Snow-B-Que

"When life gives you snowbanks, Grill Steaks"

That is the new Huff family motto.  The old one was "Never stick anything sharper than a banana in your ear", but I think an occasion like this one calls for reassessment of the family mores.

The snow is supposed to be melting today, but we have yet to see it here at our house.  I don't know if it's caused by being cooped up with his family for a whole week, or if Phillip's drive to grill and eat steak is just residual survival stuff, but either way, I'm supportive.  Anything that makes the cooking of dinner someone else's job, I can totally get behind.
 

Yeah - he's a bit odd, but he's all mine.  Merry Christmas from the Huff House. 

May all your steaks be grilled up just right. 
And may all your Christmases be White.
 

White Christmas

Snowstorm Day 1:

Using what can only be described as a finely honed Hunter-Gatherer instinct, My husband made one last foray into the wild (okay, it was the mini-mall) to procure a junk food feast and a Scrabble game.  Both were devoured with gusto as the wind howled and the snow blew.  Since it was blowing so hard, we had no idea that two feet had fallen.  I finished the back of the Faery Ring and pinned it out on the blocking board.  Huge milestone.  Good Day.

Snowstorm Day 2:

I am blown completely away when, while on the phone with my sister, a real-live city-owned snowplow turns around in front of my house.  I actually tell her to hold on so I can take a picture.  The Faery Ring dries on the blocking board.  The smallies and I make bread pudding.  I start a sleeve.  I draw a schematic for the free pattern in a new and clever way.  I am in heaven.  I dread Monday morning because the hospital, being a hospital is one of the few places in my town that will not be closed because of the weather.  

Snowstorm Day 3:

The Hospital is CLOSED.  This has not happened in the 12 years I have worked there, but then, neither has THIS - my car is buried.  I got as far as finding a shovel (not, as would later matter to me a very great deal, a SNOW shovel), and then went inside to knit.  I also enjoyed a steaming mug of cheer, courtesy of my skilled and attentive husband, the bar-tending high school English teacher.  Believe me when I emphasize that these two skills are complementary, and inextricably linked.

Snowstorm Day 4:

With grim determination and an eye to our dwindling grocery levels (turns out we are better eaters than we are shoppers), Darling Husband suits up to dig out the snowbound car and install the new tire chains.  DH's Provider instinct is in high gear.  Wonder where that motivation goes in August?  We unearth my sedan after several back-breaking hours with the wrong shovel.  We install the new tire chains.  We back up the car 1 foot and the chains fall off.  We reinstall the tire chains and back up the car 2 feet.  The chains fall off.  The car is now stuck half in and half out of the driveway.   We half push, half drive the car back into the driveway, reinstall the chains, and admit defeat as the wind picks up and darkness falls with a thud.  Better luck tomorrow.  I knit a sleeve and lovingly stroke the almost-dry Faery Ring.

Snowstorm Day 5:

Phillip, in an unprecedented display of tenacity, suits up again to stage a second assault on the car situation.  The tire chains immediately fall off again.  Intellectual Giants that we are, we finally concede that the new tire chains might just be the wrong size.  In a flash of inspiration, I decide that we should try to put the chains onto the (larger-tired) other vehicle.  This requires digging out said other vehicle.  Our backs, unaccustomed to any sort of physical exertion, never mind snow shoveling, whimper vain protests.  We push through the wall and install the chains on the other car, which due to some miracle, actually fit. 

Now, because we have elected not to exchange gifts this year (choosing instead to go on a trip together), we have pretty much blown off Christmas shopping.  We have done this with a smug self-righteousness of the sort which just begs for Karmic Adjustment.  Right on schedule, the backlash appeared when we realized that there are still some people for whom we need to procure gifts, and time, unlike snow, is in short supply. 

I regroup quickly, forming a cunning plan to make gifts, with the help of the children.  All we need is a few supplies from the mega-mart, which Phillip has now cleverly reached.  He calls me from the store:

Him:  "Which aisle is that on"?
Me:  "I don't know ; just ask somebody where they keep the scrapbooking stuff."
Him:  Silence.
Me:  "Hello?  Did you find someone to ask?"
Him:  "I am a heterosexual man, standing in the mega-mart in a snowstorm.  "Which way to the scrapbooking aisle" is simply not a sentence I can utter.
Me:  Helpless fits of laughter...
 

Snowstorn Day 6:

And so this is Christmas.  Well, Christmas Eve.  We lost power last night, but it was time for bed anyway, and it had been restored by morning.  Lucky for us - seems our snow storm survival skills, while earnest, are not very finely-honed. 

This is a Christmas we never forget.  Not only for its many firsts - the first time the hospital was closed, the first time my children played Scrabble, the first time we located functional flashlights during a power outage - but also for the sense of solidarity with which my small family has faced its challenges.  There have been very few outbursts of temper, considering the length of our confinement together.  The pets are good and sick of being dragged/pitched outside for biological reasons, as are we of both dragging and pitching.  But overall, our inconveniences have been slight, and our enforced togetherness has been good.  All of which supports my theory that snowstorms are nature's way of telling us when to slow down, stay home, and just be together.  They don't happen as often as we need it, but happen they do, and for that I am so grateful. 

Just as long as the yarn holds out.  If I run short of worsted, I won't be held responsible for my actions.
 

Hunkering Down

One of the eccentricities of the town where I live is that it snows very infrequently.  At the first sign of a flake, they close the schools, milk, bread and tire chains fly off the store shelves,  and the local TV news stations compete for who can come up with the catchiest weather event name.  I am not exaggerating:  This year's snowfall has been christened "Arctic Blast 08".  With a name like that, I feel entitled to stay inside indefinitely. 

To tell the truth, this completely feeble attitude toward snow is one of my favorite things about my city.  The snow falls so seldom here that we are, municipally speaking, ill-prepared.  There aren't enough snowplows.  We don't keep large stocks of de-icing chemicals.  There are even problems spreading gravel around in the rare event that snow falls very quickly.  So when it does really come down (every decade or so, whether we need it or not), the whole place comes to a screeching halt.

When this happens, we hunker down.  Not being accustomed to driving in the white stuff, people around here just stay home.  "Scared to drive in" is a totally legitimate excuse for not showing up in many workplaces.  The children in our town are so delirious with joy that they will play in the snow for as long as their parents will let them.  Knowing their chances are few and far between, the snowmen come to life RIGHT AWAY on my street. 

For all of this to be happening right before Christmas is even more rare.  Our Christmases are known for gale-force windstorms, or rain of Biblical proportions, but not the Currier-and-Ives stuff.  Imagine the excitement at my house when our ice-skating children learned that the pond in our neighborhood has frozen!  (For the record, I do not poses the parenting chops to allow them to try skating on it, much to their dismay.  I still hold the title for Meanest Mommy In The World.)

So my immediate plans are just to stay in and knit.  I want to tell you that this is pretty much my dream vacation:  Nobody needs me at the office.  The smallies and I baked cookies.  Husband has adequate sports and movie media to keep him entertained indefinitely.  And I have the Faery Ring.

In case I have failed to mention it, this project is WAY FUN.  Imagine wool of such uncompromising gorgeousness that you would blow off any and all commitments to keep knitting with it.  Visualize color at once so subtle and so complicated that just staring at is meditation.  Contemplate an afternoon spent throwing the rugged yet delicate strands, and understand just what a bonus this snowstorm is for me.  If the weather keeps up this way, I'll have it finished in record time.  That means that you could be knitting your own Faery Ring by New Year!  Keep thinking snowy thoughts.