Your Female Andy Rooney

Is it just me or is the weather getting really freaky lately? Spring lasted all of a day here and then came summer. Throw in a few near biblical storms and I am beginning to think I might need hailing frog insurance.  I will not be wearing any striped stockings or ruby slippers any time soon.

I put 'Remedy Oil' on my knees last night before bed. Not only does that make me sound old but it seems like something Laura Ingalls Wilder would have bought from a tinker by the side of the road.

I told The Comedian that her whining "does not become her". Move over Joan Crawford. Betty Draper has apparently taken over.






*Image from kenlevine.blogspot.com

New Faces and Places

Maybe we have been cooped up in the house too long because of all this winter weather.  Maybe it is the seed that H repeatedly tries to plant in my head about TD branching out her set of friends.  Whatever it was, we took a trip just down the road to new horizons this week. 

We went to a group play date.  Did your hand just fly to your mouth as you gasped in shock?  I know.  I broke our ridiculous and now monotanous routine of work, gym, school, work/play, neighborhood play, dinner, bed.  Wake up and do it all again. Gag, snore. 

I don't know why it takes me so long to do these things.  I don't know why I don't schedule them myself. Oh right (smacks forehead) I hate entertaining.  That's why.  Hives. Hives! There would be hives.  I swear if you left me alone long enough I would turn inward and probably grow a crusty shell like a hermit crab.  You would find me talking to myself or a wall in a very animated conversation and eating cold soup out of can.  I would be pretty content for a while too as long as I got to yell at the neighbors every few days ("Get a haircut!") and you kept me stocked with Bloody Mary mix.

Unlike most days where we have a ton of things scheduled I woke up this morning excited. I was excited about the possibilities of new friendships for TD as well as for myself.  I love my neigbhorhood dearly but in the last few weeks it has become rather stale.  I was about to stage at re-enactment from 'Escape from Alcatraz' any day now and I needed off our own 'rock', er, frozen tundra and off into someone else's cozy home.  Judging by the happy smiles, quiet house we later came home to and content feeling we all seem to now have, I would say the kids needed it just as badly as I did.  Being in someone else's home and talking to other mothers was like a breath of fresh spring air.  Immediately my creativity flared and my branching out made me feel that the buds on the trees aren't too far off.  When one little girl told me, "TD is welcome to play at my house anytime!" I beamed and not just for TD.  I welcome the new friendships for me too. 

The Snow is Beautiful. Just Don't Be an Idiot.

It is snowing in our part of the world again. White flakes big and small swirl around as heavy winds beat against the screens helping to form icy drips that coat them. All around me, I hear the same thing. A chorus of, "I hate this! I'm sick of snow!" It goes on and on in a never-ending cacophony of voices that I really do not understand.


I hate winter. I hate the cold, the icy rains, sleet, slush and grayness of it all. The black, bleak branches of trees reaching up to an impervious grey sky make me shiver and bemoan winter's very existence. What I do not hate is snow. Snow to me is still a magical gift. It is Mother Nature's way of telling us to stop, look around and take a breather. The snow is a perfect way to get outdoors and see the world in a very different way. Everything is clean, blanketed in white and hushed by its weight. We bundle ourselves up like tics and adventure outdoors only to come back inside invigorated as we stamp our boots free from the snow and discuss the possibilities of hot chocolate. Neighbors come outdoors to clear walkways, shovel out of their abodes, and in turn talk to one another in ways that they normally do not. When it snows and H and I hear the other adults spew out their non-stop litany of complaints we simply look at one another puzzled and shrug our shoulders saying, "It's just snow. It is fun. Just don't be an idiot." Snow gives me a chance to play. We sled, take night walks with the kids and make igloos, tunnels, snow angels and more. There is nothing better than taking an inner tube out on a street at night and sliding down it wicked fast with not a car in sight. Overall, we tend to gaze out the windows more and see things in ways we did not before the snow. It is beautiful.

While it is truly awful to lose power or be without supplies in a situation like this, also a break from our daily lives has us rushing around, never stopping, never playing or truly looking around. Grumble all you want about the snow that we are being pummeled with these days but know that it is fleeting. It doesn't happen all the time and you are safe and warm. Have fun with it. Stop being such a...grown-up.

 

Snowy Day

It is ironic that TD came home from school on Friday with the book and DVD, The Snowy Day.  A gift from her teachers we have already worn this book/DVD combo out.  We did, indeed, have a "Loaf Seven" weekend. 

Mid-storm. We used my neighbors Hummer to go get pizza.  Hangovers need pizza. Blizzard be damned.

The Comedian literally gets stuck in the snow.

TD:  "Eeehh, it's 8:30! I want to go inside? Why is my Pep shoveling the deck?! I have the weirdest family."

I am 12.  My need to build a tunnel/igloo is too strong. H and I were the only adults playing outside without our kids.  TD went inside for "hot chocoh" after only an hour.

I Hear Tell of a Nor'Easter

I couldn't sleep when I got home from girls night last night.  Instead I turned on the tube and did some work.  After a few minutes I noticed that I had the local 11 o'clock news on and there was talk of a Nor'easter in these here parts. 

And a bread index.  Yeah, you heard me.  A bread index.  The weatherman, who likes to be called "Topper" (don't get me started) has an image of a stack of bread loaves all piled up and he measures the severity of a storm by how many loaves of bread we should all go nutty and buy.  Apparently, we are at 'loaf seven'.  Can I coin that?  "We're at loaf seven, Captain!  She won't hold out much longer!!" 

What the.... I thought.  Pffftt.. I don't buy it.

I'm a New Englander. I cut my driving teeth on one of the worst winters we had in over a decade.  I learned to drive on ice-filled potholes and roads with jagged cracks so deep you thought it was 2012 and the earth was going to swallow you and your car up whole.  The hill near my house that I had to climb up every day on the way to school, Oh yes, I'm going there, was so steep and slicked with inches of ice, that I once slid all the way back down it. Backwards.  In my car.  All part of the daily drive to school.  High school.

Driving in snow doesn't bother me.  Watching plows put sand on 95 AFTER it's begun snowing? That bothers me.  Seeing maintenance men put clumping kitty litter down on a sidewalk?  That bothers me.  Seeing a bread loaf index?  Yeah, that kind of bothers the cantankerous New Englander dwelling inside me too. 

Remember people, pump the breaks. Just pump it.   

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