Snow Day

Ugh.

I woke up this morning to Jake’s shrieks of delight.

It’s a snow day, it’s a snow day! He shouted.

He came running in our bedroom and flung open the shades.

There was a dusting of snow on the ground.

No no no, I said. You’ll have school today.

Never underestimate the power of the media. Ever. The panic spread over the last three days about a MAJOR storm coming in to BLANKET the city with ICE, SNOW, SLEET causing DANGEROUS roads made everyone lose their minds.

I laughed as Ben ran to the computer to check to see if the schools were closed. They are not, I said.

WHOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO! He screamed. Schools are closed!

No way, I went over and squinted, pre-coffee, at the screen.

No fucking way…

Mom! That’s a dollar!

I can’t believe you don’t have school. It better get pretty bad out there.

As I sit here, at almost 5PM, I can say, it has not. It’s fine. No worries. The kids have the whole week off next week. What’s another day?

Except that it’s New England and somewhere in the deed to your house is a line about being hearty, frugal and only able to give bad directions.

Let’s get one thing clear. We should be afraid of, terrified by, the fact that we have had no snow this winter. We will have a drought this summer. Storms in Europe have been so severe- and unseasonable- trains have been blown off their tracks. Upstate New York is not experiencing snow, it is experiencing multiple feet of snow- daily. The whole month of January here was above 50 degrees, often in the 60’s.

There is something TERRIBLY WRONG with our environment. I wish the news media would focus on that instead of frightening school superintendents into closing school for three inches of snow. Little rain.




So here we sit, with Jake running around in circles with the dog -

I’m giving Beanie exercise, Mom!

That’s great honey but can you do that outside?

Zachary still running a fever but unable to stop wrestling with Ben-

But Mom what else can I do?

READ A BOOK!

And the desperate efforts of the Public Works department to scrape off the top layer pavement, cashing in on much needed overtime from the dry winter, echo in the background.