Ice and snow and nowhere to go

Not that you need weather play-by-play, but this has been an unusually relentless winter. It started with a huge snowstorm in December, ensuring we would have a white Christmas and snowy landscape for months. Until a freak Christmas rainstorm and 60 degrees magically wiped the ground clean of the white stuff. And then we went almost a month where we could see the grass and walk the dogs without multiple layers of flannel. January was, for the most part, pretty mellow. Until it wasn’t.

And now? We have an unrelenting barrage of cold weather and snow, and this morning perhaps the worst thing to wake up to: Sheets of ice everywhere. Ellie the puppy, as is her wont, was up earlier than anyone cared to deal with (except for the Old Man in the flannel shirt), yelping happily at 5:02 a.m. I went to let her out and she skittered down the icy steps like me on roller skates. More snow coming on Thursday. And it’s been cold, cold, cold. And there are cross country and track meets on the schedule. And we’re not going. Until we are, on March 5. Which, by the way, is just a little over two weeks away. March is less than two weeks away. February has little redeeming value – it is, by far, my least favorite month of the year – but at least it has one thing going for it: It’s only 28 days (even leap years are OK at 29 days), and more than half of them have been mercifully checked off the calendar.