Not one, but two Big Snow storms, Elena's mood, and my birthday.

When I was a kid snow storms were a regular event. The day after Thanksgiving you’d start to wonder if it was going to be a white Christmas. We’d get the first snow in the middle of December, and if we were lucky, depending on your view point, mine being a kid, we’d have a white Christmas, and even a snow day or two during the winter. I remember one day it was cold and snowing while we were at school. When we got home, my mom met us with hot chocolate, and I think chocolate chip cookies. The next time it was cold and snowy I anticipated the same hot chocolate, and cookies and was very disappointed it didn’t happen.

Now with all of that background, over the past fifty-sixty years major snowstorms have become unusual. Even snow is not a guarantee each year. This year, I checked a lot of volcanic ash has flown into the atmosphere. And as all of you nuclear winter atomic war, end of the civilization types know ash in the atmosphere reflects sunlight cooling the ground, so we are having a real winter. The snow started around 6 in the morning, I’d gotten up to let the dogs out. It was a weekend, so I went back to bed. When I got up we had a lot more than I expected in the few hours that had passed. Several times during the day I went out and shoveled the walkway. Each time the path seemed to get a little narrower as the snow piles near it got higher. Nastia doesn’t live here anymore so she didn’t help. Elena was asleep until the afternoon, and she has been in a mood often lately, so I didn’t ask for her help. The final total was in the range of 10”. One of the biggest snow storms in recent history. As I mentioned earlier, Elena has been in a mood. I’m told it’s her period, but I thought that only lasted a week, not a month. Then like a sunrise her mood changed, and she was one of the most pleasant people to be around. She’d go out of her way to pat the dogs. No more”I hate them, get away from me stupid” to the dogs. It was like the night before someone left a pod next to her bed (reference to the movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers" the original from 1956, not the two remakes 1978, and 2007) Elena was very pleasant to be around. We even cooked dinner together one night. I was making, I think, chicken cutlets and she helped. It was fun.

I turned 68 just recently. Each birthday gets me closer and closer to, well, you know, the end of the line. My mom is going to be 92 in June. Recently my best friend Mike lost his wife, and my daughter’s boyfriend, Sean, lost his dad. I look at Teri, and wonder if she’ll bury me, or if I’ll bury her. Will I live a long life like my mother or will I die young like my father at 66. I’m scared to death that one of us will have a stroke, and the other will have to take care of them instead of us spending a month in Italy living like natives. Three years ago, I got my snow blower fixed thinking we were going to get snow. For the next three years we got very little snow. It was easier to shovel, than get the snow blower out. I’d start it every so often, but over the last year or so I convinced myself that global warming had made snow storms largely a thing of the past. That is until recently. The snow started around six in the morning, it was a weekend, I’m not sure if it was Saturday or Sunday. I got up to let the dogs out. On the deck there was a light spotty covering of large fluffy snow flakes. This storm had been predicted for over a week. In addition, extra cold temperatures were added in. I always thought with cold weather, the air would dry out and you couldn’t have snow. Plus we were always in the area of the lighter accumulation. The weather forecaster predicted 4-8 inches. When it was all said and done we topped ten inches. Good for…, but not to shovel.

I took my first day off in a long while to see my daughters use their Ifly gift certificates, but some time between being given as a gift, several years ago, and now they were misplaced. Teri was a little pissed, but she wanted them to go flying so she purchased two more ,and scheduled their flight time for 2:30 this past Wednesday. We, Teri, and I got up early. I’mtold this is what old people do, so I;m going to work on sleeping in when I get old,and retire. Elena slept over Sean, and Nastia’s apartment. She usually gets up late on her days off from work, so I forgot she was not home.

We head out to a mid morning breakfast after Teri has a spot removed from inside her month at the dentist. She can’t eat anything solid, so she has a milk shake, I have French Toast, Nastia, like Nastia does, ordered an egg, and some bacon. She ate some of the egg,and some of the bacon. Elena ordered sausages, and Nastia had one. We were going to arrive very early at IFly. After a few missed turns on that legendary Route 4. We arrived at a comfortable 15 minutes early. We check in, The girls get their flight suits, Elena dark blue, Nastia light blue.

They wait their turn in a short line. The instructor showed an older couple, relatively speaking, maybe in their thirties how to fly. Ahead of them a couple of kids in their teen boys, their target market, I’d guess waited ahead of them. When it is their turn, at the door, they raise their arms over their head and lean into the maybe twenty foot wide tube. The instructor standing on a rope net guides them in and holds them as they lift off. They fly about four, five feet high learning to control how they move. For their second flight the instructor grabs their suit on the back, and on the leg, and both fly around the tube. The girls pay for a third flight that they, and the instructor flight up to around sixteen feet high. They are very nice, but it is expensive from my point of view. It’s now Monday February 23rd 3036 8:38 in the morning. I’m sitting at the dining room table, when on a normal day,I’d be at work going over my emails, while eating my oat meal. I scheduled chocolate for today. Yes, I’m that way. I control all the unimportant and irrelevant things in my life. I’m not at work because we are getting another snow storm. I didn’t believe we were going to get the first snow storm, and I didn’t believe we were going to get this one. So for both my snow blower isn't working. I shovelled the first storm going out several times so it wasn’t bad. I felt good doing it, and didn’t overdo it. As my wife continues to remind me, I’m not a young man any longer. My reply to that is, I live by my mother’s rule for living. If I can do it, I’m goingtodo it.Iwill not overdo it, and I will take my time.

This morning I got up at 6:45to let the dogs out, and shovel a walkway for Misha because she is old and has hip problems. I finished out back, went around to the front and did the steps. At the bottom of the steps, I look over to the cars, the wind picks up, blows more snow in my face, and suddenly I’m done.Thirty years ago I’d shovell out the cars,and gone out to deliver my milk route, like my father taught me. I choose my mother’s way and decide not to over do it and go inside. It’ll be there later in the day.