thaw no more

Clearly a case of Be Careful What You Ask For.

The Treacherous Incline bested for today.  But not nearly enough snow to cancel school, and we have carpool miles to go this afternoon, so we are still waiting for sledding fun.

– PHB

january thaw

It was over 60 degrees here yesterday!  GHB and LHB are now fretting every morning on the walk to school, about the Missing Snow.  You can overhear kids on the playground holding forth about climate change.  After about 10 days of barely-adequate, incrementally-melting-every-day snow cover, the recent warm-up spelled The End of sledding.  This morning I found what may be the last patches of snow in Arlington, hidden on the back of the hillside at McLennen Park.

Will the B bus see any more sledding or other outdoor winter fun this year?!

The ice in the pond turning to slush.

We are all a little sad about the lack of snow, though I suspect I am more conflicted about it than the girls.  I am happy not to be shoveling the driveway every other morning to get the B bus up our treacherous incline!  Just as I was having that thought we heard the forecast which is for snow and sleet tomorrow.  Once again we live the New England cliche about what to do if you don’t like the weather here (just wait 5 minutes, etc.).

– PHB

bleak midwinter?

Just a photo I like from my morning walk through McLennen Park a couple of weeks ago.  Everything looked so wintry and stark.  But it was before the Christmas week snowstorms, and also before the water froze.

Things are looking wintrier in a less appealing way around here this week. Dirty snow piles melting slowly, refreezing at night.  Petrified Christmas trees litter the curbs, and the B bus is covered in salty grime.  Dry and cold, but the dreariness of it manifests post-holiday letdown. GHB and LHB are actively worried there won’t be another snowfall and it’ll be “as bad as last year,” which was the Winter of No Sledding.  My view is — one way or the other, we desperately need fresh snow or a good cleansing rain.  And we have more than enough winter left to get through; “midwinter” being not terribly accurate until sometime around February I suppose!

– PHB

carpool into the sunset

This afternoon I was on the road in the B bus for a couple of hours. First, the drive from my office, through Harvard Square and over into Arlington.  Seemed to take forever to get up to Peirce, where the girls were fresh from digging snow tunnels on the field.  LHB was headed to dance team with 3 Dance Place buddies, and it was our turn to drive.  Carpool time! We scooted around McLennen, then up over Gilboa and across Mass Ave to the other side of the Heights, gathering passengers until we had a carful.  Then across A-town to the Dance Place, where everyone got out except GHB, who is back to being a hip hop-only girl, post-Nutcracker.

All of this was entirely unremarkable, except that it seemed like I was in the car a long time.  But you never know when an in-town adventure, or an extravagant sunset, may be waiting around the corner, even during a simple carpool drive.  As we turned away from Broadway to head back west towards home, we saw the twilight sky was turning an incredible mix of purple, pink and orange.   We both had the same thought:  where can we get a better view, and see past the Mass Ave buildings?  The nearest open space was Spy Pond.

The light was fading quickly as we drove, and we wanted to see if we could get a picture. We stopped in the middle of the road on Pond Lane to take this one through the windshield.

And then we were down at the park by the playground.  Epic!

NY magic

Back to school (and work) tomorrow — where did the Christmas vacation go?!

We had a wonderful NY trip this year, in spite of weather and logistical challenges.

LHB has described our harrowing drive through snow, sleet, and freezing rain on the Merritt Parkway through Connecticut, and into the icy slushed-up roadways of New Rochelle.  But the welcome was warm and the Halstead house so cozy and Christmassy, that it was easy to hunker down and stay for the night.