So when they started talking about snow on the news, we paid just cursory attention to it. Snow in December? Yeah, we did that on Christmas a few years ago—it was gorgeous! But when we get snow it's usually in January and February. And they were only talking about a dusting. Or maybe one inch. Well, except for that one computer model that said we might have almost three inches. But that was just one model!

So I had a little late sleep this morning, and then had to hustle eating breakfast and walking the dog. I'd spent about three hours yesterday wrapping the out-of-town gifts and boxing them. They were ready to go to the post office. Now, when I'd gotten up it was raining. When I walked Tucker and left the house for the post office, it was snowing briskly, but just forming a light frosting on grass and bushes.

At the post office I heard that Cobb County had just canceled school for the day, and when I went past Campbell High I could see students already heading home. I was worried about James: he had a doctor's appointment at one and would have to drive all the way to Glenlake near Perimeter Mall. With schools being released, people being allowed to go home, and the snow continuing, traffic would be very bad. But by the time I got home, he'd already called Kaiser, and discovered all the afternoon appointments were labeled "reschedule." So he did, and teleworked the rest of the afternoon.

I took the opportunity to vacuum downstairs and sweep the hall, wash some old towels so we could take them to the pound, give Snowy fresh water, run out on the porch and fill the bird feeders (should have done it while it was dry yesterday!), and install the new all-in-one I bought on Black Friday. The snow ranged from large flakes to small, sometimes to sleet, and there was a spell of freezing rain, and then it went back to snow again. I put on my Christmas cassettes as James worked and later on baked some gingerbread in a nod to Sook Faulk's "fruitcake weather" (I despise fruitcake). I prefer gingerbread weather.

Since future dog walking was imminent, I went looking for my boots. Now I haven't seen them since the last time it snowed, which was a few years ago, but they have to be in the master bedroom closet somewhere. There's no other closet they can be in and they wouldn't be in the garage or any other bedroom. Darned if I can find them! So where the heck...

I ended up taking Tucker out at 5:30 wearing my usual dog-walking rubber-soled canvas shoes. My feet weren't that cold—I put my boot socks on this morning and they are toasty warm—but it was funny walking on the snow in them. It is just, just at freezing, so the snow is very wet and there is wet slush under the snow, but it's still cold and once the snow started sticking to the pavement (about three o'clock), "all was lost," so to speak. The "crump, crump, crump" of the creak of the snow was very loud in the silence made by the accumulation.  If I stopped for any appreciable time the soles of the shoes started to freeze to the ground! Tucker had done "all his good dogs" in the morning, but you should have seen him squatting; he did not want to touch that snow and was hunched in a funny-looking manner and didn't seem to care to be outside. At five he just pee'd, but seemed in much better spirits about the snow.

It was so pretty outside that I brought him back in and then ran outside with my phone to take some pictures. The white snow and the darkening bluish-grey sky was so very striking, and the net lights shining through the snow of the bush they were on made me smile.

We had tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for supper. Believe it or not, this is the first time I've ever had that "classic" combination. We didn't eat tomato soup and I don't like it in general; it's just that the Trader Joe's soup we sampled was so good. James, though, didn't like the low sodium version we got instead. I have to admit it's a little sweeter than the full sodium version, not quite so savory, but I still enjoyed it. We had gingerbread for dessert, and later on watched A Very Merry Cricket and A Charlie Brown Christmas. The DVR never started to record Hawaii Five-0, so we missed the beginning, but were able to catch up. The satellite dish must be coated solid with snow. That's funny because we've had snow before, but never lost the signal this long.

But then we've never had this much snow. I don't remember this much snow ever. We ended up with five inches on the deck, even with having had some rain tamping down the snow. We're supposed to get more overnight, and it will be about 30℉ as a low.

Labels: dogs, food, snow, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:11:00 PM

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