Snow thoughts

(20120123)

This past weekend went by in, what felt like, a blink of the eye. There was a company New Year's party to attend, errands to be handled, naps to be had, and we even threw in a little bit of a snowstorm late Friday night.

I got to spend a little bit of time on Saturday morning getting acquainted with my newly purchased yet slightly used snow blower. On the good front, my back is grateful to my wallet in a most wondrous fashion. (Really you two, get a room!) On the downside, I quickly discovered that heavily water laden snow and early morning-after cold fronts conspire together in a most evil way so as to construct a sort of slush, slash polar ice-cap that is all but impenetrable to my new toy. So, while I got to use the new blower to clear off a decent percentage of my driveway and nearby sidewalks, I also got to re-experience the joy that is shoveling snow and scrapping ice! For the record, I think I'll pass on the shoveling in the future if at all possible thank you!! ;)

During my time outside on Saturday morning I got to thinking. I am a relatively sure that there must be some possible way to avoid this whole mess of digging, scrapping, snow-blowing, salting, and general bodily torture that is known as winter. I mean after all, my wife and I did manage to go through the effort of raising a new human being into her teenage years. Certainly there must be something that could be done to "offload" a bit of this experience onto a self professed "lover" of winter and "All things SNOW"? Hmmm...

As the blower cheerfully ground its way through the upper most levels of newly fallen snow that covered the nearby sidewalks, I casually gazed back towards the house and up towards the window of my teenagers bedroom window. I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, I wish I could sleep-in till all hours of the afternoon and then get up just in time to go sledding and then over to my pals house for Cocoa and Tea!". I imagined that if I had such a luxury, perhaps I would still like winter and snow as I surely must have in my youth.

Upon my second pass at the sidewalks to get to the underlying and previously mentioned ice, I patiently shoved the blower up the walk to the sound of the whirring blade on the machine. CHUG, CHUG, Brrrr.. So much ice filled up the eject chute of the machine that the engine quickly cut out. "Grrrr", I thought to myself as I cleaned out the chute and quickly restarted the machine. If only I had a helper who could go in front of me to break up the ice. If only! Another gaze up to the window only showed me the same tightly closed curtains. "Nope", no help would be forthcoming from that direction.

Eventually, I finished up the snow cleanup duties giving my work a final admiring glance. "Not a bad job for an old guy!” I thought to myself. I put away the snow-blower and hung up the shovel in the garage and then, proceeded to head inside to sit down and catch my breath. The clock inside the kitchen reminded me that I had been outside cleaning the snow for over an hour and a half. No wonder I felt so tired. "I gotta get out of this Winter Wonderland", I quickly thought to myself.

I headed upstairs to get cleaned up from my work and to get ready for the rest of what Saturday was to provide me still thinking that that crazy kid was still in bed. As I hit the top stair of the flight, I heard my daughter's dog stir within her room. I figured that it was so late that he was probably dying to have his morning walk. Of course, as soon as I opened the door to her room, a short and tan flash shot past me at ankle level. Just like that, Moo-Shu (our Pug) was down the stairs and making a dash for his water dish and bowl full of breakfast I had left for him, like he had been water and food starved for a hundred years.

That's when I saw it. The sweet sleeping face of one of the most precious things in the world to me was slightly exposed from the quilt that had been drawn up around her shoulders and wrapped her like a mummy’s wrap. All thoughts of grabbing her by her toes and dragging her out of her bed to help me do snow duties quickly disappeared from my thoughts and were as quickly replaced by an admiration and love that I have never been able to fully explain to anyone who does not already have kids of their own. Just then, she slightly stirred from her sleep in order to adjust her position to a more comfortable angle. I quickly took a step back, shutting the door to her room on my way out. No cleanup duties for you today. Sleep till you wake. Enjoy youth and winter for a few more restful delights.