Winter Weather

I have finished "The Great Santini" and am satisfied- at least as far as books are concerned.

As the two TV stations duelling for ultimate supremacy over this tiny little region have declared over and over again in the last twenty four hours, a winter storm is upon us. One station declared frequently that they have live Doppler radar, while the other declares that they knew this storm was coming on Sunday. The first returns with the emotional declaration that they are on my side. They both passionately swear by all the small gods of television to bring me news of impending weather catastrophe first.

In the meantime, I went out this morning, while there was still a part of the sky clear of the clouds. Coming home in the weak sunshine, I could see the sky to the North layered over and over again with blue bellied clouds, tumbling and rolling one over another, as high I could see.

A few hours after I got home, the sun was shut out for good and the snow came swirling in, at first gay and light, pirouetting across the window panes, distracting me from my book. Driven by gusts of winds, the snow quickly became businesslike and horizontal.

Meanwhile, the temperature has steady dropped. I brewed tea in the kitchen, darkened and dim in the blue light of the storm. Then I checked the heater and found that I had set the temperature at sixty degrees, back when Spring was not a figment of my imagination.

I set it to seventy degrees just now and I am beginning to feel my feet again. (Don't worry, Sweetie, I'll turn it back down again before I go to bed. And the car is in the garage.) Outside it is getting worse; the wind is howling, sculpting the snow into spare and beautiful shapes across the roof tops and at the bottoms of the windows. And it is cold, cold, cold out there.