Post-Snowtober: Occupy My Living Room

The snowstorm which washed over the East Coast on Saturday started off looking mighty picturesque. Like a Christmas card.

It put The Picket Fence Post family in the mood for some mischief as we were invigorated by the crisp wintry air. We “ghosted” two friends’ houses (meaning you anonymously leave a bag of candy at a friend's door with a note explaining “ghosting,” ring the doorbell then run like a fugitive back to your car) on our way to drop The Girl off at a Halloween party. (The Girl was dressed as Women’s Professional Soccer great Abby Wambach.) The Spouse, the boys and I enjoyed take-out and played games. The Eldest Boy and I watched some episodes of The Mentalist together while The Spouse and The Youngest Boy watched a movie. The Spouse picked up The Girl later in the evening and she came home happy but tired. All was well.

Until morning.

That’s when we realized that power had gone out sometime in the middle of the night. Everything – except for an outdoor paintball birthday party that The Youngest Boy was going to – was cancelled. After spending a portion of Sunday afternoon shopping and dining out at places that had heat and electricity, we headed home.

Cue the ugly pioneering phase of our story:

Unlike when we lost power for days in the heat of August courtesy of Hurricane Irene, it was unseasonably cold. Of course it was. There was snow all over the yard (about 5-6 inches), weighing down fully leaved trees sending several of crashing to the ground. We made it through dinner (grilling outside and using our propane-powered stove top) but then, despite our propane gas fireplace (which doesn’t throw much heat unless you’re right up next to it), the temperatures began dropping inside the house.

That’s when The Spouse brought a small tent into our family room – the one with the fireplace – and we created a makeshift encampment which reminded me of the Occupy Wall Street tent cities I’ve seen on the news. The boys were in the tent in front of the fireplace in their sleeping bags. The Girl was on a sofa in her sleeping bag under a pile of blankets. The Spouse and I were mushed together on another sofa (and not in a romantic way) under blankets. Our dog Max was thoroughly confused as he went from person to person, occasionally napped on his doggie bed that we’d brought downstairs, hopped onto the couch with The Girl, then scratched at the door to be let outside in the wee hours of the morning.

By daybreak, the temperature in the downstairs was 56. The temperature in the upstairs bedrooms was 48. School had been cancelled. Trick-or-treating had been postponed too. Then we got word that the electric company was estimating that power would be fully restored in our town by 11:45 . . . p.m. . . . THURSDAY!!

If that estimate is to be believed, that likely means that if there’s no power in town, the Picket Fence Post kids will likely be out of school all week. I’ve got my fingers crossed that The Spouse will be able to borrow a generator from work so that we can get the heat and hot water heater cranking (*praying the water pipes don’t burst*). If things don’t improve, it’s likely that my brother will soon be hosting a family of five, plus a fluffy dog.

Oh and it’s The Spouse and my wedding anniversary. (Yes, we got married on Halloween . . .it’s a long story, but suffice is to say it was a scheduling thing, not because we’re huge fans of Halloween or anything.) I suppose this is a great metaphor for our marriage: Things are never dull and, just when we life is running semi-smoothly, unexpected things occur and test us to make sure our senses of humor are still intact. After 19 years, they’d better be.

Waving the White Flag to Mother Nature

I wholeheartedly concur with the sentiment expressed on page one of today's Boston Herald:

Look at my front yard, it's like a sea of snow. There's actually a front walk that's been shoveled repeatedly, though you can't tell. There's part of a driveway there that's also been plowed but it doesn't look like it's been plowed:

If you look out the window of our family room, the snow piled on our deck is now higher than the window sill:

Plus, I've been, personally, under the weather and getting better incrementally, which is much too slow for my overanxious, normally highly caffeinated self. As I'm impatiently waiting to feel like myself -- I couldn't muster the energy or enthusiasm to watch last week's "State of the Union" speech, unheard of for me -- it has literally felt like Groundhog Day over the past week+ as the snow has kept on coming, and coming, and coming, and school has wound up being canceled, and the kids complain that they're bored. (Seriously kid, I have a blanket over my head, dark circles under my eyes, am as pale as a sheet of paper and you're telling me you're biggest complaint is that you're bored? You should be feeling lucky you're not in downtown Cairo right around now.)

This is my long-winded way of explaining why I haven't been blogging in this space in several days. The family melodrama around the Picket Fence Post household has pretty much gone like this: Mom's not feeling especially perky but still does some stuff around the house (cooking, dishes, tidying up, ordering groceries online) and assisting with homework. Dad's trucking the kids all over the place to all their activities, doing all the laundry, shoveling paths in the snow for Max the dog, driving through wretched weather to work and slaving over the ice rink to keep it smooth for the Picket Fence Post kids who have been enthusiastically using it.

In fact, The Youngest Boy, all dressed in his hockey gear, just burst into the house in tears this afternoon because he and his brother were having difficulties clearing the latest round of rain-soaked, extremely heavy snow from the rink and had given up. "It's just too heavy!" he cried. The Spouse, he of the bum ankle, will have that back-breaking goodness awaiting him when he drives home in what forecasters are saying with be treacherously icy conditions.

Mother Nature, if you're out there, if you're listening: This winter sucks. I hate it. I, like the Herald, cry Uncle. No mas.

Notes from a Snow Day: Ice Rink, Movie Surprise, Chicken Stir Fry & Max in the Snow

Hey, What's This? Could It Be . . . an Actual Skating Rink? In Our Yard? YES!!!

I present to you . . . the ice rink as the foot-and-a-half of snow that fell from the sky since early this morning was being shoveled off of it.

The rink is brought to us by many, many hours of hard work and loving maintenance by The Spouse for his three children.

This week, I've added "buy skates" (for me and The Eldest Boy) to my "To Do" list this week.

The Spouse, who broke his wrist last year while skating on a public rink, is still shying away from skating, in spite of this great effort.

Eat, Pray . . . Whoa!!!

While the males in the family were snuggled up in front of the fireplace this weekend watching NFL playoff games, The Girl and I retreated to my room to watch the PG-13 rated film Eat Pray Love on DVD.

I'd read the book, so I figured that there might be one questionable scene near the last third of the film when the main character Liz is in Bali, which might require fast-forwarding or for me to mute the TV while The Girl averts her eyes. While I waited for Liz's relationship with Felipe, the man who would become her spouse, to commence, I totally did not expect a twentysomething male to drag Liz down to the waterfront and suddenly strip naked as he was trying to entice Liz to go skinny dipping.

Both The Girl and I shrieked as his butt was in the center of the screen and I hit, "Stop." The irony is that when Felipe and Liz were about to physically commence their love affair I suggested that The Girl go fetch a snack from the kitchen, only there was nothing she couldn't have seen, no nudity, no sex.

'Delicious' Chicken Stir Fries

More irony . . .

Whenever I pull out my wok, the Picket Fence Post kids roll their eyes. They're not fans of anything I might create inside of that thing. I've tried making them sweet stir fries, garlicky ones and even plain, soy sauce-based ones. But no matter how I prepared a stir fry, the kiddos usually take one bite, wrinkle their noses and wind up having cereal for dinner while The Spouse and I eat what I made.

Unless, of course, The Eldest Boy and The Girl happen to be the ones who made the stir fry. They're both currently taking Home Ec in their middle school -- which has been relabeled with the politically correct moniker, "Family Consumer Science" -- and in the past week they've both come home from school with a container of a chicken, vegetable noodle stir fry that they'd made. They were absolutely delighted with their creations and gobbled them up while I watched, amazed.

My new plan: The next time I pull out the work, I'm also going to pull The Eldest Boy and The Girl into the kitchen with me so the "experts" can show me how it's really done.

Cute Max Snow Pic

Max the dog -- who still spends much of his time rooting around the house looking for non-edible items that he can eat or gnaw on (tissues, dryer sheets, ball point pens, socks, etc.) -- was startled when we let him out onto our deck this morning and the snow was nearly as high as he is tall. He tried pushing his body through the snow, but stopped after traveling only a few feet and tried to get back into the house. (If snow was up to my eyeballs, I'd want to retreat too.)

However once The Spouse shoveled out several pathways for him, he romped around his little paths as though he were in a hedge maze. 'Twas very cute. The wet dog smell he has now that he's drying off, not so cute.