Snowbound mentality

 

Another photo from Hawaii,
just to reassure us that there is sunshine and warmth somewhere.

There’s a definite psychology to being snowbound. The first day it’s kind of fun. You are home all day and can do whatever—all those little chores you’ve neglected, read a book and nap, cook something wonderful. Christian spent yesterday teaching himself how to make sushi. Jacob spent the day in a poker game with friends (with, I was glad to learn, fake money).

But ah, that second day. The snow isn’t quite as bright a white, and the luster of a day at home is dimming. People post on Facebook about boredom and cabin fever. In a new twist I only learned about today, they start looking for Uber drivers with four-wheel vehicles. With that trick, Christian has gone to the rodeo tonight. It is realtors' night, and though the formal event was cancelled, he knows there will be a lot of realtors there.

Me? I’m just as glad to stay home and inside. Spending the first twenty years of my life in Chicago gave me as much snow and cold as I wanted. When the wind came off Lake Michigan, it was bone chilling. I remember cold mornings when my dad would get up early to go to the basement and stoke the coal furnace so that the house would be warmer (never really warm) when the rest of us got up. And I remember leggings—no, not the fashionable, tight-legged leggings of today but heavy wool pants, often lined—we wore them under our skirts to school. I remember shoveling sidewalks, and snow piled in the street almost high as my head.

At twenty, I moved to northeastern Missouri, sometimes called the “icebox” of Missouri. I remember thinking if I could just wake up one morning and not look out on dirty snow, I would be happy. A lot of people in the small town where I first went to graduate school still heated with coal, and the snow got dirty quickly. And the roads solidified into icy ruts—I drove a VW Bug which didn’t fit the ruts at all, so I bounced all over the place. Nope, I’ve had all the winter I want. I sympathize with the neighbor who posted on the neighborhood listserv that she was grateful garbage collection for tomorrow is cancelled, because she really dreaded taking the carts down an icy driveway.

Jacob came out to the cottage for supper, and we ate poor boy sandwiches together. He was elated that there will be another snow day tomorrow—that makes three this year, and as he pointed out, three years in a row where snow has cancelled school. My comment that it was a bad sign, a result of climate change, fell on deaf ears. When you are sixteen, you often don’t think beyond the moment. Climate change doesn’t really mean much. But I am grateful that he’s home tonight—I know he’s safe. It made me nervous that he rode with friends, even if they had four-wheel drive, but he assured me they drive carefully. I asked if he would tell me if they didn’t—he thought about it and said, “Probably not. But they really do.” I am also grateful that he’s home if that foolish Sophie stays out too long. I can call and ask him to go get her—she’s out as I write, long than it takes her to pee.

Tomorrow is iffy—some reports say we’ll get ice tonight, which is a bit worrisome because it could load the power lines down and cause power failures. Jacob said tonight though that it is to snow all night. So far, at nine o’clock, no sign of anything. And the high tomorrow will be anywhere from low thirties to forty, depending on who you listen to. There it is again, that uncertainty that winter storms bring. We just never know who or what to believe.

Jordan flies home on a redeye tomorrow night. I asked Christian earlier tonight if he though her flight would be delayed, and he said not. But there again, I worry. I like to have all my chicks safe at home in weather like this. My Austin family is, I hope, staying home because their weather is as bad as ours. And I heard from the Frisco contingent that their drive is sheer ice—it’s such a steep long driveway that to me it’s perilous in July, let alone in an ice storm. The Tomball folk must be okay, because I saw that Colin was in Houston again today for work. Of course, last week, a tornado hit square on his office building in Deer Park—and he forgot to tell me. Thankfully, the building held, though those nearby sustained damage, and he said driving away from there was chaotic. I once dated a man who said to me, “Once a mother, always a mother” and I find it’s sure true in iffy weather.

Wherever you are, stay warm and safe. This too shall pass, and spring will come again.

Ah, to be in Hawaii

 

Jordan on the ferry from Maui to Lanai

Ah, to be in Hawaii

Not much to blog about tonight. All day in the cottage alone—even Sophie deserted me and spient most of the day in the main house with Christian.  She’s a fickle beast. I worked, not much to report there, and I read about what’s going on in our country. From MTG to the Supreme Court and its corruption to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his fatuous self-satisfaction, my indignation is high. But I’ll spare you the diatribe.

The trouble with ice and snow warnings in Texas is that they so often vanish into nothing that we have gotten complacent, sure that the storm will pass us by, die out, amount to nothing. So we're unprepared and surprised when a forecast turns real. Christian said tonight if he'd know how bad it was going to be, he'd have gone out and gotten dog food. Hindsight.

Tonight I fixed a queso chicken casserole—fudged with the recipe a bit, but it was still awfully good. Lots of leftovers for the rest of the week. Sometimes I’m wonder if I’m losing it—at least the cooking part of “it,” whatever that is. I try to plan so carefully so that I have all the ingredients needed for whatever I’m making, but tonight I realized I had no Velveeta, not something I keep on hand but needed for the recipe. I substituted leftover cheese from our recent dinner at Joe T’s and some of our good Tillamook sharp cheddar. Taste was still good, but the consistency was different.

The only thing I really want to share is some pictures from Hawaii where Jordan is enjoying sunshine and ferry rides and great good times while we struggle through ice and cold. She didn’t exactly pick the date—it’s a work-related trip—but it turned out to be so timely. We have sent her pictures of the snow and ice, just to keep her grounded.

View from Jordan's room at the
Four Seasons, Maui

Far-fetched musings on the soul and some snowbound games

My snow bunnies

I’ve been pondering why I feel such a sense of unease, disquiet about the demolition of the house in Austin. As Brandon said, I didn’t live with its creaky bones and failing sewer system. Although when he said if I lived in a house as old as that, I’d understand, and I had to remind him I have always lived in houses about thirty years older than that one. And maybe that’s part of it—I have an affinity for old houses.

It’s not just preservation, though I am a devoted believer in the importance of that, and I am distressed to see in Fort Worth modest bungalows from the ‘50s and’60s coming down to be replaced by condos and town houses and stealth dorms. We are losing a part of our history, and it grieves me.

But beyond that, I arrived at the notion that a house has a soul, at least a house that has been happily lived in does. By serendipity, I started tonight to read The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels, by James Meacham. He quotes everyone from Jesus to MLK about the nature of the soul, but the line that grabbed me was, “the soul is a central and self-evident truth, what makes us us.” Some of us, maybe those like me with an overdose of imagination, talk about the ”feel” of a house. When I first walked into my cottage, I said it felt like a happy place—and so it has proven to be. But I have been in dark and dreary homes without soul, with nothing about them to speak of love and joy and happiness.

The house in Austin was not a particularly spectacular one, nor was it large, but it was comfortable. And when the kids moved in, it had a cold,unloved feel to it—perhaps it was the built-in furniture, a disastrous but thankfully short-lived fad. But my kids brought to the house two baby boys, a brand new marvelous kitchen, and hordes of family and friends for parties and good times. Those are the things that give a house a soul. And so now, it’s a bit sad to me to see it become an empty shell.

Oh, I know. The new house will be wonderful and exciting, and I can’t wait for that first-floor guest room—how many times did I climb that scary spiral staircase, something I no longer can do and never could with a suitcase. I’ll love the new house, but for now I’m a bit sad. But I tell myself, as I do about my long life, that I have good memories.

Another branch of my family is snowed in at Wolf Creek—22 inches last night. They occupied themselves playing in the snow, shoveling it off cars, making a giant snowman, something they couldn’t ever do in Texas.

You couldn't build a snowman this big

in Texas ever!

And me? I worked on edits to the Alamo book all day, except for a laughingly happy lunch with old friends at the Black Rooster. One of them brought me a rotisserie chicken breast, because she’d heard me complain once too often about wanting just the breast and not the whole bony chicken. Thanks for supper, Linda. Another good day.