All Dressed In White

Okay, more snow than I had initially anticipated, considering how often we're bypassed for other, less beachy locales. The drifts along the side of he house remind me of the blizzard of 1980 when I woke to drifts so towering they covered my bedroom windows. I always remember opening my eyes that morning and being greeted with the strange glow of sunshine through a white curtain of snow pressed like glass against its entirely. I remember my family's miniature schnauzer Robbie plowing through the depths of it like a cartoon gopher. And I remember walking over to Jeanne's house two houses down from mine and the snow being so deep I lost one of my boots and I didn't even notice until I got to her front porch. We went back through every footprint in the snow -- with me hopping on one leg -- until we found my boot in one of the holes.

And most people I talk to don't remember that blizzard in '80. Sure we had one a year before, and I think a year before that one too. But the one in 1980 remains the most memorable to me, for the sheer volume of snow that we got, the "song" that they made up about it on the local news, and the fact that the people who had gone to Norfolk Scope that night to see the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus had to stay all night in the coliseum, sleeping on the floors with the staff, circus people, and even the animals. And to prove that I didn't just dream that, my good friend Mike remembers it well because he was working as an usher at the Scope back then and he was one of those people who had to sleep on the floor as well. And yes, he assures me, it was definitely 1980. He'll hardly ever forget that blizzard for as long as he'll live.

I'm feeling a little better than I did before. Earlier I was eating a baguette, which I've been trying not to do so much lately, with olive oil and chipotle/cayenne Parma and I think it didn't sit well with me. But I think I'm on the proverbial mend. I kind of wish it was 1980 again. That Jeanne and our brothers and my little dog were all out building igloos in the backyard, or even searching for my lost boot in hundreds of criss-crossing footprints in the knee-deep snow. I miss being outdoorsy. I miss getting dirty. Days like these makes me realize how much I miss being a kid.

Well, maybe not everything about being a kid!