Neither Snow
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The morning began with a cold rain, completing the fantastic fragile forest, which would have absolutely glittered had the sun made its debut of the day.
But it did not.
Predictions of snowfall were as ridiculously high as two feet. No less than a blizzard was forecast. Power outages were expected everywhere. And OLeif hurried to his library to begin as much work as possible before such a calamity might take place. Although Mom had already insisted that they attempt, even, the perils of the ice sheets should the power fail, in order to sit by the fire at the house instead of bundled in mountains of blankets at home.
Meteorologists… o, the excitement.
Nearing the quarter till nine mark, the snow was added to the mix. Large flakes of it at that. OLeif began to wonder if the roof might, indeed, cave in should the heaviest of predicted accumulation arrive.
In the middle of the morning, Puck managed to scrawl something that resembled his first ‘S’, not having completely decided, it would seem, whether or not he was right or left-handed.
This was followed with practicing to speak quietly, for the only volume that Puck had ever seemed to fully understand was that of ‘Ridiculously Loud’.
Before eleven, OLeif and Puck mixed up a loaf of bread in the bread machine, which had called for sunflower oil, of which they had none of course.
Around the lunch hour, it seemed as if the city was slowly beginning to shut down. Even the banks. But it was good to have a snow week. Quiet. Classical music, Gregorian, chorale, etc. A three year-old who was amazingly entertained by hardly anything at all. Now if only Ethiopia’s and Ruby’s baby decided to come after the affects of the blizzard had passed on. Collette was just thinking of how if the mail didn’t make it through, then things would officially be labeled as ‘pretty much rather bad’… when she heard the tell tale…
Whrrr… stop. Whrrr… stop.
A quick look out the window saw the familiar yellow flashers of the little mail car, chugging along admirably through the snow. Collette was substantially impressed.
In the afternoon, the snow had sufficiently blanketed everything. And Puck was intrigued with OLeif’s old wooden yo-yo.
“Look what I can do with this yo-yo!” he announced, swinging it around. “Hit ‘fings’!”
The little chap was still entirely incapable of pronouncing his ‘th’s.
This was followed with a viewing of the Swedish claymation penguin, Pingu, which the boys had discovered while Collette had been away.
It was OLeif-burgers for dinner that night in the midst of the ice and packed snow and the bitter cold. Although Puck insisted on having the freshly baked bread by itself without the burger.
“I want ‘nermal’ (normal) bread, Daddy!”
In other news…
Apparently Francis had ended up being suckered into a madrigal after all, as a bass. With Puff ‘o Lump.
“She had us lay on our backs on the floor to practice singing,” Francis had said about his first experience.
He just shook his head in disbelief. Musical exercise was, in general, lost upon the skeptical fifteen year-old.
And still events seemed hardly blizzard-like.
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”