I love New England, truly I do. I love the crusty, feisty, independent people. I love the history (ok, except the whole Puritan thing....and the witch trials...and the treatment of Native Americans...need I go on?) I love the architecture: Colonials and Victorians and old rambling farms with wrap-around porches, and Queen Anns, and coastal mansions topped with widow's walks. I love the rocky, cankerous coastline, the bustling rivers and the lush and looming mountains, and the clear, cold lakes. I love the moose and the deer and the flocks of wild turkeys that wander through the neighborhood. I love the wet defiance of spring and the blinding brilliance of fall. I even love the way that the muggy summer days can melt into deliciously cool, fragrant nights, and the way the bats play around our house at twilight. I do. I love New England.
But I hate winter. Really. First, there's the cold. I hate being cold. Every morning I climb out from under my pile of blankets and shiver a little. The house isn't any colder than other seasons, exactly, but the floor is. My feet are. I have learned to love my scratchy homemade woolen socks. I pull them on and drag myself downstairs for hot coffee, counting down the time until I do battle with my morning shower.
Because it is a battle.
When they built this house they did a lot of things right. It's sturdy and comfortable and bright, for example. It's warm, and the water is heated directly from the furnace so that the tap can be scaldingly hot at times. Unfortunately, the furnace can't seem to manage to keep the shower water hot. No, not even close. I have resorted to all sorts of tactics to try to ensure 10 minutes of hot water each morning. I have tried to time my showers carefully 5 to 10 minutes after Paulo's so that the furnace would have a chance to get really fired up first. I have tried turning up the upstairs heat 10 minutes before showertime to heat the pipes. I have tried leaving the heat up while showering. I have tried turning off all the heat in the house so that the furnace only heated the shower water.
No dice.
No matter what I try, it seems that I cannot influence the temperature of my shower. Some days, I win. On those blissful mornings my water is piping hot and I can wake up in its sweet embrace, emerging toasty and warm and ready to tackle the day. Like a superstitious baseball player I try to figure out what I did right (red pajamas? coffee first? heat up then down? how long since last shower? what time to the minute?) But other mornings I am tortured instead. It starts hot and then fizzles two minutes in. Maybe it drops down to tepid, and I have to curse quietly and simply rush. Other days it falls to downright cold and I have no choice but to take what my father calls "Military Showers". Turn the water on. Get wet. Turn it off. Wash entire body. Turn it on and rinse. Turn off. Shampoo. Turn it on. Rinse hair. Skip shaving and conditioner because I am too-freaking-cold-to-stand-it. Get out and shiver in towel to warm up. Try to drown the grumpies in a second (or third) cup of hot coffee.
Then there's the other wonder of winter: the joy of snow. I don't like snow, in general. I don't ski or snowboard or skate, so it's pretty much wasted on me. This year there's been the weekly blizzard which moves in every Tuesday, dumps roughly a foot of snow, cancels school for Wednesday and buries the whole place. I'm not sure what I hate most about the snow: the way it messes up the roads, the way it messes up the schedule, or the way it keeps us locked inside like cranky prison inmates. Oh, wait, I know: it's the snow clothes I hate the most. No, not just the fact that it takes about 30minutes to get three little kids into all the gear they need to wear to play outside for 10 minutes. You know all about that already.
It's actually the way that Ellie's decided to be allergic to, freak out at the sight of, boycott mittens.
At first I thought it was just that she couldn't keep them on, so I pinned them to her sleeves. She was still mad about them. I figured that snow could still get in around the cuffs, so I sewed big, long water-proof sleeves to the ends of her mittens and pulled those suckers up to her shoulders. I thought I was pretty smart with that one! I got her suited up with the fancy up-graded mittens and took her out into the snow. Two minutes into it she was crying again and waving her arms around like one of those inflatable wind-sock men you see at the used car dealership, and the more she waved, the longer her arms got as the mittens-with-sleeves slipped further and further out of her snowsuit. Great. But I was determined to teach the kids how to make a snow fort, or at least a snow man, so I persisted.
Aaarggggg!!!
The next snow day, I tried pinning the mitten-sleeves up. Still mad. Maybe it was the no-thumbs thing? Today I tried getting her thumbs in the thumb holes and pinning the mittens to the jacket cuffs. Nothing doing.
Now she screams at the idea of mittens. She will pull her whole arm out of the sleeve and snake it out of her coat at the neckline to avoid mittens. I'm pretty sure that this is a sensory thing for her, but this is New England in February. There's about 10 feet of snow on the ground and it's 5 degrees in the sun. You can't NOT wear mittens. It's just not an option. So we're stuck going back inside. And undressing kids for another 20 minutes, not including the time it takes to clean up the snow they tracked in and dry the soaking wet snow clothes. Good times.
Really, Mom, I hate these things.
Honestly, the only thing I think I like about winter is snowblowing. Yes, I said snowblowing. I love that. It gets me out of the house, and it's so peaceful. Sure, the engine is deafening and the snow can be blinding. My nose might be freezing and running at the same time, and my hands could be cramping. The snowblower weighs half a ton and sometimes the self-propelling part is a joke. But no one yells my name every two minutes and I can see my progress. It's satisfying to watch that plume of flying snow, see the clear, clean lines left behind, and to watch the wall of snow left by the plow slowly disappear, one pass at a time. Did I mention that it gets me out of the house? It might be the best thing about winter. Well, that and a good glass of port on a cold night.
The children might not agree.
Some snow.
We like it, Mom! Why don't you come out?
Ok, this is starting to get a little ridiculous. There are chairs under there.
Here's hoping we don't have to open that door until the spring.
I don't know where we're going to put the rest of the snow. Seriously. This bank is significantly taller than I am now. Please, Mr. Plowdriver, have mercy.
Maybe we should consider trading in one of the cars for a good, strong draft horse and a large sleigh. Or a dog team.