Snow Day Blues and Bliss

It snowed last week here in Boulder: a full six inches a full week before Halloween.

But pre-Halloween snow is not unusual in Colorado, and it gave me another reason to be grateful that my furnace was repaired before the first flakes fell. Besides, it was 70 degrees the next day, and every speck of snow melted. All the beauty of snow, with none of the inconvenience.

But then it snowed again yesterday, and it's supposed to snow again today, and tomorrow, and the day after that. This snow is less pretty, and there are heaps of it, and right now it's 18 degrees out there.

This is not what my father liked to call "October's bright blue weather."

Yesterday I was supposed to give a talk at an SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) gathering in Colorado Springs, 90 miles south of here. I had been looking forward to this for months, but I bailed on it that morning, too wimpy to risk driving that far in dubious road conditions. I totaled a car two years ago on a sunny but slushy road, and it has disinclined me to repeat that experience.

But it broke my heart to cancel this commitment, and then the snow wasn't even coming down THAT hard during the day. Could I have made the drive if I weren't such a pitiful, pathetic wimp at snow driving?

In the evening I had a ticket for a church outing to the Boulder Dinner Theater to see Mamma Mia; I had spent the previous week happily humming "Waterloo" and "Dancing Queen." Shamed by my earlier timidity, I decided to try to undertake the merely five-mile local drive. But after losing control of my car (traveling a mere ten miles an hour) and careening into the curb, I turned back. The Dancing Queen would have to dance without me. 

WAHHH!

But now for the bliss of snow days.

Back home again, I put on my warm nightgown, robe, and fuzzy slippers, heated up a can of Progresso tomato-basil soup, and fixed myself an English muffin with melted Swiss cheese on top (just like Heidi). I curled up to re-read the funny, clever, touching novel Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher, a novel written entirely in recommendation letters penned by a curmudgeonly creative writing professor. It was a lovely evening.

Now I've decided that I'm going nowhere for the next three days unless my stalwart son Christopher, who is a professional driver with a sturdy four-wheel-drive vehicle, is willing to serve as my chauffeur. I'm going to make this a three-day writing retreat, planning to make stunning progress on the first draft of Boogie Bass, Sign Language Star, as well as an overdue book review and other pleasant writing tasks. I'm well stocked with soup, English muffins, Swiss cheese, and MANY MANY jars of jam. 

Snow days are a gift from the gods, so I'm not going to squander mine on my vices of Sudoku and mindless scrolling through social media sites. I'm going to savor every sip of hot chocolate and every page of scribbled book progress.

Let it snow!