Joe, My New Best Friend

Is there anything lovelier than undisturbed snow?

Yes, yes there is. Even more lovely than undisturbed snow is snow that has been disturbed to the extent that I can walk to the car without sinking over the top of my Danskos in fresh powder. When the Boys were home, this wasn't so much of a problem. Boy#3 was reliably willing to shovel the front walks, and Boy#4 would finish cleaning our corner by clearing the side street.

But when the boys left for their own snow days far away, the clearing of the sidewalks was left to Husband. I've read way too many stories about middle-aged men who suffer heart attacks after shoveling snow, so enter my Christmas gift to him.

How cute it that? It's a Snow Joe. And this morning when tax season meant Husband had to be in the office even though it was a snow day for the rest of us, I decided to take it out for a spin.

First, I bundled appropriately for the near-zero temperatures. Two pairs of socks. Husband's bulky gloves. Stocking cap. A Webster Magnet School scarf. I was a pretty, pretty girl.

Then I plugged in Joe and started through the drifts.

People, may I just say that I love Joe almost as much as I love my heavy-duty mixer. Instead of the bend and scoop, bend and scoop, repeat, repeat, repeat of shoveling, Joe chews through the snow and sends a plume of sparkly fairy dust into the air.

It was like this, with fewer trees and on a slightly smaller scale. (Yes, I took pictures of Joe in action, but it was so bright I didn't realize I had the camera set on "view only." Shoot.)

I spent the next hour pushing Joe up and down the sidewalks and through the driveway, grinning the whole time.

Last week when Husband took Joe out following the Blizzard of Oz he, too, came back in the house grinning. "You know the best part about it?" my accountant spouse asked "Look at those straight lines!"

It's good to have a friend both of us love.

Take It Away

This is another installment in the series of Wow, How Things Have Changed.

The MomQueenBee house is the first Tuesday morning stop on the trash collector's route. I'm quite sure the route was arranged this way because in the olden days, the truck was full after it left our house. Two adults and four Boys generate a LOT of trash. We started with two trash cans, then had auxiliary trash storage in the garage for the second half of the week.

The blurry, underlit photo above documents the trash that I put out at the break o' dawn this morning, and people, this is trash for two weeks! Seriously. Snowmageddon last Tuesday meant that we didn't scurry out in our jammies to make sure the trasn can was on the curb, so we just accumulated for a week.

Two weeks. One trash can and one box.

It boggles the mind.

Ich Bin Ein Cheesehead

Many, many years ago Husband went on a business trip to Green Bay, Wisc. At that time Son#1 was a rabid sports fan, so Husband packed him in a carry-on and off they went. (I'm kidding. This was in the day of unlimited baggage; One was checked in a full-sized suitcase.)

As the kind and thoughtful men they are, Husband and One wanted to make sure they properly showed their appreciation for my sacrifice in staying at home with three extremely attention-intensive younger Boys so they brought me a gift.

Cheesehead earrings. And you can see by the relative size of the earrings to my desk lamp in the picture, these were not small, indiscreet cheesehead earrings. These were honkin' wedges of cheddar.

My guys giggled and snorted as they watched me unwrap the gift, and assumed that would be the end of their manly hijinks. They had underestimated me, though.

May I just say that when you wear cheesehead earrings to the office, no one knows where to look or what to say. Visible thought bubbles hovered above heads in every meeting I attended. "Is she serious?" "What are those things?" and most often, "Should I say something or not?"

Apparently people either think I'm crazy, or that my fashion sense really is that bad. Not one single person mentioned the earrings.

I mark that as the day my slide into eccentricity began.

'Tis a Gift to be Simple

The renovation project in my office building has reached the stage John Steinbeck famously referred to as "progress looking much like destruction." Next week the contractors will bar my work group from our office suite (Hello, asbestos abatement! Come on in, demolition!) and we'll be living in the conference room for the next month or so.

This arrangement above is my new workspace: An eight-foot table, and a rolling television cart. Plus my  philodendron. We decided to take only what we needed to work for a few weeks, and as soon as my computer and telephone are installed on that table, I'm all set.

I'm not a big fan of change, and an even un-bigger fan of moving. I've told the Boys that I plan to kick the bucket in the House at the Corner of Drainage Street and Halfway Down the Hill. At that point my progeny are to carry me out and set the place on fire.

Now that I'm seeing the Hoarders-esque accumulation that surrounds me after 16 years in my current office, and how little of it I actually use in my day-to-day operations,  I'm thinking my co-workers need the same post-mortem instructions.

Sunrise, Sunset...

Sky Trek

Today is the first day of the final year that I will have a teen-aged child. (How's that for making this all about me?)

Today Boy#4 is 19.

There is something different in the parenting of the child you know will be the last one. With the other Boys, the first birthday had to be special; the second birthday was always covered in a cloud of Hey!-Here's-Your-New-Brother! With Four, though, I was able to completely enjoy every stage of babyhood. There was no need to begin the separation process from my youngest child in anticipation of the demands of the next infant.

And Four, as each of his brothers had done before him, turned out to be his own individual brand of delight. We called him our Under-the-Radar Child, for his ability to let others take the spotlight. But he also was unafraid--one of my favorite pictures of Four shows him rigged up for our Costa Rica zipline adventure. He's surrounded by older, bigger guys, not saying anything but showing no fear. It was a good metaphor for his personality.

Happy birthday, Four. I'm glad I'm your mom.

Snowpocalypse 2011

From my office at the top of The Hill

You'll see by the accompanying photo that today my superpower went unused. This is the downside of being the person who calls the snow days--when snow days remain uncalled, those people who loved you so much yesterday melt away as quickly as we wish these piles of snow would.

This morning at about the time I should have been getting responses attesting to my awesomeness, people were being reminded that campus is open today. They were Not Happy.

"Really? Every single other school in the state is closed," one professor responded.

You may, as I'm sure the writer did, add the unwritten "...you evil idiot" at the end of that sentence.

But truly, it was the right decision, despite the sub-zero wind chills, to get our students and staff back to work today. Under-busy students are prone to mischief, especially when the sky is bright blue and the sun is shining on the campus hill.

The hill is beautiful, with shaggy arborvitae trees snuggling up to maples, and boulders chiseled with the achievements of past athletic teams and debate squads scattered hither and thither. It was only in the past couple of years (as liability insurance rates shot into the stratosphere) that sledding has been prohibited there.

Our home at the Corner of Drainage Street and Halfway Down the Hill is tantalizingly close to this hill (hello, house in the upper left hand corner of the picture) and new snow sang like a siren when the Boys were of sledding age. One day, when the public schools had closed but Small College was open, I looked out my office window to see a sled flying downhill, missing trees and boulders by inches.

"What kind of idiot parents are letting their kids risk their brains for seven seconds of adrenaline rush?" I thought, just before I saw the rider wipe out spectacularly in a drift. He crawled out of the snow and stood up, and I realized that Boy#4 had answered my questions.

I have met the idiots, and they are me.

My Superpower

Superman flies.

Spiderman swings.

The Invisible Man, well, invisibles.

But I? I have the greatest superpower of all

I call the snow days.

It's the only time I'm glad to hear the phone ring at 5:15 a.m. because I  know it's probably the snow day decision-maker on the other end.

"Let's call it. We don't want people out in white-out conditions."

So I send out an e-mail to all of our students and to the grown-ups who work with those students.

"Our Small College will be closed today. Stay safe and warm."

I call the local radio station, and let our buddy the newsguy spread the word. I call the television stations, give them the super-secret passwords and know several hundred people have just smiled happily and snuggled back under their blankets. Then I snuggle back under my own blankets.

Later, much later, after I've brewed my first cappuccino of the day and settled down (still in my robe) to check my e-mail, I open a response to that 5:32 a.m. message I'd sent out. It's from a casual acquaintance on campus.

"I love you a lot today.  More than usual."

Greatest. Superpower. Ever.