eyed as I tidied, shopped, and cooked. But before you could say, “Girls, could you. . . ” they’d bundled up and gone outside to shovel the driveway. They even did the sidewalks all around.

Which was funny, because, back when Mary and Gene lived next door, we were pretty scrupulous about ensuring that their sidewalks were awesome and super-safe. And now, with the owners next door attempting to flip the property, Cute W and I have been a little bit bitter ever since they attempted to transform our shared driveway into adjacent driveways by cutting down the white lilac tree and adding several feet of asphalt so that it runs right into the foundation of their house. So now, when the sump pump pumps out water, instead of landing on dirt that will absorb it, it creates a stream that turns into an ice slick that cascades down our driveway and onto the public sidewalk. So, frankly, if I had noticed that the girls were making their sidewalks magnificently tidy like we always did in the old days, I probably would have told them to take a break and have some hot cocoa instead! But they were so efficient–and I was so distracted by my own tasks–that they had it looking awesome before I noticed.