Snowbound

My mom and stepfather live in an area of the U.S. where brief snowshowers are common. Night and day temperatures are often vastly different, though, and the humidity generally hovers at around 30 percent, so when snow happens, it's generally gone within hours, sublimating or melting into the clear blue skies.

But when we came to visit, instead of bringing a nice hostess gift, we brought record-breaking snow. The neighborhood we're in is at the foot of a mountain, often enshrouded in cloud during bad weather. It started snowing on Thursday afternoon here, but down in the valley the sun was shining. Thursday night, however, the snow continued, as it did on Friday. As my mom and I took AM to lay in some Shabbat supplies, I asked if she had snow tires. "It didn't snow once last winter!" was her reply.

The driving between grocery stores was slow and slushy, with frighteningly low visibility. On the way home, my mom's Passat got stuck in the neighborhood. Twice. A kindly neighbor delivered me and a screaming, hungry AM to our door. Perishables were rescued from the trunk and arrived on foot. The snow continued all night Friday and ceased on Saturday in time for a gorgeous sunset.

But. In this city of few snowshovels and fewer snowplows (21 of them, a newscaster announced, to the hysterical laughter of Taxman and myself; for a city of about half a million people, it doesn't seem quite sufficient), snow totals ranging from 15 to 24 inches--my parents are at the upper extreme of that--has made for quite a mess. The airport was closed yesterday; sections of the major interstates that cross through the city were iced over and closed; even large portions of some city thoroughfares were deemed hazardous last night and closed to traffic.

The sun has returned today, affording a spectacular view of the white-capped mountains nearby and warming the air to a balmy 38 degrees. After an hour and a half of several family members shoveling snow (on top of what had been done on Friday), my mom was able to stop stressing herself into a tizzy and get out to shop for her New Year's Day bash (this year with a Show Off Your Grandkids Even Though The Party Is Smack In The Middle Of Their Naptimes Bonus!).

Miss M has been having the time of her life, clomping around outside in boots and borrowed snowpants, taking pratfalls in the snow and using a gardening spade to "help" shovel.

The snow has been everything that snow should be: pristine, pretty, white, wet. I got to watch the storm from a warm house. I saw bird, rabbit, and deer tracks in the snow when I took a walk with AM (can't do that at home!).

And while it's messy now, the driveway is clear, the streets are plowed, and we should be able to get home on Wednesday, as planned.*

Definitely better than a February Nor'Easter at home.

* I've got a blogger coffee meetup on Thursday that I am very excited about; if we get cancelled on the way home I'm going to go Miranda Priestly on someone.

Poker night

Every December 24th for the past four or five years, Taxman and I have an unusually good time playing penny-stakes poker. With his parents.

Odd, right? It gets weirder. December 24th is my in-laws' anniversary. So they celebrate their union (34 years now) by playing (and usually losing) poker with their family.

It used to be a larger gathering, but Taxman's grandfather passed away the summer before AM was born, and his elderly grandmother is a bit too crotchety to stay up so late and to leave her hearing aid in. And now, of course, we've got the kids, so last year the festivities moved from my in-laws' place to ours.

But the spirit is the same. Lots of jokes, lots of pennies. It sounds crazy, but I love poker night. It's the one night a year when I get a glimpse of what my father-in-law was like years ago. Ordinarily, he has a pretty serious mien. He's smart and studious; if he doesn't have a child on his lap, it's occupied by a volume of Talmud. Which isn't to say that he doesn't make funny comments from time to time, but it's almost impossible for me to believe that in high school he and Taxman's boisterous Uncle M were best friends.

On poker night, however, all the books are tucked away. It probably started because of "nittel nacht," a leftover custom from Europe, where pogroms and such were popular on Christmas eve. Of course, the origins of the day no longer apply, particularly in the United States, but sometimes even the most casual of customs are rooted deep. So on the night before Christmas, my father-in-law doesn't learn Torah. He plays cards.

We deal; they pick the most random wild cards for each round, relishing the hands as they are dealt: "Oh, oh, oh! Possible flush! Straightening! A wild nine!" My father-in-law, the most scrupulously honest person I think I know, insists that his deck is cut when it's his turn to deal. My mother-in-law rarely folds, telling Taxman that she has to stay in "to keep him honest." I lose a lot, but Taxman wins.

Last year we took them for a dollar and sixty-six cents. (More, incidentally, than Taxman spent on me on our first date.)

This year we played despite our early wakeup to get to the airport.

And we made eleven cents.

Poop at 29,000 feet

That's right. That's my son and his airplane debut.

Up the back, through the clothes. Didn't even wait until cruising altitude.

The 1:1 child:adult ratio was ok for on the plane, but in the airport it was bad, bad, bad. Two kids, two adults, two huge pieces of carry-on baggage (mostly their stuff, of course!), and two Britax Roundabouts. Holy cow.

I didn't sleep last night. Didn't sleep on the plane. Didn't catch a rest because Miss M and AM alternated naps when we got here. AM is suffering major stranger anxiety and refuses to let me out of his sight unless Taxman is holding him.

Vacation is going to get better, right? ZZZZZZZ.

Happy purple pajamas to all who are celebrating.

If you've got it, flaunt it

Everyone knows that two-year-olds are sponges, right?

So when Miss M kept pointing out her "New shoes!" to everyone and people responded with, "Yes! They're green!" eventually it morphed to "Green shoes!"

Obviously, the most striking thing about Miss M is her hair. It gets a lot of comments (and comparisons to Little Orphan Annie). Recently she had been saying "Orange hair!" to people because a friend of ours told her that.

But yesterday she struck up a conversation with a woman in the elevator. She started by telling her our names ("Ema! Miss M! AM!").

Then she tapped her head--just where a tiara would go, incidentally--and said, "Beautiful hair!"

Pissed beyond words

(Side note: does anyone know how to make NY Times articles available without logging in?)

Justifiably? You be the judge.

Reason for Postcards from Buster's delayed return

Hey, you, rabid evangelical asshats: Just because you refuse to see gay parenting doesn't mean it's not happening. Why don't you go pick on TLC shows and leave fun, educational, apolitical kids' programming alone!

Separation of Church and State...Not just for breakfast anymore! (Except in New Jersey)

The kid who stood up to the preacher, uh, teacher received a death threat.* Seriously! Does this situation make anyone else want to throw up? Don't teachers get evaluated? Where was his supervisor?

* I was one of five Jews in my high school graduating class in a very churchgoing town. A girl in my Latin class told me point-blank that I was bound for Hell. But if a teacher tried that crap on me? Uh uh, no sir.

Chocolate glazed heart disease

Well, you can knock me over with a feather.

The rumor is true and my destiny has come calling.

Dunkin' Donuts, all gussied up kosher, has settled down just one ZIP code away.

Be still, my heart.

Literally, probably. Heart disease runs rampant on my dad's side of the family. My dad has been beating it with a stick lo these 20 years; he eats well, exercises obsessively, takes his beta blockers and cholesterol-lowering drugs. My cholesterol at age 26 was 215, but I was busy trying to get pregnant, so I couldn't take any drugs. I wanted to try to beat it without those anyway, so I got a bit obsessive about exercise myself. One January I joined a brand-new, fancy-pants gym, paying a ton of money upfront for one year. Taxman thought I would crap out, but I didn't--because that would have been an immense waste of money. I lowered my cholesterol to the 140s. It was amazing.

The next January I joined a less expensive gym that was closer to home and kept going. By the end of that year, I was pregnant and paranoid. I nixed all the jogging and weights in favor of prenatal yoga.

After Miss M was born, I kept intending to get back to exercising. But she proved to have a delicate stomach and fussy sleep patterns. By the time I felt like I could carve out some time to myself in the morning, AM was on the way.

And now, well, it's been a long time since I've done anything physical. I am beyond exhausted because nobody is sleeping. My eating patterns are crappy at best. (But eggs for dinner are easy, you know? Grilled cheese sandwiches are easy. And Taxman is in charge of both of those dinners.) Trans fats are everywhere. I am tired. I am weak-willed.

I don't have to explain the appeal of donuts, do I? Sugar and fat and gooey toppings in a cute little round package? (And how it is difficult to eat just one?) Plus they go well with coffee; I will, of course, not be drinking real coffee for a while yet, but I can fake it with decaf.

I am afraid to take a cholesterol test, because I am pretty sure that I'd lose all my desserts, snacks, and half my meals in a single blow. Plus I'd have to find the time and strength of will to exercise. (And get these damn leeches off me for more than 30 minutes.) Did I mention it's dark (really dark!) by 5:00 pm?

Maybe I'll be brave in the spring. Maybe by the spring I will remember what three straight hours of sleep feels like. And what the afternoon sun looks like.

Vent

One of our friends/upstairs neighbors had a baby boy early today. It was a "perfect, easy VBAC."

I am so thrilled for her.

(Cue violins)

At the same time, I am incredibly jealous that she had the birth that I planned for and wanted so desperately that I labored for three days before I gave up the chance to ever have it that way again.

How much do I suck?