Then this happened.
I walked around the lake with Margy and BJ on Friday afternoon: it started coming down while we walked and while it felt great to be outside, stretching our legs, the stuff hitting us in the face was very unpleasant.
We met some friends for dinner at a nifty little Italian place on the St. Paul side of the river. We arrived on time to do happy hour, split several appetizers, a couple of pizzas and a carafe of wine. There was a deli attached to the dining room (and a liquor store with a huge emphasis on wine), where we picked up some eggplant parmesan to take home. The snow was just starting to accumulate as we left and to add just enough springtime weirdness to the weather, several thunderclaps rolled across the sky, warning us all to get home and hunker down because the storm was about to begin.
By morning, it was really coming down.
None of that would bother me, but it put a real damper on our daughter’s plans. She had a couple of days off before starting her new job, so she’d made arrangements for us to watch BoopityBoop while she flew off to visit friends in warmer climes for a few days. Adam was on a long planned fishing trip and would pick the babies up Sunday afternoon. Katie got to our house in plenty of time to help get the girls situated and make her flight…
Only to discover that all flights were cancelled and the airport closed.
So she wound up spending her vacation with us, instead. She tried to make the best of it. Since I was planning on hanging with the babies, she thought she’d get a spa day in. No such luck: her spa was closed. Everything was closed. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Sometimes, you just have to roll with it.
We watched movies, had a dance party and played with the girls until naptime. Jay managed to get up to Lund’s before they closed and brought us home the fixings for dinner; a pork tenderloin, which we cooked with an apple mustard sauce. It’s my favorite was to eat a pork roast! It’s very easy and utterly delicious. I’d also made a batch of chocolate chip cookies during the afternoon so we were well provisioned for the white out conditions.
And all afternoon, the snow came down.
It cut out for a few hours last night but started up again around noon. It’s coming down right now like its never going to stop.
Jay fired up the snow blower and cleared the driveway at least three times since yesterday afternoon.
Adam made it home from his fishing trip around dinner time last night and called Katie to warn her not even to try driving home: the roads were terrible and he was afraid she’d wind up in a ditch with the twins. She slept on our couch. The girls slept well and were cheerful and happy when they got up for breakfast. It was just like Christmas! I baked some bran muffins, Jay fried some eggs and everyone had fun.
By noon, the roads were clear (the snow hadn’t started up again quite yet) so Katie and Boopity Boop went home. I went out and shoveled off my roof. Now my shoulders ache: there was a lot of heavy, wet snow on the roof. Good news: the ice in the gutters was really just thick slush.
Someday, this winter will end. They always do. I figured something like this would happen: last year, spring came in February. You can’t have two winters like that in a row, not in Minnesota.
I know: early spring, late spring, disappearing winters and never ending winters, all come under the heading ‘Climate Change’. It’s the Theory of Everything that physicists have been trying to find for decades!
Sometimes, a long winter is just a long winter.
Roll with it.