Back to the Real World

If you're a weather-watcher, you know that the Pacific Northwest was hit by winter ice storms and snow last week. In my community, a foot or more of snow hit Sunday/Monday/Tuesday of Martin Luther King weekend and then persisted all week, with temps down in the teens plus (minus?) windchill.

Now comes the obligatory disclaimer: I know this doesn't sound like much for those of you in cold climates, buuuuuuuuut....

It paralyzed our town. Remember that most people don't have snow tires, although we do have lots of Subarus, and see snow about two days every other winter. Snow removal equipment is scarce (from a fiscal standpoint we can all see why fleets of snowplows are impractical) and we live in a hilly, hilly, hilly, nay, mountainous region. With little-to-no snow removal on side streets, snow packs down under tires and feet, melts slightly, then refreezes, turning neighborhoods into air hockey rinks.

So this resulted in an unexpected week off of school for the kids and me. We had knitting time, game and puzzle time, screen time (admittedly probably too much), outside-in-the-snow time, sledding time, and lots of reading time. It was wonderful.

But tomorrow is back to the real world. This week will be catching up and moving on and, somewhere sandwiched amongst all of the end-of-semester-panicking, I'll be attending a funeral of a dearly loved person who slipped away last Thursday afternoon, surrounded by her children, after fighting the good fight, in peace at last.

And the snow fell.