TheBanyanTree: White Christmas

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Usually when the weather people predict a big snow storm and try to convince
us the earth will end as we know it, we just get a couple of measly inches.
But when they predict flurries, watch out!  Because that means we’ll get
dumped on and the world will end.

We got a semi-major dumping yesterday after we were assured by every weather
station in town that we would be lucky if we just got flurries.  Well, I
have 5+ inches in my rain gauge.  The wind howled and blew the snow around
like a vicious white tornado.

Unfortunately, we had to be out in it.  Susan’s parents invited us to their
new home for dinner, so we had to do the white knuckle drive from southwest
St. Paul across the metro, past the airport, past the Mall of America, past
Edina, and into another west metro suburb.  The roads were snow packed and
slick.  The ramps were glare ice.  Why we did this, I don’t know, except we’
re Minnesotans, and gosh darn it, a little snow won’t stop us from doing
what we want to do.

We had a good dinner and a nice time at the “in-laws’”, but we left before
dark and it was white knuckle time again.  Ray and I both breathed a sigh of
relief when we pulled into our driveway.

I spent the night worrying about whether the snowblower would run and if I
would have to shovel all the snow myself.  My neighbor is out of town again
(she seems to miss all the big snowstorms!) and I feel obligated to shovel
out her sidewalks, too.

I got up at 5:00 am.  I fed the dogs and then shoveled off the deck and back
sidewalk.  I filled the snowblower’s tank with gas and pushed the electric
start button.  It revved up great and off I went.  The snowblower worked
perfectly.  It ran smoothly.  And it didn’t cut out on me once.  I blew out
the driveway, then the boulevard sidewalks, and our front walks.  I hand
shoveled the rest.  It took me about an hour or so.  Not too bad.

I stopped for a moment before heading inside where a hot cup of coffee
awaited me and watched the full moon set behind the big forested hill across
the street from us.

I still have a bit of shopping to do.  The weather prevented me from buying
one last gift, so I’ll get that done this morning.  I’ll stop at Baker’s
Square and buy a candy cane pie for dinner.  Since shoveling and blowing
snow counts as exercise for me today, I’ll skip the gym and get working on
putting our Christmas Eve dinner together.

Later, when the sun sets behind the hill and the moon rises in the east to
take its place, then the magic which is Christmas Eve will begin.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com

A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all,
But softly gives itself away.
~Eva Logue