FEET of snow!!!

Leave it to me to be out gallivanting while we had the biggest snow storm in AGES at home…

I left home on February 1, headed to Georgia to join my sisters and cousin in celebrating my dad’s 88th birthday. It was the first time all we girls had been together without our kids in I don’t know how long. The first two days were spent talking, talking and talking…my dad reminisced about his childhood, about growing up on Catalina Island, about his and his father’s baseball careers, about World War II…a little bit of everything with everyone chiming in. We girls (that’s how we still think of ourselves, even though we are now quite definitely women) also stole time to naked sauna and scrub, to walk through the neighborhood, to lie on our backs and meditate on my sister’s special therapeutic bed, to shop at a high-end consignment store and to laugh with abandon. And then it was over and we all went our separate ways, feeling closer than ever with family spirit.

I took advantage of being down South and detoured to Orlando to steal time with my divine daughter and my amazing grandbabygirl. AND it just happened to include a weekend that saw her husband winging his way up to Boston for a beer festival (Lucas is a cicerone and the Central Florida sales rep for Cigar City Brewing), so we planned a girls’ weekend for the three of us. As soon as I arrived in Florida, however, I started to hear serious talk of a major snow storm scheduled to hit New England that very weekend…needless to say, we were glued to IPhones and weather forecasts, trying to determine (1) if Lucas would be able to take off on Friday, (2) if, having chosen to go, would Lucas be able to return on Sunday, and (3) if my Sunday flights back to New England would be impacted. As it worked out, Lucas’ flight was one of the last flights into Logan, the eventual 2 feet of snow had started to fall, a citywide driving ban was instituted, his event was postponed and he was stranded in a city that had virtually closed down for the days he was there…AND he was there with no gloves and two pair of sneakers (the Upstate New York boy has turned into a Florida man). I can’t wait to hear his adventures. As for me, my flights were pretty uneventful, although my last leg was delayed for an hour because it had had to be de-iced at its prior stop. But that’s where the NEW adventure kicked in!

Back at the homestead, three feet of snow had fallen, which meant that our 1/2 mile driveway couldn’t be plowed using ordinary measures. We needed the BIG BOYS to come in and plow us out. And the big boys were all otherwise occupied for days…our name was put on the list and that was that. Our friend (who just happens to be our plow man) insisted that my husband borrow one of their cars so he could get to the airport to pick me up. This still meant, however, that husband and dog had to walk through thigh and sometimes hip high snow the half mile out. By the time they got out, they were both completely exhausted. And still they drove the 2 hours to pick me up at the airport. We stayed in the big city that night, had our dentist appointments and then headed home…as we drove home, we got word that our plow guy had been able to plow a narrow strip most of the way to our house before his plow truck broke down. So, we only had to trek back through the three feet of snow (did I mention thigh and hip high?) too many hundreds of feet (did I mention that it was pitch dark and husband was leading the way using his smartphone flashlight?). I fell a couple of times and thought I might just stay where I was until spring. However, if Boo could do it, so could I. We made it to the house and collapsed…what an amazing adventure…

And now it is two days later (my husband’s birthday — happy birthday, old man!!!) and the monster plow truck made it down the driveway and plowed us a perfect path…the car is back in front of the house and life starts to resume a more “normal” rhythm. I wouldn’t trade my days with my sisters OR my days with my grandbabe, but I was a bit wistful at having missed the reality of three feet of snow falling from the sky.